Kiersten’s Blog

Ashton and London in their Christmas outfits

I love the Christmas season.  I love the decorations.  I love the baking.  I love the shopping.  I love the friendliness of people around me.  I especially love the traditions I set with my family.  Hopefully I’ll remember all of those traditions for next year because they’re not happening this year.  Usually at the beginning of the Christmas season, London gets a new nativity to use as part of our Christmas decorations.  They don’t do much as far as decorating goes, though, because she’d rather play with them.  I haven’t decided yet what Ashton’s yearly decoration will be.  I’m open for suggestions.  Anyway, she doesn’t have a new nativity this year.  And I’m not sure if she’ll get one.  A tradition we have always had in my home growing up was counting down with the advent calendar.  I was so excited last year to make a lovely advent calendar, but that hasn’t even re-surfaced this year.  In fact, the only Christmas decoration in our apartment this year is a tea light holder that’s been on the piano all year because we forgot to put it away with the Christmas decorations last year.  Of course, London still has her nativities (or as she calls them, her “baby Jesus”) that she plays with.  She would never let us put those away with the rest of the Christmas things.

This year is different from most.  We’re moving right before Christmas.  In fact, we’re moving this Saturday.  We’ve been putting off buying Christmas gifts because we don’t want to pack them.  Because our escrow has been pushed back so much, we’re moving our stuff on Saturday, but won’t move it into our new place, since we won’t be finished with the repairs yet.  So we’ll move our stuff into the garage and spend Christmas with Taylor’s family.  Santa will have to stop at Granny and Papa’s house this year instead of ours.  Taylor and I will be back and forth between his parents house and our house, working on painting and floors and ceilings.  So much for time spent with family.  Next year Christmas is at my house.  I’m going to get a tree and put up lights and bake and bake and bake.

We had our ward Christmas party tonight.  Last year London went home crying because Santa didn’t show up.  When we found out that Santa wasn’t planning an appearance again this year, we weren’t happy about it.  Neither were our friends.  I have a good friend who did a lot of campaigning in favor of Santa.  And he showed up!  We were so happy, as were the kids.

The party was a success.  I do, however, have a few complaints.  First of all, it was too late.  It supposedly started at 6, but we didn’t really start eating until closer to 7.  By this point, the kids were all running around, chasing each other because they were BORED!  Then, of course, they didn’t want to settle down to eat.  When Santa finally showed up, it was around 8:30 or so–way past bed time for most kids.  I was surprised at how well-behaved Ashton was.  He was so tired the whole time, since he is usually in bed no later than 7.  I spent the majority of the evening trying to get him to sleep and the rest of the time chasing London around.  But the food was good and it was fun, as always, to hear the primary kids sing.

They also had a nice little program, which I missed, because I was trying to get a baby to sleep.  I will say that this years party was a definite step in the right direction from last year.  Now if it would have just been a couple of hours earlier…

Thinking that a wagon would be a great gift for my kids from Santa this year, I decided to brave the midnight madness at Toys R Us.  I checked on line before I left in case I could just buy it on line instead.  The good thing about living on the west coast is the sales start 3 hours earlier on line than in the stores.  Sure enough, I could order the wagon.  But it was $12 to ship.  In my stupidness, I decided that to save that $12 shipping fee, I would just make a quick stop at Toys R Us before retiring to bed.  Bad idea.  I stepped in line around 11:45.  I waited in it for a LONG time.  I was COLD!!!  Finally I made it into the store, only to find out that they sold out of the wagons.  I left the store, empty handed, at 1:45.  So much for my black Friday deals this year.  I can’t say I’ll do the Toys R Us sale ever again.  That was too crazy for me.  I couldn’t believe the people standing there in line.  I saw so many parents with their kids!  I DEFINITELY wouldn’t be standing in line, freezing, at 2:00 in the morning with my KIDS!  That’s child abuse!

