Christmas

I hope everyone had a good Christmas. We did. A few highlights:

Family! PaPa and NaNa were here for all the festivities. The kids had been counting down the days to their arrival since the first of December. NaNa brought all kinds of fun things for entertainment. Poor Zack was dying to bake the Christmas tree cake and decorate the gingerbread house. He had to suffer for 2 days before we finally had the time to sit down and create. He was in his glory though. The kid loves to bake, well actually he just likes to decorate baked goods.
By the way, this sugar cookie tree might be the best sugar cookie I have ever had. The secret: cheap Western Family dough. Delicious!

Presents! Noah has had an uncanny ability to predict his gifts. Granted, the remote control car was a little obvious. But I can't figure out how he could pick up a present that I bought and wrapped while he was at school and know exactly what it was. I put a DS case and a book in a shoe box and he shook it once and knew just what it was. Weird.

Are these kids really that excited to open their Christmas pjs? I think they secretly hope it will be something fun.
I do have my suspicions about Noah though. This year was the first year that Santa brought a wrapped gift. When I went in to get the boys on Christmas morning, Noah said, "wouldn't it be weird of Santa left us a big wrapped box?" He claims he had a dream. I think he may have been doing some sleep-peeking.
The boys running in to see what Santa brought: Notice Noah is a little slower, I think it's because he already knew....This is one of my favorite pictures. I can usually count on Ben to react well to a gift. He was also ridiculously excited about the Mario toothbrush Santa brought him. SNOW!!! We have had lots of snow. On Christmas Eve we had a nice big storm. I loved it, it's my idea of a perfect Christmas Eve: to be all snuggled up inside with lots of treats to eat. Then on Christmas day we took the kids over to the school for a little sledding. Emphasis on little, it was so cold (for the adults at least) that the kids only went down a few times. I even took Zack down once. He is a little thrill seeker and would have stayed longer but the adults were wimpy.

Deck the Halls--Zack Style

Zack has been really into Christmas decorating this year. He especially enjoys all the ribbons and bows. He also thinks that anything can and should go on the Christmas tree. I have pulled a rubber band, various papers, a spoon, stuffed animals and a measuring cup off the tree. Here are some of his little decorating touches.

He makes occasional changes to the entertainment center. Sometimes he likes ribbons on the knobs, sometimes he just uses bows. It depends on his mood and what supplies he finds. He is the proudest of his idea to put bows inside the doors too. Nice touch.


Matt asked if the candy canes were new door knobs. He was quickly corrected that they are only decorations.

After this bow decorated his head, he put it in its current location.

Feliz Navidad

Last night was the second annual Spanish Immersion Christmas Concert. It's sort of an odd thing to go to for me because I don't speak any Spanish beyond the basics and they perform everything in Spanish. Some of the songs like Silent Night (Noche de Paz) and Jolly Old St. Nicholas (Mi Querido Santo Clos) I could figure out. But El Burrito Sabanero really stumped me. I figured a burrito must be a burro or donkey. Then again, a burrito is a Mexican food and they speak Spanish in Mexico so would they really name a food after an animal? So then what does a burrito have to do with Christmas? Obviously I needed help and asked the one person who should know the answer, after all he did sing the song. Noah had no clue. Apparently they don't worry about teaching them what the song is about. (I asked some other parents and their kids didn't know either). It's a fun song though, here's a little clip:


I Googled it and got a bunch of responses in Spanish. Great. A little more searching & I finally found the lyrics. The song is about a person with a donkey going to see baby Jesus. Tuki Tuki means hurry up.

But why do they eat burritos?

Holiday Hoopla

Brandon was in Salt Lake performing with the orchestra. We met up with him Friday afternoon. He is such a nice boy that he gave up going to the movie with a cute girl just to hang out with us. This is the thanks he got:
When it was dark enough and because we really like to be cold we went to Temple Square to look at the lights. Normally this is something we do on a weekday when it is less crowded. I forgot how many people come to see the lights. The traffic was crazy and so were my kids. I don't know what it is about needing to touch and climb on everything, but they were making me crazy.

Ben really thought this star had fallen down. See that garland, that is one of the things he had to touch as he walked along. I was waiting for a missionary to come along and kick us out, for him to pull it out or knock it down, or for me to lose my voice from asking him to stop.

After walking all over the Gateway and all around Temple Square, Zack was wasted.

PTA Guilt

Before I had kids I always imagined that I would be the perfect mom. I seriously thought that I would have a snack ready for my kids to enjoy when they got home from school,and that we would sit down together and happily do homework. My house would always be clean and that I would be the super volunteer mom always helping in the classroom. Needless to say I pretty much don't do any of those things, except the volunteer part. And that was by accident.

