New Year's Eve

Every year on New Year's Eve our church has a youth dance to celebrate the occasion (plus there's the whole "keep the kids safe and out of trouble by providing a fun and wholesome activity for them" thing)

Maddie went to her very first dance on New Year's Eve a couple years ago.  I made her go. It was a pretty high anxiety moment for her.  She was simultaneously worried that no one would ask her to dance and that someone would ask her to dance.  "I don't know how to talk to boys!" She confessed to having spent most of the evening in the bathroom fighting panic attacks.

Fast forward two years later. I made her go again. This time though, she had a lot more fun.  She called up friends, and made sure she had plenty of reinforcements and she has plenty of guy friends so talking to boys is no longer an issue.

Plus, I got to go with her.  :) They asked me to chaperone.  It was my first stake dance since I was Maddie's age.

I'd wander around, making sure people were behaving themselves.  Either I am exceptionally unobservant, or they were all really good kids.  I am choosing to believe the second option.

One time though it felt like I was playing a real live game of Frogger.  You know that old school video game where you have to get your frog from one side of the street to the other without getting squished? Well, it felt oddly like that as I was trying to make my way from one end of the gymnasium to the other during a slow song.  It might have been 25 years since I was last at a dance, but the kids still slow dance the same.  Girls hands on the boys shoulders, boys hands on her waist, and they kind of do a rocking movement back and forth, left, right, left, right, sometimes going in slow circles.  All this rocking side to side, would create, and then close up openings all over the dance floor.  To get from one end to the other, I would have to strategically choose a course based on those openings, without bumping into awkward, swaying teens.

I thought it was humorous anyway.  It's probably a better story if told in person because then I can act it out, but you get the idea.

They had a photo booth with a back drop and props.  Maddie took a bunch with random friends, and she even consented to take some selfies with her mama.  She's a good girl.

At midnight they had a count down and a balloon drop.

It was fun.

Christmas 2015

Christmas. It happened.  It always happens, even if you don't "recognize" it, it still happens.

But it was good.  It's always good I think. Setting aside a day to celebrate the birth of the Savior.  That's definitely a good thing.  And it could be argued that the day has transformed into something else, materialistic, and commercial, and stressful, and maybe it is all of that, but somehow it's still so much more than trees and presents and gingerbread houses and cookies and Santa and Christmas carols.

And sometimes I wonder what all that has to do with the blessed event of the birth of our Savior, and the answer is probably "nothing",  but then again, I think the Savior delights in joy, and families, and giving, and music, and finding a reason to be together.  So Christmas happened, and it was good.

As per tradition, we all opened pajamas on Christmas eve.  Christopher was happy to just get pajama pants.  (Mens extra small - still a little too big) For some reason kids pajamas always comes with a shirt, and this mortally offends him for some reason, probably because everyone else only gets pants. (except for maddie this year, who really, really, really wanted a onesie.  Besides being a Star Wars nerd, in the tech world, the tech side of things is "the Dark Side" because they are always in the dark - vs the actors who are in the light.)

Maddie got the number one thing she was hoping for on her wish list.

I surprised Christopher with an alarm control panel courtesy of one of my co-workers. He was so excited.  He "works on it"  all the time.

I managed to find the Back to the Future hat Zach wanted.

Maddie decided she liked it more than Zach and tried to steal it.  And then she took a dozen selfies on my phone.

The grandparents came down to spend the week with us.

And of course we got to talk to Nick.  That was wonderful.  I miss that kid so much.  Christmas was definitely lacking something, but he was so happy.  I held it together until we got off the computer, and then it hit me that he's gone.  And not just on a mission gone, but growing up gone.  He may come home in 18 months, but he won't be my little boy anymore.  All good changes to be sure, except the part where I succeeded in raising someone only to have him leave home.  I'm not so thrilled about that plan any more. It's still the plan for the other three, but that doesn't mean it doesn't suck.

But yeah, Christmas was good.

