Christmas 2009

It has been QUITE a while since I posted to this blog. Sorry sad me. I found it was easier to post to Facebook and not maintain this blog. But I've been rethinking my decisions as of late and now, here I am, back where I began in the public forum for posting my information.

Christmas has been good this year. It was meager....seems like it takes a lot of money sometimes to buy the things that your child has professed a love for. I tried to make it a simple Christmas with enough toys to satiate and not overdo and I think I accomplished it.

Yesterday we went to the mall. We were waiting to see A Christmas Carol movie and while we bided our time, we walked around. Build A Bear was having a special on animals...when aren't they! Grant was supposed to get an animal of his choice for his Birthday and for some reason we just didn't make it to the mall. So Rob was bound to make it up to him and yesterday was his magical chance. He picked out a Panda Bear. The lady at the stuffing machine (because that's the only name that comes to mind) filled the Panda up and asked Grant to pick out a cloth heart to put inside. He happily complied and paused, as she asked him to warm the heart before putting it in the bear. Grant took that little cloth heart into his palm, closed his eyes as though he was going to make a wish, and put the cloth heart to his own heart. It was so so so so sweet to watch him go through these actions. Rob's eyes welled up, as much as he didn't want to admit it. It was unadulterated love, from a child. And it's no wonder that children are closest to God. They have this innate ability to love and be unabashed about love. It made me melt to watch him and I just reached over and tousled his hair.

The movie was good but somewhat graphically scary for little ones. Laura was sitting on my lap for half the movie. I asked her if she was scared and she resoundingly confirmed every time that she was not. She's a brave little engine :).

Today I sit here and watch the kids and marvel at the simplicity that is life. That will last for about another hour before I get wanderlust and want to leave the house. I always feel like I'm cooped up when I have to stay in all day. I want to get out and do something in order to feel like I have had a complete day.

I'm thankful for the birth of our Savior. We celebrate it at this time of year. It is a miracle and I'm glad we recognize it and that the worldly world hasn't wiped it from our visual and auditory periphery for another year. In fact, I'm encouraged by the fact that people seem to be shifting in a change to readopting the Christ in Christmas. It is heart warming to see and to welcome the well wishes of others as they say resoundingly "Merry Christmas" and not a placated "Happy Holidays".

Life can sometimes be hard. But at the same time, it rewards us back with the little day to day things...things that our children give us and we as adults impart to one another...that make everything worth the living here. I am reminded of a woman in Utah who was burned in 3rd and 4th degree burns over most of her body. She was given a blessing that she could depart this world and not have any more pain or sorrow. Or she could return to the body that laid there on the bed, completely burned over and aching from every nerve. She was told that if she did want to live, her life would be hard but she would be part of life, be part of her children's lives and be able to see them. She chose to live. And she is alive today. She goes through many daily hardships with the results of her accident. But she realizes at the core of it, she is here, on Earth, living and watching her children and that in itself is a GREAT gift. I have to remember how blessed I am and all the things I have and who I owe the most thanks to---as my eyes turn heavenward.

Thanks to everyone for a great year. I'm sure there's only 1-2 who will read this post at this point. You've all given up hope on me ever posting here again. But best wishes for a Happy New Year and here's to a fantastic and superb 2010.

Presidential Circumstances

I thought I would share this little story about the younger of the Freeman brood. We had just dropped Aedyn and Evan off at piano lessons so it was myself, Grant, and Laura in the car. They were chatting back and forth about President's Day. Grant informed us that George Washington was the first President of the United States. Laura emphatically said "No...Rock A Bama (translation: Barack Obama) was our first President. Seeing the learning opportunity, I told Laura that Barack was our first black President. I don't know why I say black as opposed to African American. I'm honestly not sure of the right terminology. I grew up saying black. In any event, Grant said "That's right, and George Washington was our first peach President". How funny the perceptions of a 5 year old. He had a sack puppet with the face of George on it and he had used a peach crayon to color it. So if I was going to color categorize Barack, he would do the same for George. I laughed to myself and confirmed his observations and resolved to document this funny little thought from his 5 year old brain.