Other than my Toys R Us disappointment, I had a great day today.  We left the kids with my in-laws last night and will meet them tomorrow to get them back.  It has been such a nice day.  I can’t remember the last time that Taylor and I spend that much time alone together.  It was fun to remember that we’re best friends.  We didn’t do anything spectacular.  We walked to Target.  We ate out.  We braved Wal-Mart.  And we hit up a flooring store.  Oh, and we packed.  Sure, my apartment is a disaster now, but it’s nice to see that things are finally getting put in boxes.  I cleaned out the linen closet and Taylor packed up the books.  I have had a successful day, thanks to my in-laws.  I’m excited to see my kids again.  Of course I miss them, but I know they’re in good hands and it was fabulous to have a day alone with Taylor.  Now if our house would just close…

I’m thankful for yams today.  Well, yesterday was Y and yesterday I was thankful for yams.  I learned something about them.  They’re actually not related to sweet potatoes at all.  They just look similar.  We call them yams because a long time ago when slaves were harvesting sweet potatoes, they thought a certain kind of them looked like the yams they used to eat in Africa, so to differentiate them from other kinds of sweet potatoes, they called them yams.  Here, though, we don’t usually find yams in the store unless we’re at an international market.  If we think they’re yams, they’re usually sweet potatoes.

London is thankful for yak and yawn.  Sure, she doesn’t know why.  She just is.

As we all know, there’s not much that starts with the letter X.  I’m sure you’re expecting me to be thankful for xylophones or somebody named Xavier.  Well, I’m not.  I’m thankful for x-ercise.  I’m thinking that’s the way it should be spelled anyway.  I really do love the way I feel after I x-ercise.  The problem is, I can’t get motivated to get to that point.  There was a time in my life where I had a really good routine.  I would get up early, study my scriptures and go to the gym.  That was before I had kids.  Now I get as much sleep as possible before the kids start joining me in bed.  I fully plan on starting my x-ercise regimen again soon.  It’s just a matter of wills and usually the sleep side wins.  Maybe tomorrow.

As we have learned the letter sounds with London, we taught her that X is an end of the word letter, since it’s silly to teach kids that xylophone starts with the letter X when it doesn’t sound like the letter X.  So London told me today that she’s thankful for ox.  She was watching Legacy on Sunday and learned about oxen that pulled the wagons of the pioneers.  She said she’s thankful for ox and that’s all.  But then she told me that she’s thankful for fox and box.  I’ll tell you that she really is thankful for boxes.  Even now, she’s four years old, and still loves to play in boxes.  They can be anything!  Her favorite thing lately is to pretend that she’s a jack-in-the-box.  She sings the song and then pops out of the box.

Today I am thankful for my washing machine.  Although I’m not a huge fan of doing laundry (since as soon as I think I’m done, there’s always more) I’m so thankful that I have a washing machine in my apartment.  I also have a washing machine sitting in my in-laws shed, just waiting for our house to close so it can be put back to work.  For about 3 years we lived without a washing machine in our apartment.  I never want to do that again.  I can’t imagine what it was like for all the people a hundred years ago, having to wash all their laundry by hand.

London is thankful for water and waves.  I guess that would be the beach?  She does love the beach, although I can’t say she really loves the waves.  She’s too afraid to put her head under the water (and she still has a tube in one of her ears so she can’t anyway).  She does love water.  It’s almost always her drink of choice.  In fact, she always has to have a cup of water in bed with her.  Sometimes she even snuggles with it.  I can think of a lot of things worse than that.

Obviously she's never had lessons. Check out that atrocious bow hold. (This was a year ago.)

