Finally! A Brief Review and a Few Photos of Christmas

Our Christmas trees:

This tree is decorated with all of the ornaments that the kids have made in school and the ornaments that my parents give them every year:

So you probably figured out from my New Beginnings post that I have been able to get my computer functioning to the point that I can post photos again. Unfortunately, Vista doesn't like our camera software so I still have to load the photos on the old computer and then save them on a memory stick. So when our old computer dies completely, I will be out of luck again.

We had a wonderful Christmas. Niles was able to take quite a bit of time off work and we enjoyed a whole lot of sleeping in and doing nothing but playing with the kids. It would have been nearly perfect except that Santa inadvertently hurt one child's feelings by giving another child something that they had begged for a few years ago and never received. Frankly, Santa is forgetful and didn't even remember that said child had begged for this item a few years ago. I was actually surprised that Santa agreed to this second child's request this year as I thought he was dead set against it and would never change his mind no matter what. I think he was influenced by the fact that we have a bigger house now so there is more room, and also because after searching high and low he couldn't find anything else that this child had asked for or that he thought she'd like. So with Christmas looming just one week away, he caved in to the pressure.

Enough rambling. Here's a few photos:

We went to my parent's house for Christmas Eve. Mom & I made dinner and we opened our presents to each other.

Grandma made Jumble a Jazz blanket. (You can see my parent's fabulous Christmas Village behind her.)

Grandma made some beautiful dresses for Minnie's American Girl doll (out of cloth scraps she already had) and they also got her a really cool children's cookbook.

Jet received a Star Wars transformer. (That boy is all about Star Wars!)

And Atom got this really cool violin toy. We all love this thing! You can move the bow across a certain part of the strings and it plays programmed classical tunes (about 18 different choices!)but at the tempo you move the bow. It makes you feel like you are really playing the violin.

Christmas morning:

Jumble wanted a Bands of America sweatshirt.

Jumble and Minnie get acquainted with Minnie's new hampster.

Jet plays air hockey with dad.

Atom checks out his stocking.

Niles surprised me with shelves for my pantry (hallelujah!) And we got some gifts of necessity: a computer and a snow blower (the snow blower arrived early.) O.K., so both are not technically necessities but our computer was very old and dying and computers sure feel like a necessity these days! And the snow blower was prompted not only by the desire to blow rather than shovel, but by one of Nile's families that he home teaches that live on a corner (LOTS of sidewalk) and is an older couple with the husband in a wheelchair. They need someone to clear their walks and driveway for them which is difficult on snowy mornings when you are supposed to be at work in Salt Lake City. Niles is showing our gratitude for the snow blower by clearing our neighbor's walks and drives as well. The weather cooperated so Niles got to use his new snowblower on Christmas morning!

Hint: When you are using the snowblower you have to remember that the electrical cord for the outdoor Christmas lights is hiding under all that snow! Our cord got eaten by the snowblower (thankfully the lights weren't plugged in at the time so Niles didn't get electrocuted) so that was the end of our outside Christmas lights for this year.

It was definitely a white Christmas!


Later in the afternoon we went to Nile's parent's house for dinner and more presents!

For cousin Abby there is no such thing as too much lip gloss!

Jumble opens earrings, Yahtzee, and a t-shirt while Uncle Ben looks on.

Minnie is waiting to open a cute scarf, gloves and hat set; giant checkers game; and a t-shirt with Aunt Michelle, cousin Abby, and cousin Ava.

Jet opens a light saber and outer-space pop-up book while Atom opens a Cars slot car race set!

We all were thoroughly spoiled and enjoyed spending time with our families. Hope your holdiays were happy as well.

Technological Tantrums

Some of the technology in our life seems to be on strike these days. My microwave is dying. This is quite distressing! I grew up without a microwave--I remember when my mom got her first one. I was a teenager at the time. So I know that people somehow survived without microwaves for thousands of years. But I have been spoiled to have one for most of my cooking years excluding a few college apartments and most of my mission apartments. Without a microwave, I have to think of things like taking the meat for dinner out early to thaw. (Excuse me while I go pull some meat out of the freezer for tonight.) My brain is not used to having to function at that level. So the microwave is just going to have to be replaced--speedily!

Then there's our garage-door opener. This is another thing that I didn't grow up with, but now that I have one, I don't enjoy going without it. For some reason it has decided that the ground, where it should stop, isn't where it used to be. First it stopped a mere inch from the ground. Soon it was stopping a good four inches off the ground, and now it stops about 1 1/2 feet from the ground. Niles fiddled with it a little but it didn't help. So we have turned it off for now and have to hop in and out of the car to pull it up and down manually. I wish our garage door had a handle on the front like the one in Arizona did. It makes it much easier to raise and lower the door when it has a handle! I would just park in the driveway for now, but then I would have to scrape frost and ice off the windows. I prefer to hop in and out. Maybe the garage door opener is protesting the cold. I can have empathy for it. I am very grateful to have a house with a garage. Can't complain about that.

