Christmas Eve

Drew left a letter for Santa. I had to take a picture of it before he came.

Then I woke up in the middle of the night and found that he had written her back, so I had to take a picture of that too before everyone woke up.

I really admire her persistence. I pretty much asked for a horse every year of my life and I know how frustrating it gets. Too bad Santa can't deliver animals.

We did our annual Seattle trip to ride the carousel but it closed early. Bummer. But we did get to see some amazing gingerbread houses.

The famous lamp from the Christmas story and the frozen pole. All candy!

The Polar Express gingerbread mountain and train.

This is Gavin's happy face.

Upon closer inspection

Take a close look at this picture. I spent half of the day just like this until Gillian told me that I had on 2 different earrings. I almost didn't believe her as we were leaving Fred Meyer and she giggled and said she didn't want to tell me. I had been to the ward Christmas brunch. Katie told me she LOVED my earrings, now I know that she was mocking me. The sad thing is that it happened again yesterday, only the earrings were at least the same size. Good thing I have Gill to look out for me.

The below picture is of all of the cousin madness at grandma's house last week when they made gingerbread houses.

Nutcracker

Another day, another field trip. Back to Seattle Center, but this time with Gillian to see the Nutcracker. She REALLY wanted me to go but for some reason she cried the whole way there on the bus because she was stuck sitting next to me and not a friend. I was super happy about that.

Last night she had said that her teacher told the class that they could dress fancy for the ballet if they wanted. She said that she wouldn't dress fancy but she would wear fancy shoes. She wore her Ugg's. Very fancy indeed.

Clean up

Why is it that to clean things up you have to make a huge mess. Gillian's room has been bugging me for weeks. I could sense all of her toys multiplying in the crevices of her room. I found socks and underwear in with her barbies and bendaroos wrapped around many of the toys. I tried to do this without Gillian but she came in and asked how she could help. She immediately went to the garbage and rescued some stuff I had snuck in there. Then she went and crouched in the drawer and kept exclaiming "I've been looking for this!" whenever she found a long lost toy. It was exhausting but I finally got it done at 10:00pm.

Santa Hat

I was a chaperone on Drew's field trip today to the EMP (Experience Music Project) at the Seattle Center. It was a sunny freezing day. I think it was about 26 degrees. Brrrr! But the sky has been blue and that's about all I need. I was in charge of Drew and her friend Grace. Not too hard. We got to play instruments with instructional videos and look at all the Science Fiction memorabilia. My favorite was the Terminator! Love that movie so I had to get a picture of me with him/it.

This was a field trip for all of the choir students. They sang at the Seattle Center. The coolest part of the day is when we were eating lunch. There the girls sat in their cute Santa hats, which most of the kids wore for the concert. We were just waiting for their turn to perform. There were a few homeless looking but nice men at the next table. They left eventually. Then I watched another man walk in and I could tell that he was really not well off, maybe homeless, but well kept. His clothes were worn, he was a bit dirty, but he had a certain something about him that just got my attention. He sat at a table and after a while he approached us and tapped me on the shoulder and pointed at the girls' hats and held out 2 crumpled dollar bills. He was either deaf or mute or both. We didn't quite understand. I told Grace that I thought he wanted to buy her hat and she smiled and grabbed it tightly to her head and exclaimed that she liked her hat. Then he looked at Drew and she looked confused as he pointed to her hat and held out the money. He finally just held his hands up and walked back to his table. Drew looked at me with big eyes and quickly said she needed to go to the bathroom. I waited for her outside the bathroom and she immediately asked about the man. I told her it was her choice and we could always buy another. Maybe she could give it to him after the concert if he was still there. She looked a little panicked and said that she just wanted to do it now in case he left. She took it off, smoothed out her hair, walked right up to his table and held out the hat. He reached for his money and she held up her hands and said that she didn't want his money but she wanted him to have her hat. I swear my heart was bursting with happiness and I was so proud of her in that moment. She had the hugest smile on her face as we walked away and Grace said that that was the nicest thing she had ever seen and that now she wanted to give her hat to someone. Then they went and sang, Drew without her Santa hat. She kept looking over at the man who had put on the big red hat. He looked so happy and so did she. That's what this season is all about. Charity, joy, selflessness. The pure love that our Savior has.