At the end of last year I was feeling pretty guilty about never going in and helping in Noah's class. I did sign up to help but no one called me and I never offered beyond that. I figured that since Ben would be in school half day and Zack would be in school a couple days a week that I had a few free hours that I could help. I filled out the little green PTA paper they sent around and signed up for anything but room mom. That would be too much work.

The PTA president was in a previous ward so she called and asked me to be a commissioner. She caught me on an especially good day and I agreed to be the education commissioner because it seemed like the least amount of work. I would have to help set up the take home reading library (by getting volunteers and making sure the books were switched out) and do a few other things. My co-commissioner is a friend, neighbor and my visiting teacher so I figured it could be fun.

To make a really long story short, it turned out to be a way bigger job than any of us thought it would be. What we didn't know is that we would be completely in charge of setting up & running the take home reading library. We have 30 teachers (K-3) that we have to send crates of books home to everyday. Before we could send the books, we had to stamp, tape and label them. We have over 600 titles and 6 copies of each title. I hand wrote nearly 3600 labels. I also created the system to catalog all the books which includes two sets 27 alphabet cards (there are 2 for A) with all the books on that level listed. Instead of a few hours a week, I spend about 4 hours a day at the school and more at home working on the library.

Now instead of PTA guilt, I have tired wife guilt, neglectful mom guilt, messy house guilt, lots and lots of other guilt. I figure now I have served time enough to last me through all my kids. Maybe in a few years I will volunteer again for something a little easier, like room mom.

Do you believe me now?

They say the key to disciplining your child is to pick a consequence and then enforce it. I am good at picking the consequence and not so good at the enforcing. Yes, I am sad to admit that I am an idle threater, and I am pretty sure I made that word up. Sadly my kids don't really take me seriously. I can't say I blame them because how can I ground them forever? Or not let them play for a month? Would I really haul all their toys to the DI?

Last week Noah's little world got rocked. I actually followed through on a few of my threats. I am on a personal mission to train my kids to pick their socks up. I can't seem to get Matt to but, come hell or high water, my kids will. I told them that every time I pick up a sock they owe me 10 minutes of work. Noah had two socks picked up and had to do 2o minutes of work. He threw a fit like you wouldn't believe: explaining sock conspiracy theories, crying, throwing things. But I set the timer and he cleaned his room for 20 minutes. It worked. I haven't found a sock yet.

We've been telling Noah since we moved into this house that we will take his door off the hinges if he slams it again. He keeps slamming his door but it's always been too big a pain to actually take it off. Sunday was his unlucky day.


His reaction was far worse than I expected. Let's just say he wasn't happy about it. Fortunately his prediction of "dying without my door on" didn't come true. The door is still off, so I don't know if he's learned his lesson. But I am feeling a little more confident with my discipline skills and eventually I might actually be good at it. At least maybe now my kids will take me seriously.

A Snowman

Hooray!! After last Saturday's snowman debacle, we finally got some good quality snowman snow. The kids had Jack Frost (he has to have a name) built within 10 minutes and had enough time & snow to move on to a snow fort.


Notice Matt in the background rolling a snowball up the hill. The kids, mostly Zack, got excited about the ease of making snowballs they couldn't quit rolling them. Of course they picked the backyard to do it and then couldn't get them up the hill. Poor Noah was so tired from the exertion he passed out. Not really- he can be a little dramatic.

Since a snowball fight is inevitable we will be prepared. Behind the fort, well I guess it's more of a wall, is a supply of snowballs. My adorable husband suggested they throw snowballs at cars passing by. Seriously. Every once in awhile he slips back into childhood and makes crazy suggestions. Beware if you drive by. If a snowball gets thrown, call me and they will be in BIG TROUBLE. I do what I can, but who would you listen to: the dad with all the awesome ideas or the mean mom who won't let you do anything fun?

By the way, see the shovel. That's the same shovel I asked Noah to put away three times . Guess where it is right now. Hint: it's not put away.

A Christmas Lift

Last night was our Christmas enrichment night. This is the fourth Christmas extravagganza I have been in charge of in the last five years. Honestly, I am a little burned out. Thank goodness I have really good committee members. We wanted to have a night that was uplifting and would help us remember the true meaning of Christmas. Mom (the creative genius she is) suggested we call the evening a "Christmas Lift" rather than Gift. Ahh, very clever. We had posters that said: come get your christmas lift, and made little gift shaped invitations (I went through 3 glue sticks making my half).

Our original plan was to keep things simple (four of my seven committee members have newborns) so we weren't going to decorate too much. Last year we went around the ward gathering alpine trees and christmas trees. The entire gym was surrounded by lit up trees. It was really pretty but it was a major undertaking. On Sunday (yes three days ago) we all realized that we were being lame and that we needed to do something. Enter Dave Fowles, a committee member's husband. He is a big fan of Christmas decorating and also happens to be an excellent craftsman. This is what he did for us. I mean he did the whole thing, except for wrap the presents though he did offer.

