A Colombian Christmas Eve (Catch Up Post)

Christmas eve this year was special as we blended traditions together. In Colombia they have a few foods that they make every Christmas eve night, and in the Alder House we share our testimonies by candle light.

It was so fun to watch Dani get excited about sharing her traditions with us! She dug in to all the ingredients necessary to make delicious cheesy balls called bunuelos (which has a virgulilla over the n, but I can't figure out how to do that on this English keyboard).

We heated up the oil and dropped those little balls into the oil and watched them closely until they started floating to the top of the oil.

She was quite the little chef!

In addition to the bunuelos, she also made natilla, which is a thick, custard like dessert. So delicious!

After all was prepared, we sat down around our Christmas table and shared our testimonies by candlelight as we ate the Colombian feast. It was a truly magical night and I felt so blessed, again, to have Dani in our lives. And to have the gospel being shared around our dinner table. 

We have so much to be thankful for.

Things of Christmas (Catch Up Post)

December is always full of events and love and traditions. And if I'm not careful, I can let all of that translate into stress. But this December I have tried to let the joy and magic in while blocking that persistent stress. Our December started out with a trip to the Smith center - just Brian and me - to listen to the symphony and choir perform the Messiah.

It was absolutely incredible and started off our season with a beautiful dose of the magic only music and Christ can bring.

Shortly after that, a package arrived in the mail, and Daniela opened it to find her very own Nana-made Christmas stocking that we hung on the mantle right smack in the center of the rest of ours.

She felt loved and included and it made my heart smile to have her smile so big. This Christmas has been very difficult for her, as you can imagine, with her family celebrating all of their own family traditions so far away from her.

One night just before we left to travel up to Utah for my brother's wedding, I noticed she was struggling more than usual. And on further investigation I found out that the day was Dia de las Velitas, "day of the little candles" and the start of the Christmas season for her family and culture. She knew her family would be celebrating with song and dance and food and candles all through the night... without her.

I felt the importance of it all, so we paused our preparations in getting out the door, and pulled out all of the little candles we could find.

We lit them all and listened as Dani sang a beautiful tribute to the virgin Mary.

We cried and hugged and I felt so grateful to be able to pause right in the middle of chaos to remember why we are celebrating this season.

We sure love our Dani.

As Christmas got closer, we all made our way to the church for a night of music and celebration at the ward Christmas party.  Ethelyn Peterson played a fun and spirited rendition of Sleigh Ride on the organ.

She is one of my favorite people. Always sharing a smile and a kind word. Always remembering names and spreading love straight from her heart. And she is an incredibly accomplished world renowned organist who we are blessed to have in our ward.

Also fun was watching all these men, including Brian, get up and sing Fruitcake with their awkward smiles and funny personalities. How I love our ward!

And when we went up to Utah for my brother's wedding, we all spent a healthy amount of time around Nana and Poppy's beautiful Christmas tree. My mom had the train all set up, and a big carton of mints within reach of everyone.

At one point I thought it would be funny to get a shot of all those mints showering down on everyone, so I told Carson to throw it all up into the air once I had my camera ready. The kids were surprised that I was giving him permission to make a giant mess, but he happily complied. I didn't love the end result of the picture, except for the fact that all five kids are in the frame looking like themselves.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Preschool Christmas Party (Catch Up Post)

I know I've mentioned it before, but something feels a bit odd about Timothy's preschool. And if you look at this photo above and find Timothy in the sea of faces, you might be able to feel it too. See him? One of my favorite things to do as a mother is to capture the joy in my children when they feel it. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to have a camera poised in order to capture it in film, other times I just capture it in my heart and in my memories to store for later. This was a situation in which I was anticipating the joy because I knew Santa was coming, so I had my camera ready. But that face up there is about as joyful as Timothy's ever got through the whole Christmas party. At least he's looking at Santa.

He brightened up a bit when it was his turn to sit on Santa's lap, but that was only because Santa misheard Timothy's request, so Timothy had to correct him and make sure they were both on the same page.

And after he was sure things were all understood, he returned back to this:

I kept trying to pump him up a little bit by giving him big smiles, thumbs ups, laughs, and winks, but that face just stuck around.

They walked around to all the local businesses and sung their one Christmas song over and over and over again (Hawaiian Christmas). And I wasn't sure if it was adorable to see them all in their grass skirts doing their hand actions, or if was painful to watch the lack of joy in their faces.