Today London and I are thankful for violins.  That’s what London said, but I’m not sure if I believe her.  You’ll understand why soon enough.  When I think about maybe teaching London violin, I can’t believe any child could be taught that young.  I’m sure it would make a world of difference if it wasn’t her mother teaching her.  I started the violin when I was London’s age.  I honestly can’t believe my mother let me.  I don’t know how she stayed sane, especially with another child a year older taking cello lessons.  I have asked London a couple of times if she wants me to teach her how to play the violin and she tells me that she already knows how.  I’m not going to push it, but the other day she finally did tell me that she wanted me to teach her.  Anyway, that’s not what I was going to talk about.  I was going to talk about how London really doesn’t like the violin.  It’s kind of strange.  The violin has always been a significant part of my life until I had children.  I haven’t played a whole lot since I had London four years ago.  I guess I’m just busy with other things now, but I do try and pick up gigs here and there.  Today I played in church.  It hasn’t happened for a while so it was nice to play again.  My lovely cousin, Brooke, was nice enough to come and accompany me.  It was so fun to play with her again.  We haven’t done that since we were roommates in college ten years ago!  I can’t believe it’s been that long.  So I was over at her place practicing the other day and London came with me.  As soon as I started to play, she went into hysterics.  It’s not just that my violin playing is taking me away from her.  It’s something else.  For some reason, the music really bothers her.  She couldn’t stop screaming.  Finally I told her to go into the girls’ room and close the door and turn on music in there so she couldn’t hear us.  I really have no clue what the problem is, but she was really, truly upset.  She gets that way with some of her toys that play music too.  When she turns them on, she gets a really sad look on her face and starts to cry.  I’m not sure what to do about it.  It makes me sad that she feels that way about me playing pretty music.  She’ll even admit that it’s pretty, it just makes her sad.  It’s no wonder I can’t play my violin nearly as well as I used to.  I’m still thankful for it and hope that someday I’ll be able to play it more.

Unicorns and umbrellas.  That’s what London is thankful for today.  I don’t know why she’s totally obsessed with umbrellas.  Every time she sees one at the store, she has to open it up and carry it around.  I have to keep my umbrellas here at home hidden.  For her birthday, Taylor’s grandparents gave her a $10 gift card to Wal-Mart and she almost bought an umbrella with it (until she found a Cinderella dress).  I wouldn’t mind so much buying her an umbrella, but it never rains here.  She would sure love one, though.

I’m thankful for underwear.  I won’t go into detail.  You get it.  Who would want to live without underwear?  Not me.

I’m thankful for Taylor.  I’m thankful that he’s my husband.  He takes good care of our family.  He works hard and does well at everything he does.  He’s a great dad to our two children.  He does so many nice things for me and I love him.  Mostly I’m just thankful that he’s a part of my life and will be forever.  I’m a pretty lucky woman.

Now enough of the mush, London is thankful for Thomas the Train.  What more can I say?  She loves playing with trains.  I don’t know what it is about kids this age that makes them like trains so much.  Whatever it is, that’s what she’s thankful for today.

It seems like my kids wake up way too early every morning.  Since I’m usually still in bed while Taylor’s up with them, he lets them watch PBS.  He gets up early to get work done so having the kids up with him is a little bit counter productive.  And yes, Ashton watches TV too while he’s hanging out in his exersaucer.  One show that’s on PBS all the time is Sesame Street.  That’s what I’m thankful for today.  Without that, I would not get as much sleep and Taylor wouldn’t get as much done.  Many mornings I can convince London to take a bath faster than she normally would just because she wants to be done before Elmo’s World comes on.  Not only does she love the show, it’s educational.  What a life saver!  And now for a funny story.  We were at the carpet store a couple of days ago.  It’s right near Chuck E. Cheeses.  Of course London saw Chuck E. Cheeses and wanted to go there for dinner.  Then she said, “Did you know that Chuck E. Cheeses is a proud sponsor of Sesame Street?”  It was really hard for me not to start cracking up.  It’s so funny the things that girl comes up with!

Today London is thankful for her snake.  This summer while she was still refusing to poop in the potty, we tried everything we could think of to get her to just go.  One of the incentives was that she would get to go to Target and pick out a toy if she pooped in the potty.  Finally one day she pooped in the potty so we all took a trip to Target.  She chose this stupid rubber snake as her toy.  I really don’t know what the attraction to the thing was, but she loves it.  She even named it Kanla.  Don’t ask me where she comes up with these names.  She just does.  It’s the simple things that make her happy.