These minor inconveniences serve as a reminder to me about how easy my life is, really. How lucky and grateful I am to have these gadgets that, when they are working, add so much convenience to my life. I don't think my grandparents (or most of the population of the planet even now, for that matter) would feel much sympathy if I complained to them about my malfunctioning technology.

New Beginnings

Last night we had New Beginnings. That is one of the reasons I have not been updating my blog! I have been busy helping with preparations for it. Minnie was really excited to go to her first official YW activity. They spotlighted each of the four girls who are coming in this year and gave them each a daisy:

(Minnie is also holding a little box shaped like a dress that has candy in it--each of the girls got one to take home.)

I didn't even attempt to get a photo of Jumble because she is not cooperative about that these days! The theme for this year was based on a poem and a song about the three important white dresses in a girl/woman's life--her blessing dress, her baptism dress, and her temple dress. We had the girls bring either their blessing or baptism dress--some brought both--and the leaders brought their wedding dresses (rather than displaying their temple dresses) for the decorations. We interspersed the dresses with pictures of temples and pictures of Christ and potted plants and trees. (None of this was my idea--I am not an idea person!) We went over the night before to set everything up. Here are some photos of some of the results:

From left to right is my blessing dress, Minnie's baptism dress, and Minnie's blessing dress. (Some more dresses arrived after I took these photos so the chair on the right didn't look so bare.)

In this photo from left to right is: my wedding dress, Jumble's blessing dress, and Jumble's baptism dress. All of our dresses ended up across the front, on either side of the podium. I'm not quite sure how that happened! I didn't put them there. I was doing other stuff and when we were done I realized that all of our dresses were up front. I guess whoever was arranging dresses thought all of ours looked the best and wanted them up front. :) My mom is an amazing seamstress!

The song that we used is called "What Heaven Sees In You" by Doug Walker. He had made a music video that one of the leaders had seen on You Tube. So she called the composer to ask if we could use the video for our New Beginnings program. He said he would be happy to let us, except that he was having copyright issues right now so he couldn't let anyone use it. Someone suggested that we could make our own video to use instead. I thought maybe Jumble could do something like that (she's really good at stuff like that) so I told the other leaders I would ask her about it. She was interested but had a lot of other things going on so wasn't sure she would have time. But she told me how to use windows movie maker so I decided to attempt it myself. And amazingly I figured it out and got it to work! So this is what I was doing for two days straight:

I got all the photos off the internet through Google images (except for one cameo appearance by Minnie--see if you can spot it!) Hopefully I didn't break any copyright laws or anything. I figured if I could right click on a picture and save it, it was free game. And I'm not selling this or profiting by it in any way. I am only posting it for my family to see what was consuming my life for two days. If I'm doing something illegal, I'm not doing it on purpose! Again, we used wedding dress photos because there are no photos available of women in their temple dresses outside the temple. But we really were talking about preparing for and being worthy to make temple covenants more than getting married, although of course we hope that every young woman will have the blessing of getting married in the temple as well.

It was total divine intervention that I was able to get this to work. I have not had good luck with trying to do computer projects like this in the past. I think that having the visual element helped the girls to feel the message of the song better so I'm glad that it worked out. I'm also glad that I learned how to use windows movie maker and plan to use it in the future to do things for my children with our family photos. Overall, I think the evening went well and was a special event for all the young women in our ward. I love my calling!!!

After the song with video presentation, we had a mother with a tiny new baby, a little girl who got baptized the beginning of this month, and a young woman who recently went to the temple and got married speak for a few minutes each (all in white dresses.) Some girls received awards for projects they have completed and one young woman got her medallion. Hopefully Jumble will earn her medallion by Young Women in Excellence next fall. She is pretty close to being finished with everything.

One final note about New Beginnings. While my wedding dress was out, I decided to try it on to see if it still fit. I was totally stoked to discover that it still fits! Almost 17 years and four children later!! Yeah!

I Love All Those Johnson's!