Exonerating the Husband

Rats. Valentines Day. Do I buy something, do I not? Rob doesn't really care I don't think. We are practical people. We have anniversaries and other holidays for buying gifts. But this year, an anomaly. Rob and I both bought presents for each other without the other knowing. Today, Rob gave me my gift. There are several things a man can do to really blow it out big for his significant other and Rob did that today. He sent me 2 dozen, long stem red roses. Sigh. How great is that. I bought him something too but in the event that he's reading my blog, I can not as of yet give away what I bought. I can give a hint though...it's red. I've probably already said too much (wink). I think the reason I have a hard time on Valentines Day is because I get embarassed about being sentimental. It's hard to put myself in that mode because I so often make fun of those kind of people ha ha. So I say this...don't be afraid of the corn and moosh people...it's not just for breakfast anymore. Happy Valentines Day.

When Lights Don't Work

Okay, so I haven't posted for a while. I'm not sure what my lack of motivation is. Perhaps is called time and I don't seem to carry enough of it. But then, prioritization is essential and I guess I'm not putting blogging at the top of my list right now.

But I do have an interesting story that occurred on Monday of this week. Evan is in a choir group at school. And they were having a big what they deem a "Pyramid" sing-a-thon...something along those lines. So we had to have Evan to Centreville Highschool by 6:30 PM. We fought the lines of traffic, poorly designed entry into the school and parked on the side of the road. We made our way through chatty parents and up to the nosebleed section so we could see our son on the other side in the bleachers, a spec in the masses. It was HOT and I mean HOT. The speakers scattered around were making a low buzzing noise and Grant was complaining in his T-shirt that he was hot. I was wearing an acrylic turtleneck--I might as well have been in a down coat. HOT! The program started and the music teacher from Centreville Highschool, hosting this singing get together, spoke to us and told us the power had gone out earlier and had blown something related to speakers (blanket apology to my husband who will later make fun of me for not knowing the name of what blew) but this is what caused the buzz from the speakers. We're off on good footing at this point. Singing, singing, more singing. We get to the last group of elementary kids before moving on to a middle school and two highschools. They're in the middle of their somewhat depressing song when the lights pop off. Never have I heard that decibel of screaming. All kids joined together in one harmonious shriek heard across the gym. I think the teachers had pure panic in their hearts at that point. I guess I don't blame them. The thought that a 1000 or more people would stampede out of there and possibly cause the loss of a life was in my thoughts. We stayed on our very comfortable wooden bleacher seats (I couldn't feel my bottom half at that point anyway, what's another 30 minutes of sitting). Okay, I know, TMI. I don't do well on hard seating the depth of a school pencil. The teachers began yelling for us to stay in our seats. The shrieking stopped as I'm sure quiet threats were made from music teachers to their various groups of singers. The gym was all quiet. They told us to stay put, they were working on fixing the electricity. Okay. What to do now. Grant and Aedyn thought immediately there must be a blizzard outside of Little House on the Prairie proportions--what else would make the power go. I explained that there are other reasons why power goes out--old building, faulty wiring. I was doing my best Cliff Claven I know everything explanation. They weren't buying it.

Finally, generator power kicked in and lights came on somewhat. Not before a teacher began yelling at us, the crowd, to put our hands over our mouths and stop talking. She was panicked, it was clear. Some father, oh blessed man, yelled shut up to the teacher. Nice! Real mature. So I was expecting some kind of chaos to ensue. But peace reigned.

They came over with a bull horn and started telling us the county had asked that we evacuate. The kids were to go first to the cafeteria and we would be excused after that to go attempt to find them--darkness and all. Rob and I devised a plan. I would take the three kids to the car and wait there. Rob would go to Cafeteria land and find our poor Evan.

Finally, full power came on. I took the kids, in my high heels, down those bleachers. As we shuffled along in the hallway toward the exit, Grant commented that we were walking like old grandpas. Walking is better than falling I say so better to be moving than not moving at all. We finally got to the van. Rob and Evan were not far behind. Evan hugged me tightly when he got into the van. I think it made him appreciate his parents and siblings more with something, as minor as that was. He was so kind to his brothers and sisters that night. I think we're going to make weekly trauma part of life in order to instill appreciation more often ha ha.

So when next I have a cool story to tell, I shall post again.

Happy Anniversary

Yesterday was my 13th Anniversary with Rob. We celebrated on Saturday night. We went out to dinner at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse which happens to have the best sweet potato casserole known to man. But I'm switching focus here and I should be focusing on my husband :). In any event I just wanted to say that I love you Rob and this has been a roller coaster of 13 years but filled with the joy of 4 children, many fun times and lots of remembrances to cherish. I'm not a sappy gal and don't get into the diatribe Hallmark version of ode to husband but I wanted to say that I hope the next 13 will be as good as the last.

