Christmas Day

It's March and I'm still discussing Christmas. I need to get it wrapped up (pun) so we can all move on with our lives.

Christmas Day came, just like it does every year. But this time nobody in our family was sick, so that was a nice treat.

The kids have never been known to wake up super early on Christmas morning, or any morning ever. =)
I remember when I was a kid I would sneak downstairs (a few times) in the middle of the night to scope everything out, then us kids would get up before the sun and ask permission to root through our stockings while the parents slept a while longer.


I failed again to get many worthwhile pictures of the kids opening presents. Did I learn nothing from my mom?!

I guess I mostly need to learn how to take non-blurry pictures.

Here's a cute little canvas treasure Oliver made in kindergarten. I love it!

In case it's too small to read, it says: Merry Christmas From Your Little "Deer"

Oliver digs anything that has to do with ninjas. 

This was the clearest picture I got of Jane or Cora. =/  Jane got a bunch of Monster High and My Little Pony stuff. She loves all of that. Cora got a variety of Doctor Who and Lord of the Rings things. And lots of novelty t-shirts.

Oliver lives in this Ninjago hoodie. 

And here's a really unflattering picture of me opening my present. As you can see, I was confused. I wasn't sure what exactly was in that little white box. 

I didn't ask for anything. I know shopping stresses Ryan out a lot, so I specifically instructed him not to get me anything because we'd just spent a bit of money re-doing our downstairs bathroom. Plus I always seem to buy a few things for myself when I'm out Christmas shopping for other people. =/  

I gave Ryan two books that I thought would add some humor to his life. "The Onion - Our Dumb World"  and a Dilbert book. (They ended up being good selections that have make him chuckle each time he reads.) I also got him some boring work slacks and shirts and a couple of fun t-shirts. There may have been more, but I'm not too sure.

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to find that he had bought me an iPhone. =)  

It was kind of hard saying goodbye to my old phone. 

Out with the old, in with the new. 

I didn't know I'd like having a smartphone. I was mostly comfortable with my dumbphone, and didn't have any immediate plans to replace it. Ryan made the decision for me, which was helpful, seeing as I am the worst at deciding on things.

And here are the cookies I took to my parents' house to share...

I think I'm actually getting sick of sugar cookies. *gasp* 

Or maybe it's more of a worry that everyone else is burned out on them. 

I hate to think I'm inconveniencing anyone by making them too frequently. 

I think I just need to make them a little less often.

After we had our morning at home as a family, we went to Ryan's parents' house for a little while for their  traditional biscuits and gravy and the opening of some presents. 

Then we made our way over to my parents' house, where we had another lovely time. 

As I sit here partway through March, I can't recall the exact sequence of Christmas Day's events. 

All I know for sure (along with whatever I listed above) is I got to hang out with my siblings and their families for several hours. 

We ate, we played games, exchanged gifts, then we probably ate some more.

My awesome sister-in-law (Maren) made a tray of these incredibly tasty caramel apples for each family. 

Let me tell ya, my belly received them very well!  =P

I thought I'd found a real treasure at Shopko. I bought 2 bags. My siblings and Mom and I are lifelong circus peanut fans. I took this unopened bag to share on Christmas Day. Everyone was intrigued. Meg, Erin, Gavin and I sat around the living room and I passed one out to each of them, then we all took a bite on the count of three. We were all kind of confused and slightly disappointed. They were okay, but it was agreed that the orange-colored, pure sugar flavor of the original kind was nothing to be trifled with.
The peppermint ones just aren't as special. It's good I only bought 2 bags. =)

And that's officially it for Christmas 2013.

Bring on spring!

Christmas Eve

We got to host the annual Lytle Christmas Eve dinner this year. 

(Well, technically last year...)

Here's what it looked like before everyone showed up.

We borrowed some extra tables for the occasion. 

The one on the right decided to collapse during dinner. =)  Don't worry, it was okay. 

Thanks to everyone's swift reflexes, there were no overturned folks or food. 

And suddenly the house was filled with people.

What a merry event!

Jane and cousin Cassie

After dinner there were games, one being Christmas Pictionary.

I thought about not making cookies this year, but then I got a request from Ryan's sister's family. 