The X Files

Christopher has been obsessed with Minecraft for a few years now.  And that's fine as long as I can exert some control over him.  It came in handy when he was having a hard time at church.  All it took was losing his Minecraft privileges for a day because he was naughty at church and he's pretty much been good at church ever since.  (Yes I let him play on Sundays.  I pick my battles.)

And that was all fine and good.  He was content to play on the kids' computer upstairs in the loft or on an ipad, until we went to Texas for Thanksgiving.  There he was able to play minecraft on a giant screen via an xbox (and it apparently is totally cooler than the regular old computer version).

So he began his quest.  He needed an xbox.  He decided that playing on the 62 inch TV in the family room was much better than a computer screen.

I disagreed.  I was not interested in being in the same room with minecraft all the live long day (the kitchen and the family room are considered "great room") .  Plus he played enough, and I had a hard enough time getting him off the computer, I knew if I gave him a new source, he'd never get off. (Yes, I'm the grown up, but I mentioned picking my battles, right?)

So, Christopher asked.  He begged.  He put it on his Christmas wish list, and his birthday wish list. He tried saving up his own money, but when he realized that was going to be painstakingly slow, even though he did extra chores to earn extra money, he resorted to MAKING HIS OWN.  (I ball parked the price of an xbox at $300 to give him something to shoot for when he was trying to earn it the old fashioned way.) We had a good conversation about how we do not write on money.

Even when the TV died, and the only available TV to hook up an xbox to was a much smaller TV in my room, he still wasn't deterred.

He even asked Santa.  "Santa" was actually his scout master, and also happens to have a day job at the company I work for.  "Santa" and I had a good talk about it afterwards, (along the lines of "You told my kid he would get an Xbox?!?!?"  "I just said that we would see... It's a very popular item." "You can't be vague with Christopher! To him, any answer that isn't a 'no' is a 'yes!'")

Enter our fairy godmother.

It's no secret to anyone who knows us that it's been a rough year. And things could continue to get worse for awhile now.  I'm not going to go into details here, because this is neither the time nor the place, but in a nutshell, it's been a rough year. And just as bad as things have been, on the opposite side of things, we've been very blessed with wonderful friends and family, who have jumped in to show us just how much we are loved.

Overwhelming.  That's a good word for it.  Overwhelming.  I've almost cried as many tears from gratitude as I have from sorrow.

From the little things, to the grand gestures.  Like John's sister wanting to make sure that Christmas was a good one for my kids.   The grandparents were also extra generous, and wanted to make sure the kids still had a good Christmas.  It is just a fact of life that some years Christmases are humbler than in other years, and that's life, and that's ok, good even,  but sometimes you have an aunt who is a real life fairy godmother and pretty much makes it the best Christmas ever.

I mentioned that for our birthdays (and Christmas too) Corrine would be taking Maddie and I to Jamaica?

Well, Christopher finally got his Xbox (and yes, he has taken over my room) and Zach even got a Chrome book.  Like I said, Best. Christmas. Ever.

Other Random December things

You know that moment when you're like "I could do 50 little posts on things I forgot most of the details to, or I could just lump them all in one big fat post?"  Guess which option I am choosing?

Our church had a Christmas party.  The boys ran off, so that left just Maddie and I :)

With all the snow Nick was getting in Montana I felt the need to send him this. Just in case he forgot.

Part of a fairly large order of caramels.  Since I work full time, I didn't want to kill myself making caramels, but extra money at Christmas is always helpful.  It's a balancing act.

Another friend wanted to buy caramels, and texted me that she was going to stop by, but asked me not to judge her since she would be in her pajamas.  This picture was my response.  FYI- that's pretty much my caramel making uniform.

Speaking of weird shoe pictures....At church Christopher told me that I had Santa Boots. :/

Maddie got to go see EVMCO's Christmas production.  She's seriously starting to see the Anderson girls as sisters. 

At the EVMCO production.

Christopher just randomly decided he needed a Santa hat at school one day. 

He also appropriated Nick's old backpack for school.  That only lasted a couple days until he realized that thing is really heavy and fairly awkward for his little frame to carry around.