And these are the best pictures I got. This next one is the only one where I see my real Timothy in there. And I'm pretty sure he showed up only because everyone in the bank was making such a fun fuss about how cute all those kids were:

I don't know... it's weird, right? Every time I go in to help at his preschool (which isn't a lot because they have made it very clear that little siblings are not invited and I seem to have a 'little sibling' attached to me at all times), I just feel like a giant piece of preschool-ness is missing. 

They have the books and the rugs and the snacks. They have the kids and the teachers and the calendars on the wall. They have the crafts and the name tags and the markers. They're just missing the joy.

And that's enough of a missing piece that I don't think I'll recommend this preschool to my friends. They are very good at keeping all the kids under control, I'll give them that. But I'd rather my child feel loved. I'd rather my child develop a love for learning and for school. I mean, even in the middle of a Christmas party with a doughnut in his hand, this is the best face he can do:

Doesn't that feel a bit strange?

Nutcracker (Catch Up Post)

Months ago I bought two tickets to the Nutcracker Ballet for McKenzie and I to go and enjoy when the Christmas season started. It sat on my calendar, and as the day got closer we started to get more excited. When the day arrived, I started to feel guilty that I didn't have another ticket for Daniela. I had planned a mother/daughter trip, but now I had another daughter. So Saturday afternoon I hopped online to see if there were any more tickets, which there were. But then I realized that I couldn't just buy a ticket to give to Daniela and then wave her off down a row to sit in a seat all by herself somewhere, so I thought, maybe Carson would like to go as well and the two of them could sit together. I pulled out our own tickets to see where we were sitting and my eyes landed on a piece of information that made my heart drop to my stomach.

The time of our performance was 2:00pm.

2:00?! I had bought the matinee?!

I glanced at the clock at the bottom of my computer screen and saw those judgmental numbers staring back at me with a 3 and a 1 and a 5 and a PM and realized that, dang, we had missed the show. I called Brian over to the computer to let him know of my mistake and he rubbed the stress right out of my shoulders. "Linds," he said calmly, "it's okay. It's not that big of a deal. Are there still tickets available to tonight's show?" There were - but not many. "Just get tickets for tonight. Buy one for Dani and one for Carson, too. They'll love it."

And so I searched the available tickets for four all together and found only one option. Front row, last four seats on the right. It was in a slightly obstructed viewing area, but that was the option, so I purchased the tickets and let the kids know that we were all going to the Nutcracker. At least we'd all be sitting together. Excitement!

My musical Carson was thrilled that we were sitting right in front of the orchestra. He watched them tune their instruments and start the overture.

We bought some hot chocolate during the intermission and somehow I left my credit card out in the chaos of people during that time and didn't realize it until we sat down to enjoy the second half of the show. Because we were on the front row, the ushers had made it very clear that we were not allowed to leave during the performance, and that if we did leave, we would not be allowed back in. So I felt quite stuck and decided that the best option was to sit back, relax, and appreciate the second half of the ballet without worrying about where my credit card might be.

So I did.

And after the performance we retraced all of our steps, asked all of the people, filled out a 'lost item' form, and left the Smith Center without my credit card. Once in the car I checked online to make sure it wasn't being used anywhere (it wasn't) and cancelled it.

Easy, peasy.

I'm not sure that we're really 'ballet people' at the end of the day, but we are 'music people' and it was impressive to see the show from that close. We all commented on the muscles those dancers had in their legs and agreed that it was definitely something we were all glad to have done.

And it was fun to take Daniela out to enjoy something new.

As my kids get older I keep deciding over and over again that they are the best.

And that having older kids around me is something I hope to have in my life forever.

Eliza (Catch Up Post)

This baby.

She is joyful and boy does she know how to spread that joy.

When we were trying to decide whether or not to have another child, there were many parts of me that felt overwhelmed with the thought of adding another person into our lives. I liked how well our family of six fit around our six-person dinner table. And I liked how we fit into our mini-van with enough room for friends. And I liked that we had no diapers in the house and that our schedules weren't governed by nap schedules and that my bag didn't have to hold snacks and sippies and wipes and toys and extra clothes.

But every time I looked farther into the future of what I wanted our family life to look like, past the reintroduction of diapers and sippy cups, something just felt missing.

And now I get all choked up thinking about this beautiful baby girl and how blessed I feel to have her in our family.

The reintroduction of diapers, and fitting her around our already full dinner table haven't really been that big of a deal, turns out. The joy that she has brought screams so loudly in my life that I can't even hear the minor inconveniences that are trying to speak for my attention.

I truly believe I will always remember these youngest years as beautiful and full because of her.

