Long Time Coming

It has been a long time since I have posted. For this, I apologize. It's been a rough few months, to be honest. For those of you who have known me for a while, you know that I struggle in the winter and I am much more prone to depression. I wish I could say this winter was different...

Regardless, there were a few events I could have (and should have) posted, such as:

• My sister Amanda had her baby and we now have baby Lexi in our family. She was born early on Thanksgiving morning. This was also Ruthann's birthday, which made her very happy. This past Sunday she was blessed.

• Christmas came and went with little to report. Since Steve was not working we didn't have a lot of money. But we did spend some good time with family. The more time goes on the more I realize how much they really mean to me.

• My baby brother Joel (yes, I said baby) got married a few weeks ago. Ruthann is now officially part of the family and our total is now up to 25. It will be 26 later this spring, and Britta will again round out the grandkids making it an even five boys and five girls. Here are a few pictures from the wedding and reception.

Double Feature - Pioneer Day & Flashback Friday

I have decided to write a double feature blog. Since it is Friday it is Flashback Friday, that was inspired by my Pioneer Day fun last night.

Pioneer Day

Before anyone else decides to ask me, no we did not go to the parade. Steve worked the night before and I slept in. The parade is not a tradition for us so it doesn't usually even cross our mind. If it does, we very quickly decide we would rather sleep in. As I was contemplating actually getting out of bed, Amanda called me and asked me if I could watch Zack. They had a friend who needed some help and didn't feel that they could take him with them. I hesitated slightly, only because I knew that Steve would be sleeping and I didn't want to wake him up. But of course I said yes. How can I resist an opportunity to play with any of my nieces or nephews?

So Zack came over and spent the day with me. Zack LOVES Thomas the Tank Engine and he got a new video while we were on vaction. He knows nearly all the names of Thomas and his friends but there are some new friends on this video. Zack will frequently play the "Who's that?" game. He asks "who's that?" and then answers his own question. He was playing the game and asked about the yellow flat bed truck on the front of the video case but he couldn't remember her name and Amanda couldn't either. So, we had to watch it. In case anyone wants to know, her name is Isabella...

Unfortunately, Steve's boss called him and woke him up during Thomas and then he heard us. My only consolation is that we weren't the ones who woke him up in the first place. We are just the ones who distracted him enough that he couldn't go back to sleep. So Steve got up and spent a little bit of time on his computer in the office waking up a bit.

After Thomas, Zack wanted to watch Bee Movie, but when we opened it up he said "oh no! All gone!" So he chose Cars. I hadn't ever seen all of Cars so I was okay with it. Besides, it's a Pixar movie. How can you go wrong? I had seen the beginning so I decided to get some of our massive pile of dirty dishes done while Zack watched and played and then joined him. Steve eventually joined us and we ended up nearly rolling on the floor watching Zack. He was quoting the movie and singing and dancing during the songs. It was a lot of fun!

About 2:00 Amanda sent me a message and said she forgot to tell me about his nap and asked if I had put him down. Zack was in such a good mood that I totally spaced nap time, it did not even cross my mind. I was even going to take him shopping with me. Whoops! I put him down right then and then Steve took a small nap on the couch while I went to the store.

Amanda and Aaron came to pick him up about 5:00 and he was still laying down. Amanda and I went to wake him up and he was already awake, he just hadn't come out of the room. He got very excited to see mommy and when she asked him if he had fun he said "No, go home!" I had to laugh, we did too! He really was a good boy and we had lots of fun playing. They left to finish getting ready for the barbeque Britta was having for the family at her house. Steve got ready for work and after he left I finished getting ready to go as well.

Britta covers everything pretty well, so if you want details about the barbeque, go to http://nunleyfam.blogspot.com/2008/07/pioneer-day-barbeque.html.

Flashback Friday

While I was at Britta's for the barbeque last night I was able to see her nearly finished back yard. She has a hill in the back (on purpose) for her kids to play on. This is the inspiration for my Flashback Friday.

My parent's have a small hill in the front yard that we grew up playing on. The reason I say on purpose above is simply this: to this day, my mom hates that hill. It was there when they bought the house and she has tried several times to get rid of it. I don't know if we always talked her out of it or if other things just took priority, but it is still there.

Personally, I am glad. We had SO much fun playing on the hill growing up and the grandkids have fun now. I told Britta last night that she was missing something on her hill, the pot holes. She apparently decided that, regardless of how much we used them, she didn't want them in her hill. I do understand why because we destroyed the grass in that area by using them for our witches brew, which I have previously posted about.

In addition to witches brew the hill provided safety while playing tag, a castle for the frequently overturned king of the hill, a stage and many more. We rolled down the hill, we ran through sprinklers on the hill and sprained ankles on the hill. The fun was endless and still is. And lucky for us, if we had too many people and our hill was too small, we ran next door to the park. We always had plenty of space there.

In my adulthood, I am always reminded that I had an amazing childhood. Sometimes it is hearing how difficult someone else's childhood was and sometimes it is just spending time with my family and following the eternal memory lane. I am grateful for the family I have and I love you all!

Flashback Friday - Christmas Traditions

My sister Britta posted her Flashback Friday and it was so complete I asked if I could send people to her blog. She said "Sure, you can even copy and paste it if you want." So I did, with a few changes. Thanks Britta!