Text from Maddie.

Christopher told me he was the King.  Not sure if he meant one of  The Three Kings, or King Herod.  I think he was a bit confused as well.  Further questions of  "Did you take baby Jesus presents, or want to kill him?" failed to bring any enlightenment to the situation. 

The Anderson's came caroling at work one day.  People kept asking me if they were my family.  No, but I'll take 'em.

Since grandma and grandpa were driving down on Christmas Eve, and Nick wasn't around to celebrate his birthday, we broke with tradition and went to see the lights at the Mesa Temple on Christmas Eve - Eve. (the 23rd)

thank goodness for passwords

So I'm sure I've mentioned that Christopher is obsessed with safety, especially fire safety these days.  He's always trying to convince me exactly where we need strobe lights and pull down stations and heat sensors...

He gets on the internet and researches and studies the various makes and models and capabilities of certain pieces of equipment...

But I had no idea how far he'd try and take it, until one day when I logged into Amazon to make a couple Christmas purchases.

This picture takes a moment to appreciate.

In addition to the grand total of over 2 thousand dollars, there are 29 items in the shopping cart.  (None of which are mine.)

In fairness, not everything was safety related.  Unless you count sunglasses, which some might argue are for eye safety, but for the sake of argument, we aren't, because those are a fairly normal item for a kid to ask for.  He also tried to purchase an electric scooter, and I think one other "normal" item.  ("Normal" being relative of course.)

Anyways, Christopher is super annoyed I won't tell him my Amazon password.  Just like at Target, he can put crap in my shopping cart all he wants, but that doesn't mean I will pay for it.  Of course I think he thinks that I won't actually have to pay for it.  I'm just clicking a few buttons and typing in passwords, how is that even the same as paying for stuff at a real store?  In his mind, I think, that privilege falls on the mailman who delivers the packages.

Decorating for Christmas

Christopher and Maddie were exceptionally helpful in decorating this year.  (Zach helped with the tree, but he has way more homework than the other two put together, so crafting and decorating was at the bottom of the list of ways to spend his free time)

I think Christopher took inspiration from the movie Elf- but his was more of an ongoing project.  By Christmas the living room looked like this.

In addition, Christopher and Maddie made a little display of some of the names of Christ.  Maddie pointed out her favorite.  She told Christopher to write "Holy One", what we got was "Holy 1".

I think this was the first year that Christopher figured out who Santa is, and what he does.  He never outright said so, but the look on his face spoke volumes when in years past I would ask if he wanted to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas.  "Why would I tell that guy?  I don't know who he is.  You want me to sit on some random dude's lap?  How about I just tell you?  I want an xbox." This year was a little different.  He's totally into the fact that there is someone else out there who brings you presents.  And since he makes stuff in his work shop, excuses of "sorry, we can't afford that" just don't work anymore. So yeah, Santa was a very exciting thing to figure out.  Anyways, random pictures would appear around my house.  Including several of Santa and his reindeer.

And as long as we're on the topic of decorations, I'd like to discuss ornaments. I know it's a little weird, but every year I have an internal debate about discussing my ornaments on my blog.  Those little things just make me happy.  I could go into a full-blown discourse, but I'll just hit some of the highlights.  This year I got a new one.

Personally I like to cram my tree as full as I can with ornaments.  Sometimes I look at people's designer/themed trees, and I think "maybe someday" but it would have to be "in addition to" my regular Christmas tree.

They all mean something to me.  Some are handmade by my kids, some are handmade by friends when I was in an ornament exchange, some are ones my dad carved from really old wood (walnut I think?) that my grandfather gave to my dad 30 years ago, and before that it was in my great grandmas house, so now in addition to existing as a couple pieces of furniture, that wood now graces several Christmas trees in our family. Some of the ornaments are just cute, (my mom and I got a ton when our favorite Christmas store went out of business) some are from vacations, (I always get one whenever I go someplace new) and some belong to the kids.  (Like many families, they each get an ornament every year. I think though that I shall be sad when I don't have a tardis or R2D2 or other such ornaments gracing my tree. )

But some of my very favorite ornaments are what I call my "clippies".  I have little ones in the shapes of snowmen or stars, and I have larger ones in the shapes of candles or those old school bubble lights.  (Apparently bubble lights were really cool when my parents were kids).  Anyways, clippies are awesome because they open up a whole new avenue of cramming ornaments on your tree.  You go up instead of down.  Instead of hanging on the branches, they clip on, and wonderfully fill the random gaps in the tree.