Wedding (Catch Up Post)

He is one of my favorite people in the whole world. And has been ever since we were kids. He is earnest and thoughtful and wise. He is tender and vulnerable with his thoughts and emotions, and strong and passionate in his convictions and responsibilities which, in my opinion, blends to yield such a remarkable and refreshing personality. He pulls my heart in. And then when you throw his humor on top of it all, it leads me to say what I said at the beginning: my brother is one of my favorite people in the world.

And he found a sweet, strong, beautiful girl to share his life with. So bring on the celebration!

When I arrived the day before the wedding, I found my parents' kitchen full of flowers and green sprigs and berries and pine cones, and both of my parents were hard at work arranging and sorting and clipping and creating.

One of my favorite things about my parents is that they do almost everything together. If Dad needs to drive two hours away to check on some real estate property, my mom will ride along in the car and then entertain herself as needed while he attends to the business. Whenever I call my mom, my dad is close within earshot and whenever I call my dad, my mom is right there. They browse RC Willey and go through every Parade of Homes, and then they pick paint colors and carpets and cabinets and appliances and they do it all together. So seeing them work side by side on the bouquet and boutonnieres for the wedding was nothing new, but sometimes the most beautiful things are the ones that you come to expect.

Anyway, this post isn't really about them.

It's about Brian and Cassie and a very diligent photographer.

Seriously - lying in the snow in his dress pants and tie... this is my kind of photographer! The sun was warm, but the air was quite cold. We all lasted for a little while outside.

Actually, none of the girls lasted at all outside because they were all much to delicate. We desert rats are not used to the cold anymore!

But the boys were happy to brave it for a while.

Eventually the cold wore the rest of them down and we all found comfort and warmth with the girls in the temple waiting room while the bride and groom had their pictures taken with all the combinations of people.

Eliza kept us entertained with her adorable little face.

But the truth is that we never really know what to expect with Eliza. Sometimes she's as gentle and sweet as a summer flower, and other times she's as fiery and unpredictable as an angry wasp. This is the look Brian always gets when he fears the summer flower is turning into the angry wasp.

Pretty soon all the pictures had been taken, so we hopped in the cars and made our way to the luncheon. And as my dad stood to talk about my brother, I felt a surge of pride that they were both mine. Those two, my dad and my brother, sat happily surrounded by girls and women through all my growing up years. They were my examples of what men should be like, and I have always been so grateful for their kind and gentle lessons of love and faith and leadership.

Also, my sisters. My beautiful sisters who are so full of strength and passion.

We kept ourselves entertained down at the far end of the table - and every time I looked at Carson, he was shoveling more and more and more food into his mouth. That kid is unstoppable!

But my favorite part of the whole luncheon was watching these two:

Brian has always deserved the very best. Someone who will love him for who he is and who will see all of his beautiful qualities and who will appreciate them and want to be surrounded by them. Cassie is that someone. I can see the love she has for him and it makes my heart so incredibly happy for them both. I can't wait to get to know Cassie better because from what I see, she is equally incredible and I'm sure there's even so much more that will be uncovered as time goes on.

Then it was on to the reception!

We all got there early so we could start getting everything all set... The Dodge family Styrofoam cake made another appearance:

No one guesses that beneath all of that frosting there is Styrofoam. It looks so beautiful and professional... my mom is a master at making the cheapest wedding cakes on the planet look so incredible.

And, if I didn't know any better, I would have guessed from the look on Brian's face that he just realized that he'd made a terrible mistake.

While mom, Michelle and Amber crafted that beautiful wedding cake, I spent my time in the kitchen cooking pot after pot after pot of delicious hot chocolate. After all, what's a December wedding without a little bit of hot cocoa and cookies to warm you? Timothy agreed. 

And after the cake was all beautiful and the hot cocoa was all simmering, we all got together again for some more pictures. This one makes me smile - Teek's face is hilarious, and Eliza's smile is heart melting.

Someday, I know, I'll be the parent of a groom. I hope I handle it with as much grace as my own parents did.

Aaaaaaaaaaand, leave it to my Brian to be the only one with his eyes closed. Still love the picture.

Finally the evening started wrapping up and my favorite little brother took his new wife to the dance floor and they glowed with that sparkly, warm, new love.

And then, after the dance, I saw my parents pause on the step - obviously conversing about something - and they glowed with that deep, rich, older love, and I thought my heart would burst.

And then, can we talk about hands for a minute?

There is something so personal about hands. And the picture above says a thousand words to me about love.

Also, how adorable are these DJ's?

They looked like they were in their own little world shoved in that corner over there.

Wedding days are hard work for everyone involved - but what a beautiful celebration of love and of life and of tenderness.

I predict Brian and Cassie are going to make for themselves a life that is rich and full of love. And I can't wait to watch them do it.