This is the rest of the gym. We had seating for 72 people and had one empty seat. We served chicken cordon bleu (we made ourselves, crazy idea won't do that again), baked potatoes, rolls, beans & pie for dessert.
After dinner we had a program in the Relief Society room. Some sisters played musical insturments, sang or shared holiday tradition ideas. We ended with a testimony meeting. The whole thing went well I am told. I couldn't enjoy it because I was worried about everything. This picture pretty much captures how the night was for me:
Sorry if I bored you with all the details. I have it on pretty good authority that this is probably the last enrichment event I will be planning for awhile. I thought I better document it.

Snow Day

I could be the biggest baby when it comes to snow and cold weather. I have already been complaining about our early snowfall. Generally I don't like it, but in December I crave it. Nothing puts me in the mood for Christmas like a nice big snow storm. I love it! Of course, by December 26th I am totally over it and can't wait for spring. But for 25 days, I can tolerate the coldness and slick roads.

Yesterday we had a nice, big storm that lasted almost the entire day.

Noah felt bad that Matt had cleared the driveway early in the morning only to come home and find it completely covered again. He wanted to surprise him by shoveling it. He got about 1/2 of it finished and then delegated the rest of the job for me to finish. He still took all the credit.

Zack wasn't a whole lot of help. (Side note: I am having a crazy problem with my camera transferring pictures weird to my computer. Anyone know why?)
I asked Ben three times if he needed to go to the bathroom before we got him winterized. He never did, until we were putting on his gloves. And so off went the coat, scarf, snow pants, pants, etc.
Because Utah is a dry, desert type climate snow that falls here usually has a very low water density. I learned that yesterday on a restaurant place mat. I had no idea that later in the day I would learn first hand what that meant. The climate that gives Utah the "greatest snow on earth," all that thick powder the skiers and snowboarders love, makes building a snowman virtually impossible. It just won't stick. There was so much snow that it seemed criminal not to build a snowman. The kids and I worked for a good hour and this is what we ended up with:


We are pretty proud of our snowman head. But next time we'll wait for "snowman snow" to fall. (Before you call the child protective services, Zack had gloves on the whole time. He was getting ready to go inside when I grabbed him to take this picture. See the above photos for further proof).

The Disguise

Noah has been reading some spy books lately and has come up with what he thinks is a clever disguise:



He actually goes around the neighborhood this way. He doesn't think anyone can recognize him. I hope I haven't blown his cover.

Thanksgiving Weekend

For the first time in 6 years we were able to go to Idaho for Thanksgiving. It was sort of a busy weekend but we had so much fun.


We missed Lacey and Kelli (& their families) for the meal, but we added Aunt Gail's family & Ron and Launna. This is 1/2 of our table.

Notice my boys plates. Noah is eating turkey & Ben opted for rolls. Zack was brave enough to try one bite of the spinach salad then chose to play it safe for the rest of the meal and only ate rolls too.

If you ever find yourself at a McGarry family meal, try to sit by Ashlee. She is very entertaining because she is food challenged. First she couldn't quite handle the cheesy celery:

Then, she destroyed a fancy fork by breaking it in half trying to cut the turkey. The turkey wasn't tough, but apparently Ashlee is. This little tragedy resulted in her cranberry sauce flying
up and hitting her on the neck. She ended up in tears because she was laughing so hard. Fortunately Aunt Gail wasn't in tears over the destruction of her fork.

This is paybacks for Logan. He & Brandon used to attack Matt all the time.

See what a sports family we are. Logan and Wacy are the most inclined to actually want to watch a football game, but even they fell asleep.

Lacey has never gone shopping the day after Thanksgiving. We looked at all the ads and didn't really need anything, but wanted the experience. Since we didn't have anything better to do at 6:00 am we decided to go check things out. (Sleep was a better thing to do at 5:00 when most of the sales started). We ended up at Target at 7:00 and ran right into Angie so she joined our little party. It was actually really fun because we weren't stressed out about finding certain things. The store was totally crazy and there was a shopping cart shortage. Angie tried to grab one but wasn't fast enough to beat the kid who ran off with it. Eventually we found a worker who emptied his cart full of games for us. Lacey unloaded some other possibly deserted cart (you walk away, tough luck) and between the four of us we filled them up. Even though it was crowded it was still better than trying to shop with all the kids.

This fall I have been feeling the urge to unleash my inner cowgirl. Dad was bringing the cows off the mountain in October, but we couldn't quite get the scheduling right for us to go. As luck would have it, Uncle Theron had plans to bring his cows down over Thanksgiving weekend. It was a great day in that it wasn't really windy or snowy but it was still only 21 degrees. It is just way too cold for me! Instead we drove up to bring the real cowboys & girls lunch and follow them the rest of the way.