I couldn't resist snapping a picture of him from afar and then from behind.

Drew talked about him quite a bit for the rest of the day. She was worried that maybe he doesn't have a place to live and that he can't really communicate. I mean, it's really not unusual that she worried and obsessed over it all day because she does that about everything. But it was pretty cute how she kept bringing it up. "Do you think he will die because of the cold?" I said that at least he has a nice cozy hat now. And he knows that there are people out there that care. Cute little blue eyed sweet girl.

Random thoughts

Every night I think about catching up on my blog. Then I fold laundry, clean up, and think I'll do it tomorrow. So this will be some scattered thoughts about the past few weeks.

First, I've been wanting to post this picture of Gavin putting his photoshop skills to good use. Grandma Patsy should be so proud. Yes, that's Obama becoming Satan. I swear I had nothing to do with it. He has his own opinions.

Then there was Thanksgiving. Usually I eat until I want to die but I was good this time, at least until dessert. I'm not a big turkey fan, but desserts, forget about it! At least I had a good workout that morning. The Greenhalgh's always have copious amounts of food. Darren's back has been killing him for a couple of weeks and the only way it feels better is when he lays on his belly. So there he is on Thanksgiving, finding his spot under the piano. I joined him for a while until my back started killing me.

Gillian spent Thanksgiving morning making cards. This one was for Bryan.

My nose is healing but still painful. The cartilage on the right side will need to be fixed eventually as it is getting more and more crooked as it heals. But still I think it looks good. The doctor said he will have to amputate the foot of the cartilage. Again, he has such a great bedside manner.

Drew, Drew, Drew. Sometimes there's just not enough reassuring I can do for that girl. About a month ago she wanted me to cut her hair into a short bob. She was certain, positive, insistent. I knew it would come back to bite me. She loved it the first night. Then the next day she didn't like it at all but by the evening she loved it. Now she asks every day how fast it takes for hair to grow. "Will it be to my shoulders by Christmas?" No, it won't. So then she comes up with the logical conclusion that it will never grow and I can't convince her otherwise. Finally, I'm so sick of it that I tell her that she's right, it will never grow. I had hoped that that would make her realize how ridiculous she was being. It didn't work. So then I had to reassure her for the next few weeks that hair does grow. And I made her promise not to ask about it again. That didn't work either. She is a very persistent, worry-prone girl. I love her.

The girls have been having handstand contests daily. They make a score sheet with tally marks. It's pretty cute. They are really loving gymnastics.

One day I had Isabelle Greenhalgh here for the day to play with Gillian. When I came upstairs they had made a movie theater out of my bed and invited all of their stuffed animals. Even had a bowl of popcorn on the bed. So cute.

We finally got the tree up. Once again I feel like we have too many ornaments on it but the kids love the variety. It is also a bit on the lopsided side. And I have a little tree by my "office". I think that we need a couple more trees for all of the ornaments.

The End.

Goldfish Swine Flu

Why do I let the kids sucker me into having pets? We've had the fish for a year and a half. On Sunday they started dropping like flies. First Drew noticed one "laying" in the fake seaweed. It was kind of fuzzy looking, kind of like a rotting orange. Then another one died the same horrible death. So I figured the last remaining goldfish and small minnow would surely follow the next morning. Sure enough the big goldfish didn't look so good the next morning. It was hovering near the bottom of the tank and kind of swaying back and forth helplessly. Minnow was darting around. So I called Rebecca to ask what she would do. She said to just flush it while the kids were at school, even though it was still alive. And she said to flush the minnow and tell the kids that it was like Nemo and they would make it to the ocean through the sewer pipes. I don't know if my kids are that gullible. And also, that didn't happen in Nemo, that happened in Flushed Away but it wasn't a fish it was a rat (I think). I couldn't do it! So I went to the gym knowing that when I got home it would have died. Nope. As soon as I went to the fish tank after the gym it swam back and forth desperately as if saying "clean my water lady! I'm breathing my own poop!" When the kids got home I said if they wanted to keep the fish they had to help me clean the tank. Of course Drew jumped right in and we cleaned it out and changed the filter and saved their lives. Just when I was really looking forward to having no fish tank responsibility. I did feel pretty good about the rescue though.

Mother of the Year

No, I am not Mother of the Year.