With love,

Your wife

Hot Chocolate Heaven

Our family doesn't have hot chocolate that often. So I can't honestly say that when I filmed this, that Laura and Grant had ever had hot chocolate before. I focused in on Laura for this video because her reactions to running hot chocolate were too hilarious to pass up. This was my first ever attempt to edit a video and I'm really happy with how it turned out. I hope you like it too.

Eva

Soap Box Sally

I didn't mean to use this blog as an observation deck for life and all things happening in it.  But what I realized is that I have a lot of observations that go on in my head every day.  And I really don't have anywhere to express it.  So this becomes my platform.  

Here's the latest observation.  We are a lazy society.  I know, please don't link you in with laziness.  So I say, apply this where it might apply in your life.  My spewings come from my experience today.  I volunteered to be on the PTA as the grounds clean up chairperson.  I figured it was twice a school year, a Fall Grounds clean up and again, cleaning up the Spring.  No big deal.  Wrong!  Today was our Fall clean up.  Here's how it went down.  I sent out notification of this 4 weeks in advance, again 3 weeks prior, 2 weeks, and you guess it, about 4 days prior to the event.  Parents were requested in notification to respond to my email address to let me know they were attending.  Every day religiously I checked my email, waiting for those good samaritans to volunteer some of their time to help me take on the school grounds.  Not one email ever came.  I figured that was the American way.  Don't do the formal notifications---just show up.  I'm game for that too.  As the old cliche goes, I can't look a gift-horse in the mouth.  So this morning I arrive 30 minutes prior to the start of clean up in hopes of getting a good head start on the job.  There before me sits a large mound of "mulch".  Only Easterners use mulch apparently.  We continue every year to stack wood chips around our trees with some hope that it looks "pretty" but instead we're creating an activity bed for the tree bark to rot and not get as much water to the roots.  It's ludicrous but okay, stick with the standards.  I soon realize after 30 minutes into the time of clean up that not many will show up.  One parent comes with two boys and one shovel.  It's a help.  But the man stands there directing his boys on what to do while he does little to aid.  I think right then "We are a lazy society".  We are so used to not having to do the hard labor of our forefathers that life has become too easy.  Even my own husband was not much of a kick in the pants for this whole affair. I was taught the value of hard work and felt I was up to the task.  But I have to say it would have been nice to have the help of a team of volunteers.  We began with a flat tired wheelbarrow to load mulch, barrow by barrow to the base of each tree.  It was the only wheelbarrow we could find.  Apparently, the janitorial person was supposed to be there to help us with the mulch but I couldn't see him.  I thought he'd be out waiting with baited breath for our arrival.  I did eventually find Tanner (name changed to protect the innocent) who was the janitor and pulled him into the battle of the mulch.  Other parents showed up but without many tools in hand. I sent them to various parts of the school to pick up trash and large weeds.  Rob continued to shovel mulch, Tanner continued to deliver it to the site and we worked hard for 3 long hours.  Several other parent/child combos showed up to help and then everyone was gone.  And there I was with 4 dirty children, one smelly, mulch covered husband, and me with my Medussa hair, wondering what went wrong.  Why didn't more people show up?  And to add to that I had one mother tell me that I should have provided donuts and juice.  Oh, I see.  No one can bother to let me know they are showing up and yet I'm supposed to go out and try and "guess" how many might show up and provide donuts for them.  Donuts that apparently would have gone to waste or waist as you will because I would have purchased more--I have a glass half full approach and figured many others would show up.  But people can't bother to say Hey, I'm coming to help".  So then it took me to my FINAL conclusion of Grounds clean up, people want to come for 20 minutes and do a little work here or there, get instant gratification by saying "alright kids, we worked hard, let's pack up" and then have a donut and a juice on the way out.  I guess I'm not that sympathetic.  You want the donut and juice, come and put in an hour, 2 hours worth of hard work.  I see the positive in this---my children learned the value of working together and we had fun.  We worked hard and came home.  My house didn't get cleaned today, my grocery shopping will be done late and we won't have this one Saturday to do family fun things because we took the time to help clean up.  I guess I'm on this blog to get my own gratification.  I worked hard today and so did my family.  And we didn't expect anything in return.  But I'm disappointed that parents didn't show up.  And I realize that those who truly understand hard work are the farmers who get up before the sun rises and come home when the sun is setting.  I bet if I was in Iowa cleaning up a school, I'd get some great workers who didn't come expecting self gratification or food.  I know, I'm harsh.  But it's a disappointment to see that we expect too much and give too little.  Eva steps down from the soap box.  

Here's hoping the next entry becomes a happy family adventure.