Can you see the joy on Zack's face? He loves to ride horses. He was having the time of his life riding with Brandon.

Brandon had a hot date that afternoon so he couldn't finish the ride. I actually considered riding his horse, except Brandon was the second rider to take on Tinker because he was being such a naughty horse. Knowing this, I kept quiet and let Lacey have the fun. She is brave because from the moment she got on him, he was being crazy. I would have been freaking out. Eventually even Lacey had to trade Dad horses, so I made a good choice. My skills are very limited and even Dad admits I have bad luck with horses. Maybe next year, I can kick one of the kids off Dixie and ride.
Zack got to ride on Duke with Grandpa for awhile too. I asked him how he liked riding with Grandpa and he said it was fun but the cows kept getting in their way.

There are two options to getting the cows home from the mountain. One is to gather them and load them in the semi and haul them home. This is the other way:



All these poor people had to wait:

The final event of our stay was the blessing of little Shaylee. Isn't she so sweet?

Thanksgiving

We have a little Thanksgiving tradition of tracing the kids hands and feet to make turkeys. We normally do this on Thanksgiving day, but since we actually get to leave the state this year (thank you new job!) we did it last night for family home evening. The kids love seeing how much bigger they have grown. We also have them list a few things on the back that they are thankful for. Here's what they are thankful for this year:

Noah- scouts and candy
Ben- bed, DS, family & school
Zack- flowers, pumpkins, school & mom and dad

"Today is the day I win the pinewood derby!"

Noah has been waiting for this day since he was a spectator at last year's derby. He woke up with the bold prediction that had me worried, especially when I learned that the competition would be stiff. Max read an entire book on how to build the fastest car. Seth had been soaking his axels in a graphite bath for weeks. Thomas' engineer grandpa designed his car's shape for maximum aerodynamics. At least Noah's car looked cool. Thanks to Matt's dremel skills, he had the only one with tail lights and a rear spoiler.

Noah ended up taking 3rd in his heat. He was thrilled. In the finals he never got better than 4th. But, unlike many of the other kids, he never cried. He had a great time and won the "coolest hotrod" award. Let's hope Matt can be as good a sport when the Elder's Quorum holds their pinewood derby in January.

One Man Band

I am not supposed to see this. Zack told me not to look. He hasn't figured out yet that when he gives that warning, I look immediately since that means he has committed some sort of crime. His little plan to avoid getting into trouble backfires every time. On this rare occasion he wasn't worried about going to time out, he just didn't want an audience. I had to be sneaky to get this picture.



This is Zack's band. He plays every instrument (including the volcano/drum with the sword drum stick). He also plays some pretty rockin' guitar solos with his guitar that is made entirely out of air. That's my favorite part, except when he plays a loud one during church or in the store. He did that the other night at a restaurant. He told Matt & I that we couldn't look or listen to the performance. This is the one video I have managed to get. The lighting is horrible. But putting sub-par video on my blog hasn't stopped me before and it won't stop me now. I hope you think it's worth it.

The Evil Egypitan Song

Noah asked me to come listen to him play a new song Matt taught him. He calls it "The Evil Egyptian."



The song is familiar to me, although I might instead refer to it as the "Dancing French Women" song. ("There's a place in France where the naked women dance. There's a hole in the wall where the men can see it all.") Which made me think about how nice it is that Noah is still young and innocent. I wondered how long it would be before some neighbor kid would introduce him to the not so innocent lyrics.

Later that day I was asking Matt if he knew about the origin of that song. He thought it was just some riff. I mentioned something about Noah not knowing the words and, come to find out, Matt had never heard them either. How can that be? I have known that song for as long as I can remember; at least as long as I've known the alternate words for Jingle Bells and Deck the Halls. I thought this was another one of those songs that every kid learns. Did Matt somehow miss that lesson? Am I the only one who knows those words?? There are a lot of words that describe me, but pervert is not generally one of them. And I am pretty sure I didn't make it up.

The next day, my previously innocent Ben came in my room singing the "Dancing French Women" song. And so, in a round about way, I am now responsible for corrupting my kids (and possibly all the neighborhood kids). Thank you Matt.

Zack discovers the Symphony

I really should have been more careful. I thought he was downstairs when I opened the fridge to indulge in my guilty little pleasure. Instead, he was right behind me and immediately wanted to know what was in the shiny gold foil. Smith's kills me every year with their $1 sale on the really big candy bars. I just can't seem to resist. I rarely go seeking them out. But when they are on display: stacked, three feet high, all that delicious milk chocolate and toffee calling to me; I give in. At least now I can say that I didn't eat the whole thing myself. I guess it's time to find a better hiding place.