On Christmas Eve night, we always read the story of when Christ was born. All season, my mom had her nativity figures on the piano, but she kept baby Jesus hidden. As we read the story from the scriptures, we would put the baby in the stable, to symbolize that being the night of his birth. Then we had family prayer, picked a spot on the furniture for our stockings, then went to bed. Now, going to bed was not necessarily going to sleep. The excitement was always tremendous. One year, Britta and I couldn't sleep, and we decided to both sleep on the top bunk - my bed. This became our little tradition for a couple more years, until we were too big and it was too uncomfortable.

My mom is a nurse, and she almost always worked on Christmas Eve until 7 am Christmas morning, but she usually didn't get home until closer to 8. We weren't allowed to look at our presents until she got home. Until I was about 10, we had the presents in the living room, which you could see from the stairs coming up from my room. So we had to stay in the basement. Around my 11th birthday, my parents added on to the house, building a room above the garage. This made it easier to hide the presents, but until we were a little older, we still had to wait downstairs because it was too tempting to take a peek behind the blanket covering the doorway. My youngest brothers were escorted downstairs to wait with us until she got home. I remember meeting in Amanda and Ranna's room to play games and peeking out the window watching for our mother to come home - Britta and I shared a room which was in the back of the house. Dirk and Eric were old enough to want to stay in bed as long as possible, but the rest of us would huddle together, squealing with excitement. Even when she got home we had to wait a few minutes for mom and dad to hug and kiss and for them to come down and tell us it was okay.

One of our favorite things on Christmas morning was breakfast. We all got to pick our own box of cereal to eat that morning. The entire box was our own, and we only shared if we wanted to, which we frequently did. It was always a big decision to make when my mom asked what kind we wanted. As soon as my mom got home, we broke open the Christmas cereal, and ate as a family. This was my mom's sneaky trick to make sure we ate something healthy before attacking the candy. Thinking about these breakfasts brings back many fond memories. There was rarely a time besides Christmas morning with quite so much laughter and love in our house.

Me, Britta (in front), Ranna (in back), Amanda, Mom

After everyone was done eating, we lined up, oldest to youngest. We waited while my dad took the camera upstairs, exclaiming over the wonderful surprises, teasing us with his new knowledge of what Santa brought. We'd finally file upstairs when the blanket was removed, and rushed to our stockings. There was usually one present from Santa under the tree (Santa always left his unused wrapping paper in the kitchen for us to finish off next year), but the rest was unwrapped next to our stockings. Oooing and ahhhing over our gifts and showing them off to everyone else took several minutes. Then we gathered around the tree to find some more treasures. We would grab one gift and wait for everyone to have one, then open them all at the same time.

Dirk, Eric, Britta, Me

Mom, Joel, Me (the dark hair hiding behind the chair), Britta (in the stripes), Amanda (kneeling), Seth (hiding behind the tree)

We always drew names, then went to the mall together for Family Home Evening one night before Christmas. My mom split us up as best she could so she took half and my dad took half as we searched for the perfect gift for the person we drew, without letting the person in question see what this perfect gift was. This sometimes took some creativity because it didn't always work out perfectly when splitting in 2 groups - we frequently had triads. The triads required meeting in the middle to swap people. These gifts were under the tree, and were often some of the favorites.

After everything was opened, we played with our gifts for a while before heading off to Grandma's house. We usually went to my mom's parents' house in West Valley first for a while, then drove to Coalville to my dad's parents' house. By the end of the day, we were exhausted, but content. And we had the day after Christmas to look forward to, when we ate more cereal, candy from the stockings, and played with our new gifts most of the day.

This was at my mom's family Christmas party 2 years ago. We have added 4 kids since then! The adults were still expected to sit on Santa's lap until just a few years ago.

I have very fond memories of spending Christmas with my family. I love them all dearly and look forward to seeing them all in a few days for another Christmas together.

Holiday Music

Have you ever noticed that a little bit of Christmas music can change your mood? I didn't say it always lightens the mood, although that is typically what it does for me. See, my sister works in retail. After Thanksgiving, that is all that is played in the store. She gets to the point that if a certain song is part of the music that is played all day long, she gets sick of it and becomes instantly annoyed when she hears it outside of work.

Me, I love Christmas music. However, I am very picky about my yuletide tunes. I have my favorites and don't think that just every artist should do a Christmas album. Certain versions of songs rather bug me...like Mannheim Steamroller's underwhelming version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I love Mannheim Steamroller and have two of their cds. But I won't buy the one with Rudolph because it bothers me so much.

Currently though, I am thoroughly enjoying my sister's choice in merry music. Much better than my playlist...I just didn't know about some of the songs, or just forgot about them to search for them. She has a blog that she adds too faithfully and so I checked to see if she had added anything today. The music caught me pretty quickly and so I have kept it playing in the background. Tonight it speaks to my soul and brings me peace, which I need after a busy day.

Earlier, I was in a much more playful mood and was listening to How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Looney Tunes Christmas. My parents have a fabulous (an very obscure) album called Christmas Fun Songs. It is so much fun and very silly with songs like Santa Claus Got Stuck in the Chimney, Santa Caught a Cold on Christmas Eve and Monster Holiday (kind of like Monster Mash). In addition to the Chipmunks and Scooby Doo Christmas albums we grew up with it is a lot of fun when we turn on the Christmas music at my parent's house.

The music is one of my favorite things about Christmas. It brings the spirit of the season to my mind and joy to my heart.