Our January in California

After spending Christmas in Idaho and Utah (which I still need to blog about), we flew out to California to babysit Aaron's brother's kids while they went on a fun, international trip. Aaron was there for the first week. Then I had all five kiddos by myself for another week. It was an adventure!

Here are the five hooligans. I thought little Mindy was missing, but there she is smooshed between Jaden and Scotty. It was really nice in a lot of ways to reduce my life down to keeping these five people alive and relatively happy. We had challenges, tears, fighting, poop, and a few instances of outright rebellion. But overall it went really well. I think we were blessed because William and Heather (Aaron's brother and Aaron's brother's wife) are such good people. No one got sick or injured or lost. And the kids played great together. I was so glad things went smoothly so they could focus on enjoying their trip. 

To keep the masses entertained, we went on walks and to the park and to a couple of indoor play places. The boys played cars for hours and hours. The girls made a restaurant. The boys were the restaurant dogs...because that's a thing. Their dog names were Gingersnap and Dry Bones. The kids played outside in the backyard and colored up a storm and did dress-up and house and various performances. I think they really had a fun time together! From a kid perspective, it was basically an epic, two-week play date.

The picture below is capturing a moment of drama--I think the pirates/sailors were sick or something. We got to this playground, and it was completely wet. The kids thought about complaining for a second, but then they just came up with a game that the play set was a ship and went with that for the next three hours or so. 

Lucy lost a tooth! The strategy that finally worked to get it out was that I held the tooth while Lucy pulled her head back. 

Mindy was so, so, so cute! We all (Aaron, Annie, Scotty, and I) want to adopt a two year old.

These little guys played so well together. I think the phrase I heard most often (other than "Aunt Maren/Mom, I'm hungry!" was "Come on, Scotty! Let's get back to playing!"

Everyone seemed to be hungry every minute of every day. Heather had packed her pantry and freezer and fridge with lots of goodies. The kids knew the snacks were in there, so any moment of boredom seemed to turn into a request for food. I had to fend them off with a stick. One time I attempted a nap while the kids watched a show. Mindy took that opportunity to eat only the M&Ms out of three bags of trail mix.The kids thought it was really great to take popcorn to the park with us. They'd play for a bit and then run over for a little taste. And Mindy would just park herself next to the bag and take huge handfuls at a time. 

I did school with my kids while we were there. It was nice to take advantage of some of the flexibility of homeschool. And it worked out great! We were able to get our work done and stay on top of things. Jaden's little preschool group had a fire station field trip, and we tagged along. It was freezing cold, and the kids were going nuts by the end, but it was fun. Everyone's most well-remembered fact was that the fire station had five bathrooms. 

So that was our California adventure! Parenting, and substitute parenting, can really teach you a lot about yourself. I saw myself and my life and my parenting of my kids in a new light. I was reminded that choosing to have patience is worth it. I was reminded that the only person I can really control is myself. I was reminded that consequences speak louder than lectures. I was reminded that bed time is the best invention ever.

And we had a sweet reunion with Aaron--it was hard to be apart for a week! (Kudos to William and Heather, and all the other military families out there, who are apart for months and months.) I will never forget Aaron's account of coming home to Texas a week early, realizing there was nothing in the house to eat, going to the store, and coming home in a fog of depression with a loaf of bread and a can of spaghetti sauce. We celebrated being together again by finally going to Gourdough's. Yes, that is bacon on top of a donut. The other one has nutella.

 

Another blessing of leaving my life for a month was leaving the anxiety/stress/fear I had been packing around about a lot of little, day-to-day things. Being away from my own responsibilities made me realize I don't need to carry that anxiety around. It isn't serving me well. And so far, I've been able to let it go even though I'm home and back to my own life. I'm really grateful for the shift in perspective that allowed me to see more clearly and make a change. 

December

December always turns into such a crazy, crazy month. This December there was a week where we had a scheduled commitment every single evening. It was fun but also stressful.

We started the month with a ward Christmas party which was held outside! It was a really well-planned fun event. The food was so good, which I think is the key to any successful gathering. They had live music, minute-to-win-it-games, a dance taught to the kids, a visit from Santa, and a nativity.

We buckled down and bought a full-sized Christmas tree from el Home Depot. Annie and I were very excited. Scotty was ambivalent. Aaron was borderline hostile. He was and always will be completely happy and satisfied with a Charlie Brown sized Christmas tree.

We went to downtown Round Rock and saw this Christmas tree. It was hollow inside, but still cool. The city also did a good job of wrapping lights around all of the regular trees to make them look twinkly and pretty. It was kinda weird, though, to see Christmas lights on trees that still had a lot of their leaves.

All this year we've been doing a little kindergarten co-op with these three girls and Scotty. It's been really fun. It's interesting to watch the dynamic between these four kids. Being the only boy, Scotty is pretty popular:) We made snowmen out of bananas.