Last night I went to the wedding reception of one of my Johnson cousin's sons, with one of my daughters and my parents in tow. I'm so glad I was able to go. I just have to say that I have the best extended family on the planet--both the Pews and the Johnsons. One thing I love about living in Utah is being able to go to these kinds of events and especially to have my parents there with me. It's always fun to see cousins again and it doesn't matter how long it has been since I saw them last--we are still close friends. Just rubbing shoulders with all of them does my soul good. I'm still trying to cope with the fact that all my cousin's children, that I remember being born, are now getting married and having babies of their own! My cousins are becoming grandparents. That Fiddler on the Roof song, "Sunrise, Sunset" comes to mind. I remember my uncles and aunts singing that at my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary and all the adults were crying and I didn't get it at all. Well, now I get it!

At another Johnson wedding reception 1 1/2 years ago (when we were visiting Utah for the summer and waiting for our house to sell), we made the amazing discovery that Kirsten's new husband, Mark, had served his mission in Maryland and spent a lot of time at Annette & Frank's house. How did we discover this? Well, he was really confused when he saw me in the line because he thought I was Annette except that I had a daughter with me and he couldn't believe that I would come all the way from Maryland for his reception! (Annette is my identical twin sister and has four sons but no daughters--for those of my friends who may be reading this and don't know that already.) It was one of those funny things that happen sometimes as a result of being an identical twin. If we weren't twins, there is a good chance that none of us would realize yet that Kirsten's husband is friends with his father-in-law's cousin and her family from his mission. So last night Mark came right up to me and was talking with me again about that funny experience at his wedding reception and telling me about some of his funny memories of Annette and her family from his mission days, and all the while I am thinking to myself how impressed I am that he remembered who I was after only meeting me once, a year and a half ago, on his wedding day. I was thinking that I would not have realized he was Kirsten's husband if he hadn't come up and started talking to me. Then I realize, "DUH!! Of course he knows who I am--I look like Annette!" You would think I would have understood that right away since that's how we figured out the whole amazing connection in the first place. I look like Annette. My whole life I've been a twin and it appears that I am never going to get used to this twin thing. Probably because I have NEVER EVER gotten confused about which one I am so I just forget that to other people, we look alike.

Annette and I have had a few funny twin experiences in our life. I think I'll start a new post category just for that. No copying, Annette! I had the idea first. Oh, and Elder Moody said to tell all of you Clevelands hello and the next time you make it to Utah (we ALL hope, wish, pray this summer) to be SURE to call him so he can get together for a visit.

New Callings

This Sunday I got a new calling. I feel guilty about how happy I am about my new calling. I am now the YW secretary. Is it O.K. to admit that I disliked my former calling? I was teaching the Sunbeams in Primary. I DIDN'T dislike the SUNBEAMS. I loved the sunbeams--both the ones that I had for the last six months and the ones that I taught for a grand total of one week. It's just that keeping small children quiet and happy for two hours when they have already endured one hour of church is NOT my strong point! I have taught preschool in my home with kids this age and enjoyed it a lot. But I didn't have to keep them sitting quietly for two hours in that situation. Some people (like my husband) are very creative and can come up with great ideas to keep kids happy but reverent. I am not one of those people. I feel on the verge of panic when facing eight wiggly 3-year-olds at church. Really. Desperate. Overwhelmed. (It doesn't help to have my husband tell me all his great ideas. They work for him but not for me!) It's not where my talent lies--which I figured was why I had this calling--so I could learn this talent through experience. But I felt so unsettled in my calling--angry, even. And then I would feel guilty for feeling angry.

I absolutely know that teaching young children is one of the most important callings in the church. Of course it is a calling that requires a lot of giving. It is a calling that takes more effort to grow spiritually. You don't go home from church feeling spiritually fed most of the time. You go home feeling exhausted! And that's O.K. because it's important to teach these little ones. And every once in a great while you do have a magic moment when the spirit is there and you know that the children have felt it and that they have learned something. And there are other magic moments when they teach you--when you feel the purity and greatness of their spirits and the closeness that they have to Heavenly Father because they were there with Him not so long ago. So I would tell myself all of these things and wonder why I dreaded Sundays. Maybe it's because the sad fact is that I don't have much to give these days. The last few years drained my spiritual reservoir and I feel like I'm still trying to fill it up again. My testimony is as strong as it has ever been--I'm just tired. Spiritually tired--is that possible? I believe it is because Elder Wirthlin talked about it in his April 2008 Conference talk. I remember because I thought, "He understands exactly how I'm feeling!"

At any rate, if I am going to be teaching very young children, give me the nursery any day over Sunbeams. There's not much difference in the age of the children--but in nursery you have snack time and play time and hardly any of sitting in chairs being quiet. Teaching Sunbeams I'm somehow supposed to get those kids to sit quietly in a row of chairs for singing and sharing time. I understand why they can't do it--I was bored, too. None of us could see or hear what was going on. And then I have to get them to class while half of them are refusing to budge and crying for their moms and the other half are running down the hall and are about to crash the next ward's Sacrament meeting in a very noisy fashion. Once I manage to get them all safely into the classroom, we can at least do a little more moving around and a little more making of noise and some hands-on activities but we still have to keep it under control enough that the classes in the adjoining rooms and across the hall aren't disturbed. Ugh!