I don't know why more people don't utilize clippies.  But they seem really hard to find.  On Amazon they mostly only have birds.  I think birds would probably look weird on my tree though.  Maybe they are for one of those "themed trees".

The Force is Strong...

Like everyone else, my kids have been fairly Star Wars obsessed this year.  (I probably shouldn't even mention that Maddie refused to watch Star Wars until she made a deal with her choir teacher last year.  I think at one point she referred to it as "boring." She's hooked now.  And a little obsessed with Anakin.)

Because of things going on, we had to wait a few days to see the movie.   Apparently it was torture trying to go to high school and not get spoilered.

Christopher is even a fan.  But his favorite character is Darth Vader.  Except I'm fairly certain he sees Darth as the good guy and every one else is a bad guy.

Sweet 16 (and 40)

My baby girl turned 16.  I also happened to turn 40, but I'm still going with the story that I don't have birthdays any more. Cause I gave mine to her. But I admit I kinda love sharing a birthday with her.  As long as she doesn't mind sharing.  (For a bunch of fun pictures, feel free to check out this old blog post)

(And personally I think everybody should give away their birthday. No more birthdays, but I'm 24 forever. And it seems to be working because apparently I don't look my (real) age. It's probably bragging, but Maddie and I get mistaken for sisters more often than not.  The flip side is though that when they find out that I am indeed the mom, I get weird looks with the question very clearly written across their faces -"How old were you?!?!?" )

I took the day off work.  Maddie had to go to school for half the day, so I made her wear a tiara.  The middle point with the dangly "16" broke off, but whatevs.  She was actually embarrassed to wear it.  "Mom!  People will think I'm autistic!"  "Since when do you worry about what people think? And what's wrong with being autistic? You have at least one brother who is." At least I didn't make her wear a sash. (She really wanted me to buy myself one that she found that said "40-Licious"... that wasn't going to happen...)

We woke up to the front yard having been decorated, and a banner on the garage door.

We spent the afternoon getting our free lunch from Liberty Market and spending some of her birthday money.

After all these years she finally got her very own set of scriptures.  I had forgotten that she had been using my old set in seminary.   Even Christopher got his own for his 8th birthday.  Somehow Maddie had been overlooked all these years.  I convinced her it was a good thing though, because she is super excited how the name engraving turned out.  We're like the first people to ask for punctuation. Until I get a picture of it, it says - Madison K Berrett :)  (sideways smiley face and all)

We didn't have too long to shop though, because she had a choir concert with a 4 pm call time, and a 30 minute drive to get there.  They did the Christmas concert (fundraiser) again this year at EVIT, to work with the culinary school, so that we get good food with our music.

And although turning 40 isn't nearly as special as turning 16, I felt pretty loved by friends and family. Overwhelmed, really.   Some of my favorite gifts were the homemade card from my friend Teresa with a list of  40 things she loves about me, (apparently I say "Oh my heck" a lot) and a necklace that Nick sent me from Montana.

 And my sweet sister in law surprised both Maddie and I with a special "Girls' Trip" weekend. To Jamaica. A weekend on the beach in the Caribbean drinking virgin pina coladas in January. Ya mon.  To say we were excited (and overwhelmed and grateful...) would be an understatement.

Me first thing in the morning.... don't judge

Anyway, it was a pretty fantastic day.

Oh, and we also had cake.  But as busy as everyone was, we actually didn't "do cake" until my parents came down.  My mom's birthday is two days before ours, so we all celebrated together.