They like my cookies. A lot. =)

 Not wanting to ruin anyone's Christmas, 

 I opted to bake some traditional, chewy holiday cheer.

I saw some little trees at a craft store made of cardboard cones and cupcake wrappers. 

So I had to make some. I used them as table centerpieces at the Relief Society dinner, 

then arranged some of them on our mantel. 

I liked how they looked, but I never could tell if it was all too "busy".

I also covered some in crepe paper, yarn, and strips of curled scrapbook paper. 

And I finally found a use for those 3 white plastic frames I bought at Ikea a long time ago. I got some cute wooden letters, painted them white, 

then taped them to the fronts of the frames after I'd inserted some festive papers. And isn't the garland adorable?! I broke down and bought it at Kmart last year. I didn't even mean for it to coordinate so well with the trees and such.

By the way, I'm now sharing some pictures of our holiday decor. My apologies if they weren't actually captured on Christmas Eve...

How could I resist bringing this cute, rosy-faced bird home?

I have collected enough sweets-related decor over the last few years to create quite a sugary display.

I loooove the nutcrackers! And the pictures above the piano just did not work as a backdrop for my cute stuff, so I encased them in matching wrapping paper. =)  I was sad to tear it off after Christmas was done. I'd love to have a year-round candy room, wouldn't you?

Only 10 more months until Christmas.

I'll just let the next pictures speak for themselves. I'm too tired to type anymore. I just knew if I didn't finish this post tonight it would be at least a week or three before I got back to it. 

It was definitely a merry Christmas Eve. I love having people over, and I'm glad we were volunteered
this (I mean, last) year.

I hope your family holiday time was just about as warm and lovely as ours was.
Or however much you wanted it to be.

Christmassy

I've been slacking on my blogging duties. It's hard to find the time and motivation to do it, especially when it requires me to remember details about stuff that happened a while ago. 

I have three seasonal posts in the works that will hopefully succeed in summarizing the holiday called Christmas. 

Naturally, we couldn't usher in that special time of year without attending the festival of trees. 

One of these times the rest of the family will learn to appreciate it as much as I do.

Why do they not understand how festive it is?!  It's an important part of a complete Christmas season.

I'm only sharing a few pictures since most of them turned out blurry. Phooey.

We brought along Jane's BFF, Cristina, to pacify Jane. They are pretty much inseparable.

I liked this treats-inspired tree the best. Predictable, I know. But equally as irresistible.

It may look like Cora took some garland off a tree, but this is just part of one of the kids' activities they had there.

Here's another blobby-looking tree (courtesy of our camera's eye). 

It was covered in cute peppermint "candies".

The main reason we chose to attend the fest on that particular night was to support some ward friends (Richard and Emma Beck) in their fiddling performance. Emma and their young kids play the violin and Richard plays the guitar. They started this group a couple of years ago with some of their friends. They are very good! Definitely the best performers of the evening. =)

That's all I have to say about the festival of trees, but while I'm on the topic of performing, I'll share some pictures from Jane's December orchestra concert.

This was before the show started. Once again, Cristina and Jane are together. 

 This year marks their first stab at orchestra. They both chose to play the viola. 

Also note their matching outfits.

They are pretty cute, aren't they?

And that's as Christmassy as I'll get for now.

Just you wait until the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day posts.

Good Stuff

Since I am having a melancholy moment, I thought I'd (try to) perk myself up by sharing some good stuff to maybe help fill the freshly carved pit in my heart.

Yay for happy stuff to mask the crappy stuff.

I'm watching episodes of  "Parks and Rec" right now because it's funny. I like all the characters on the show. It reminds me of my funny friends, Maria and Renee, who also watch the show.

Speaking of funny, my little sister is. I'm so proud of her. She took it upon herself to organize and carry out a huge weekend event in Boise. She called it the Idaho Laugh Festival. She is hooked on making people laugh, and laughing at others who are hooked on making folks laugh. She got 60 comedians from all over the country to participate in 16 different shows at 5 different venues in two days. It went over even better than she'd hoped. She is amazing and I know she's going to keep on doing "impossible" things. She's already looking forward to next year's fest.