My new batch of Sunbeams fresh from the nursery was quite an interesting little group. Two of the little girls have had their dads pass away--which is extremely unusual, of course, for children of such a tender age. Three of them are twins. Three, you ask? Yes--two little boys who just turned three in December. One of them has a freckle right under his eye, thank goodness, so you can tell them apart immediately instead of having to wait until you get to know them better. I am LOATHE to say "Which one are you?" to them EVER because I know how tiresome it is to hear that your whole life. The other twin is a little girl who was born 14 weeks early and weighed less than 2 lbs. Her twin sister lived only 9 days. Another little boy in my class was adopted and his parents were just able to adopt another infant boy in December. Almost all of them have unusual names--I couldn't even tell if most of them were girls or boys by their names when they gave me the list--Maren, Ayden, Kaymin, Salem, Maddux, and Kayden are six of the eight names! I was also already having trouble calling Kaymin (one of the girls) Kayden and Kayden (one of the boys) Kaymin. So I loved my little Sunbeams and I will miss them, but I will not miss the stress involved. Niles helped me with my Sunbeam class last week and when he told me after church that I did a good job, I burst into tears. That's when I dumped everything on him about how inadequate, desperate, angry, guilty, panicky I felt. After the executive secretary called two days later to tell me the bishop wanted to talk to me, I asked Niles if he had told anyone about my emotional Sunday conversation. He says he didn't and I do believe him. Since I had just been given a new class, I didn't figure they were going to pull me out of Primary any time soon. I figured if they were going to change my calling, it would have happened before they assigned classes for the coming year. I was sure that I was going to be teaching Sunbeams for the next year. So I feel a little guilty--really, I was willing to serve there despite the fact that I was having a hard time with it. I was hopeful I would get better at it as time went on.

However, I am really excited about working with the YW and getting to know them better. And I will be able to be more involved with Jumble, and soon Minnie, too. (Minnie has 15 Sundays left to go to Primary but she's not counting!!) We have New Beginnings next week. It feels like the right place for me to be right now.

Jumble is getting a new calling this week. (I guess it is O.K. to reveal this early since none of you are in our ward.) She is being called to be the Mia Maid President. We're sure this will be a great experience for her. I'm happy to say I have never had a calling that involved being the President of anything and I hope I can say that until the day I die. I have no aspirations to be President of anything. I'm just fine with being a follower. Since I am such a "Type A" personality--an accountant--account for everything and make sure everything is correct and in the right place--I've always wished I could be the financial clerk or the membership clerk. Since neither of those are options, being the secretary of either R.S., Y.W., or Primary is the closest that I can get. So along with associating with the Y.W. and participating in their activities and lessons and such, and helping the Presidency with whatever they need me to do, I will enjoy making sure that everyone's lists are always up-to-date with accurate spelling and birthdays and addresses and stuff like that. THAT is one of my strong points.

In Transition

The holidays are over, the kids back in school, and things are settling down as much as they ever do around here. I haven't been posting because of the computer. Or I should say, computers. We got a new computer for Christmas. Well, it wasn't really for Christmas, it was just because our other computer has been doing scarey things that let us know it is getting old and can't be relied upon to last forever. We wanted to replace it before it crashed completely and we lost important things. It would also be sure to happen at a highly inconvenient time such as when someone had a term paper due the next day or something like that. The fact is, you just can't live without a computer these days. We didn't have them in our homes when I was growing up, but now they have become a necessity of life. As soon as we got the new one up and running, Niles cleared the main hard drive on the old one to see if that would help with the problems it is having. One of it's issues was that it didn't even recognize that it's two disk drives existed anymore. So we are in the process of reinstalling things on the old computer and getting it running again. The printer is currently not installed on either computer so we can't print anything. The attenae for the wireless card on the old computer broke so we usually can't get an internet connection on the old one--but all of our digital camera software and all of our photos are on the old computer but not the new one. So that makes it impossible for me to post any photos on my blog since I can't access the internet from the computer that has all the photos. So this post is a long, boring explanation for why I am not posting lately!

We had a great Christmas break. Niles was able to take quite a bit of time off work and we really enjoyed just taking it easy--sleeping in, playing with the kids, visiting family. Hopefully soon I will be able to post some photos. Until then, my blog is going to be pretty boring!