This was a weird week. The kids had Tuesday and Wednesday off for Veterans day. So we decided it would be a good time to get their cavities filled and teeth cleaned. Gillian has about 6 cavities. She was very brave when she got her teeth filled. You would think that a dentist's kid wouldn't have cavities. The funny part is what happened leading up to going to the dentist.

I had Joelle's four kids over in the morning and was going to drop off the six of them to Joelle's while Gillian went to get her cavity filled. I called everyone to pile into the Suburban to go. A bunch of little girls and two boys got in so I left. When I got to Joelle's to drop everyone off and take Gill she asked where Drew and Sophia were and I told her I was pretty sure that they got out and ran to the back yard. Then I left. Before I got to the end of the street she called and said "So Drew and Sophia are still at your house." I told her no, I was sure I just dropped them off. Then she said that Evan had told her that the girls didn't want to come so they just stayed home. Wow. Then I realized that I really didn't remember seeing them in my car. She went over to get them and they had locked themselves out of the house and were running around outside. At least they were ok. But I felt stupid. I guess my mind has been very preoccupied.

family fun

Saturday was a typical Crockett day (hard manual labor), not a Greenhalgh day (no manual labor). We had the kids put on their rain gear and work clothes and come help us "prune" the tree in front. We took the pruning very serious and now it looks like a crazy short haired tree. It was seriously out of control though and Darren just cut up to where he could reach with the chainsaw on a 6 foot ladder. No more raking leaves! So happy about that. Gavin REALLY enjoyed using the chainsaw and I pretended that it didn't worry me at all. But in truth I am a typical mother and the sound of a chainsaw in my 13 year olds hands was not at all comforting. Especially when Darren told him "don't use the tip of the saw, you could cut your leg off". Or at least that's how I heard it. Then Bryan brought over his chipper shredder which Gavin also liked and that made me imagine fingers and arms being chewed up and spit out the other end. Sometimes I let my mind run wild (another Crockett thing?). But we did get a lot of work out of Gavin. Usually he gives us about 20 minutes tops, but he spent hours out there on Saturday. Drew helped for quite a while and Gillian raked a few leaves. Whew! What a day.

In the evening Darren and I went on a date which consisted of picking up his suits from the suit shop, having a taco from Taco Time and splitting a Dr. Pepper. We just get more and more exciting in our 40's! Then we came home to find the girls asleep in our bed surrounded by chocolate wrappers and their halloween candy bags. We should get a Parents of the Year award.

Wheat intolerance

I got a call from the school nurse today. She was chuckling as she told me about Gillian's visit to her earlier today.

Gillian: "My belly really hurts because I only had chocolate for breakfast and a sausage for lunch. I couldn't eat the pancake because I can't tolerate wheat."

Nurse Deb: "Well, I only have Cheerios, which have wheat in them."

Gillian: "I just only had time to eat chocolate this morning."

Nurse Deb: "Why don't you get up earlier tomorrow morning so you can eat breakfast?"

Gillian: "ok"

Nurse Deb: "Do you want to go back to class now?"

And off she went. Funny, I didn't know she had a wheat allergy.

Halloween

The kids were so excited for Halloween. We had our Trunk or Treat at the church on Wednesday and then trick-or-treating on Saturday. Double the candy, double the fun. Gillian was a ballerina, Drew was a vampire and Gavin was a teenager wearing a blank mask with blood coming out of the eyes. Somehow I can never quite figure out what Gavin is trying to be. Gone are the days of him being a firefighter or caveman.

And I was a fairy.

12 days later

It is now 12 days post surgery. Hard to believe I looked this bad last week but I sure did feel bad. I still don't feel great. I'm a bit achy around the eyes and have intermittent stabbing pains in my nose. In 2 days the doctor is going to take out the plastic splints that are way up in my nose and I admit that I'm a bit scared. He's not the gentlest of physicians, especially when it comes to putting long metal tools up my nose. And he usually says strange things to NOT put me at ease. Like when I ask him if it's going to hurt and he says "it won't hurt me a bit but thanks for asking, that's very kind of you." And then it usually hurts like crazy. Then, when his nurse pokes her head in the room to look for someone and he says "there's no-one in here but us chickens." What does that even mean? Kind of a funny guy. Or kind of not, I can't decide. Anyway, sooooo looking forward to Monday.

In the beginning (above)

And today