I went to four of the shows and they were all packed with laughter. I wish I could have gone to more, but it wasn't possible for me to duplicate myself and be in a few different buildings at the same time. My brother, Gavin, performed (stand-up) at two of the shows on Friday night, one of which I got to see. He did great and the audience seemed to think so, too. =) I love having funny family and friends.

This photo was taken after the Saturday night main event. =) The headliner comedian was Dennis Regan (pictured). I guess he had to close his eyes to fully savor the moment.
He and the other two comedians (Heath Harmison and Eddie Brill) were all very entertaining. Megan hosted the event (at the beautiful Egyptian Theatre) and took the opportunity to open the show with her own humorous bit of stand-up. I don't know how she or any comedian does it!
The show was very funny. It made me laugh quite a bit, which doesn't always happen when I listen to comics do their thing. It's not often I'm in a place where tons of folks are laughing. It makes for a great time, and I can understand why Megan craves it.

Let's see... what else has been good lately?

The Monday after Christmas I took the kids to the aquarium one last time before our pass expired. We took one of Jane's friends and one of Oliver's friends with us. They were all pumped to get out of the house. Right after that, we went to the cheap theater to see "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2". It was a cute, entertaining movie.

New Year's Day was half price day at DQ, so we got there as they opened and got some hot eats, cool treats, and two ice cream cakes. =) I looooove their cakes. Two days later, I invited Megan over for some of that cake, then later on Renee and Maria came over to have some with me before we went to see
"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty". We saw it at The Village in Meridian. It was my very first time going there, which seems silly since it's so close to our house. I loved the whole evening; the movie, the surroundings, and most importantly, the people I went with. The Village is awesome. It's like a secret little quaint town in the middle of the city.

I switched to Gold's Gym since one just opened up super close to our house. I was happy when they settled on the perfect times and days for the class I like. Bodypump at 9:30 a.m. Mon./Wed./Fri. Yay! And I'm paying $10 less per month than I was at silly Axiom.

Gavin and Maren are expecting their third child this April. They have two girls already, and this one is a boy. How fun! I can't wait to hear the name they pick.

Cora is getting to be such an accomplished piano player. I love hearing her practice, and I'm so glad she enjoys playing. What a treat it is to see children succeed at things.

That's enough good stuff to sort of ward off my night's stinky bout of misery.
Tomorrow is another day, and I'm gonna try and not dwell on the things I can't control.

Plus, every minute brings me closer to glorious, wonderful spring!

This and That! (Part Two)

I find myself lost in thought a lot. But I don't always get to verbalize the piles of my life's insight.
Partially because the in-person audience doesn't tend to be that receptive when I flap my yapper. =P
So, at the end of the day I'm super glad I have a blog that quietly listens to all I say.
What a good friend it is... never interrupting me... nary a negative remark... practically patting me on the back for typing out my innermost feelings.

Now for s'more sundry subject matter for all to ponder...

~First off, something I've been guilty of, but now *try* to avoid. Have you ever noticed and/or contemplated how folks write out a positive greeting of some sort and intentionally leave off the "I" that belongs at the beginning of the sentence?  Example: "Hope you have a good day."
It sounds more like you're telling him, "you'd better hope it's a good day." Which isn't a terrible message to convey (since we can all use an extra dose of optimism). But is it really that much trouble to type the "I"?
For instance, "I hope you feel better soon" is slightly more encouraging than simply telling someone to muster their own dang hope on the matter. And don't get me started on the half-hearted "love you". I even saw this printed on a box of chocolates last year. Who? What? Are you telling me to love myself? Why not go ahead and add the "I" to avoid confusing the object of your affection. =)

~ For as weak as I am in some areas, in other ways I demonstrate great restraint. Consider all the possible damage I might cause if I commented on Facebook posts and pictures with the first thing to enter my mind. Some would be snarky remarks, others would be me just sharing what I really feel, which would not go over very well. And that's why I usually choose not to say anything at all. That's a bunch of self control right there.