There was real snow, too!! Annie came home from Activity Days convinced that it was going to snow because one of her little friends had said it only needed to get 9 degrees colder. Then it would be freezing, and the rain would turn into snow. I looked at the weather, and there wasn't any snow predicted. Annie was devastated. She wanted me to be devastated, too. The fact that I wasn't made her even more devastated. She prayed, in tears, for snow. I told her, "We don't always get exactly what we pray for. You should pray for Heavenly Father to comfort you and help you even if there isn't any snow." She didn't like the sound of that.

But the very next day, Aaron came home from work, we all ate dinner, then he casually mentioned that it had been snowing his whole way home from work. The kids busted out their snow stuff and played outside for the rest of the evening. They even managed to make a snowman. It's good to be reminded that sometimes prayers are answered with exactly what we want.

Annie had a little observation day at her dance class. She had a great time with Miss Jenni from our ward. This class really did help her to become more coordinated and aware of her movement. Hopefully we can build on that by putting her in basketball soon. We've gotta make use of that height!

Aaron and I finally used the gift card to a local restaurant called Urban Picnic that my mom got Aaron for his birthday. It was sandwiches and cake balls. Very yummy! Aaron had the BLT; I had the turkey avocado cream cheese. And we both got the pina colada cake balls.The kids went to a Polar Express activity camp thingy while we were on our date. We had lots of dates in December. This one plus an adults only white elephant gift exchange and Aaron's work party.

Aaron's work party was interesting. First of all, I felt under-dressed. It was a cocktail party, but I wasn't really informed of that fact. Anyway, I got to meet all of the people Aaron works with and his boss. They were nice and down-to-earth and normal. It was really good to put faces with names. Most people were drinking alcohol which is also just, you know, a somewhat unusual experience for Mormons from Utah. The food was really good, but the plates were teeny-weeny. I didn't get filled up. It was an interesting mix of people because there were tech/software nerds mixed with marketing/business people. And I felt like I could definitely tell who was who. Overall, it was quite a young crowd.

Anyway, I met the wife of one of Aaron's coworkers, and we were basically the same person. I was like, "We have two kids." Her too. "A boy and a girl." Her too. "I homeschool them." Her too. "We live in Round Rock." Diddo. "I came from a family of eight kids." Her too. The only difference was that she was Catholic. Oh, and she wasn't under-dressed. She seemed like an awesome person. Meeting her was definitely the highlight of the evening. She took her religion seriously. I love meeting people who aren't Mormon who take their religion seriously. I like meeting Mormons like that, too, but it's pretty common for Mormons to take their religion seriously. I feel really encouraged and happy when I see people who aren't Mormon taking their religion seriously. It just increases my faith that God is real, and he loves everyone's efforts to follow him.

A few days after Aaron's work party, we made the trek to Utah for Christmas. The day before we left, we received a package. It was really heavy and seemed sort of lumpy. It was from my parents. I suspected it was a Christmas gift, but I wanted to make sure it was something we would want to pack before I actually packed it. Turned out to be potatoes! Beautiful, huge, scrumptious Idaho potatoes! I'm sure glad we got the package before we left. I know from experience that potatoes don't do well being frozen and unfrozen repeatedly. Can't wait to cook these up.

Homeschool Friends and Adventures

November was a really great month for weather in Texas. So, so lovely. We have some friends we met at homeschool book club who we've been getting together with for outdoor adventures. It has felt so good to take advantage of the beautiful weather. At the end of November, we went to Berry Springs Park in Georgetown.

There were donkeys. The kids got to pet them and feed them one handful of grass each. We saw them in action with their pooping, and there may have been a conversation or two about how to tell a girl donkey from a boy donkey. Educational! There were also about a million squirrels running and jumping between the roof of the donkey barn and a nearby tree. Their antics were highly entertaining.

There was a pecan tree grove, some lovely ponds, great climbing trees, walking trails, and lots of space to just run around. There were also camping spots. I think we might come back and try that some time. It would be an easy, fun, overnight spot. 

We spent the whole day and had a blast. It was only 20 minutes away, so we could just swing by any time we want. I love finding good nature spots close by.

Thanksgiving

Now that it's after the new year, let's talk about Thanksgiving.

I can't believe I forgot to blog about Thanksgiving! It was the first Thanksgiving I had ever spent away from either my family or Aaron's family. We decided to celebrate with the Brimleys. It was awesome. 

We drove over Thursday morning, whipped up a few cream pies, helped with some last minute food items, and had a delicious feast. Amanda and I felt like real grown-ups when we looked around at the food and realized we (and Brad and Aaron) had prepared all of it ourselves. And it was good! And Amanda had made her house and table so festive.

We played games, went for walks, had excellent grown-up conversation, and ate until we burst. It was a very successful holiday gathering. Being neighbors with Amanda is just as great as I thought it would be. 

She took some pictures of our family in this pretty area they have behind their yard. I told Amanda I just wanted to get a quick shot, no pressure, I wasn't going to use it for our Christmas card or anything. Then I totally used it for our Christmas card. We all just look so pleasant and happy!