~ I am the Relief Society activities committee chair. When I accepted this call in the summer, I thought it would be relatively painless with a good crew.Well, I started off with more of a "non-committal committee", which wasn't fun.
But over the past few months we've mercifully had some more helpful ladies added to the team. Most months we are expected to carry out an activity/additional meeting. The biggest headache of all was the craft night in November. I'm just not that excited about crafts that don't include sugar. It doesn't help that the word "craft" kind of grates on my nerves. =)
The committee and I decided which 5 projects to have available for all the ladies to choose from, then got them approved, made sign-up sheets, produced a sample of each craft, set up the display table and sign-ups every Sunday before church, made flyers, scoured every craft store in town for supplies, collected money from 35 women, kept track of who signed up to make how many of which thing, sorted everyone's stuff into labeled bags for easy distribution, set up the gym, cleaned up afterwards, and delivered bags and extra necessities to those who didn't show up to get theirs. After all that, we were all crafted out. Actually, I was all crafted out long before doing any of that list. =)

Ryan took a picture of me getting everything ready the evening before the event. 

Oliver was such a good helper!

I already know what to say if I'm expected to organize a craft night again next year:

"You can craft my ass!"  

~I volunteered at the cannery on a November afternoon. They were processing pears that day. I stood almost four hours in front of a swift-paced conveyor belt, seizing blemished fruit segments at the last possible chance before canning. When I noticed my shift was half done I instinctively sang: "Ohhh, we're halfway there, oh-oh, livin' on a pear!"  Then I grinned like a ninny at my unplanned parody. You have to admit, it was good. Too bad nobody could hear me over all that mechanical racket.

~ A while ago I was in the dressing room at JCPenney when I had no choice but to hear what the teens in the next stall were saying. They were talking about some unsuspecting friend. One of them said something along the lines of, "I don't like Jessica's belly button. It's weird." The others either agreed or seemed intrigued. What nice friends! I was tempted to show them my outie, which is surrounded by icky stretch marks, to make them forget all about Jessica's poor tummy. While I'm on the subject, only outies should be called belly buttons. Innies should be called belly crevices. ;)

~ In a perfect world, everyone would scoot to the middle so others don't have to climb over them to sit down.

~ Words to live by: "Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not." -Mark Twain

~ It's cute that everyone calls it "chevron" print. But it's really just zigzags.

~ What is with those tiny, useless tabs manufacturers put along the edge of freshness seals?

They failed to help me open this container of mixed nuts. The tabs are far too small to get a grip on. 

They do nothing but make me have to get a knife out and stab my way to the food. Why do they feel like it helps to put six non-functional "pull tabs" around the edge? Why not stop at one functional tab that's big enough to grab onto and pull?!

~ Has there ever been a box of Gobstoppers that hasn't spilled all over the floor? Wonka needs to rethink their packaging strategy. Perhaps a little drawstring pouch? Boxes are obviously incapable of keeping those restless, round candies contained!

~ You've heard of WinCo. Why not open up a LoseCo? It could sell all the lost and found food nobody knows what to do with. 

~ I was recently listening to the messages on the home phone answering machine. 

When it came to one I had left for the kids ("Hi, it's mom!") I deleted it before listening to the rest of it. 

Concerned that I'd erased an important message, Oliver piped up: "What if it was a different mom?!" 

 ~ Here's what I saw one morning when I came in to wake Ollie and Jane...

They look so alike when they're asleep. I loved their matching arms. =)

 I'm glad I have this picture for them to look back on.

~ We bring our bunnies inside the house for a while (or two or three) every day. They are pretty good at using their potty box, but sometimes they can't help but poop as they hop around, so we keep the shop vac handy for frequent doody removal. We all take turns. Oliver suggested: "Mom, we should teach the bunnies to clean up their own poop." Oliver is full of good ideas. While we're at it we should make them mini aprons and put them to work doing more of the household chores. Then they could start a little business and call it Dust Bunnies. 

~ I couldn't help but take this mail solicitation the wrong way:

Look, CenturyLink... whether I'm heavy or not is none of your business!


~ I got released today from my calling as a cub scout leader. It's been 3 wild years with the wolf den. I won't know what to do on Wednesday afternoons now. The other wolf leader I've been working with for most of that time (Michelle) told me that when my name was called over the pulpit her two kids gasped and asked her what she was going to do. She said she almost cried. And the cub master's wife told me that he kind of frowned and went "awwww" when my release was announced. Because I was a part of the team. Anyway, it felt good to know that I was at least somewhat appreciated. Not that I'm delighting in their sorrow. That would be mean.


I hope that's it for now, because I am one tired person.