Christmas 2009

This year was a quiet one. It was just us and Michelle T. Christmas eve day I came up with the brilliant new tradition of sending D with the little kids to a movie in the middle of the day so we could have some good daylight prep time. I also came up with a new rule that no Taylor under the age of 22 was allowed in our bedroom on Christmas eve. When they got home, Lelu asked what we did while they were gone. Lately she's really been giving us a hard time about "kissing gross with our tongues and stuff". Must be because she's 12 and noticing PDA's etc and trying to process it all. Sometimes I tend to use those kinds of comments to my advantage I told her "we ran around the house naked and kissed with our tongues". Of course, there were no further questions after that. Just to be clear - that is not what we did while they were gone.

We all enjoyed our tradition of mexican food and then opened our pajamas and made train cars. The kids were all in bed by 9, and we were in bed by 10:30. 6:30 am Christmas morning my cell phone rings and it's D waking us up after setting his alarm. I do not enjoy 6:30 but sometimes I have to give in to their excitement. It was a good Christmas, every one was happy, I wasn't scrambling on Christmas eve and I took a 2 hour nap. It's all good.

This year we had an artificial tree for the first time ever. I also did not make pumpkin rolls for the first time ever. I started shopping back in September rather than December. I actually lost weight instead of gained this year. I helped clean the temple on Dec 23rd from 10 to 12 pm. I think I'll keep these new traditions and think on "The Savior of theWorld" and "A Christmas Carol".

I do love the Nutcracker & I have Photos! 12/19/09

This year I'd been talking to my friend Kelly about going and she thought it'd be fun to take her girls Sierra & McKinley too. So we dressed them up and headed downtown to see "The Nutcracker" at Capital Theatre. One year, I took Becca and she couldn't get over the super revealing men's tights and now refers to it as "The NutPacker". I don't deny that there's not much left to the imagination - but the muscular butts on those guys............you have to appreciate those. Okay, so back to my little innocent girls enjoying these beautiful costumes and ballet dances. They loved it but I have to admit also did ask us if the men's tights were see-through because they could see everything.

After the ballet, we went behind the stage and had their photos taken with the sugar plum fairy & Clara along with the NutPackers (but they were well covered up by the girls in front of them). Next year, I'd love Ari to try out for the little "buffoons" who come out from under the big dress and do back handsprings across the stage. A friend of mine's daughter was in it this year flipping across the stage. She's a year older than Ari and goes to their school. The story of the Nutcracker has nothing to do with the birth of Christ, but I still really like making it a tradition.

2nd attempt at bringing my Family into the Christmas spirit: Hale Center Theatre "A Christmas Carol" 12/14/09

I bought the tickets for the 5 o'clock show because 8:00 is nearly B's bedtime - forgetting 5 is also his dinner time. He ran across the street and grabbed a burrito. I thought it was really great that we had front row tickets. Lelu not so much.....in fact, she put her hood up on her jacket and hid her face in B's arm almost the entire 2/3 of the play. Jacob Marley started it all scaring the crap out of her with his chains and bellowing. Mr. T loved that part but I could see him fade every time a musical note began. Then ghost of Christmas present with his bony long fingers and swirling about the stage coming far too close for Lelu's comfort was pretty much it. I did however enjoy all the songs about the birth of Christ and most of them were. Afterwards we were all starving except B and the kids were teasing and bugging each other. There was crying and whining etc etc....and I was threatening to take them home to eat top ramen - but I my desires outweighed my threats and I stopped at Friday's. Somehow this adventure didn't meet my expectations either. 2 strikes now - maybe I just need to change the rules of the game??

Lelu sings my Favorite Christmas Song 12/12/09

Camera still MIA =:-C

Lelu takes voice lessons and sometimes it's really difficult to get her to her lesson since it falls on my "terrible Tuesday", so I told my friend Sharon, who's daughter Morgan also takes lessons, that after this recital I wasn't going to do it anymore. BUT..... Friday night Dec 11th we went to our ward adult Christmas party and the Alta Madrigals came and performed for us. 2 of the girls are in our ward and we know 3 of the boys through D. I was so proud to know these talented kids personally. So then the next day at the recital, Lelu sang "Oh Holy Night". I promise I am not biased - she ROCKED IT! In fact, Lelu and Morgan blew all the other girls away with their voices. Lelu even looked like she was having a great time. I could totally picture them singing together in the Madrigals in 3 years. I now will eat my words and keep her in the voice lessons torturing myself with getting her there on Terrible Tuesday and (probably complaining) fully expecting to see it pay off! It was a total "Christmas spirit moment" for me anyway.

Ari Found My Camera & I Am Very Happy (Updated 1/10/10)

I have lost my camera & I am very sad (original date

I believe it to have disappeared into the black abyss of the Taylor triangle, along with the ONLY cordless phone, D's cell phone and my workout gloves. All of which the last place they were seen was in my house. I've been waiting to blog about my new Christmas traditions of "enjoying the spirit of the season" complete with photos I took of the first of these traditions. I will forget if I don't write about it - so no photos as of yet. Please say a little prayer I find it? THANK YOU FOR THE PRAYERS!

I tend to fantasize a lot about creating moments of love and togetherness............it goes something like this:

I planned to finish all of my shopping by December 1st in order to "just enjoy the season". I was finished in time and the first of my plans were to go see "Savior of the World" at the conference center theatre downtown. I bought tickets in plenty of time. The night was beautiful and we headed as a family downtown dressed in our best Sunday clothes. We ate dinner in the Joseph Smith building at the Garden restaurant looking out at the sparkling Christmas lights casting rainbows against the frest snow on the grounds of the Salt Lake Temple. The conversation was about our Savior and how grateful we are for each other and this season. We strolled around the temple holding hands with love in our hearts and kindness in our actions towards others. After taking a moment of silence at the Christus we then strolled over to the theatre. All 7 of us cried tears of joy as we listened and absorbed the message of this inspiring musical based on the life of Jesus Christ. In the car home, we sang my favorite Christmas songs and expressed once again our love for each other.

And then reality always sets in:

I got online to buy the tickets and they were all sold out because they'd gone on sale October 1st. I scanned the ads for someone selling theirs and couldn't find anything so I placed an ad saying I wanted some. This was really a bonus because the next day a BYU student called me & had 6 tickets he couldn't use and sold them to me for face value. BUT I couldn't get an extra one for Aub..... sad moment but I was still going to make the best of it. The night was FREEZING and we drove downtown at what I thought was early enough but all the parking lots were full. B drove around and found a spot while I tried to get our name in at the Garden. They could seat us at 7:30 (the show started at 7:30) The Roof could seat us at 9:30. So we ate at their little crowded cafeteria (I don't recommend the food!) Then we slipped & slided and froze our way through massive crowds to look at the temple lights. We shoved and pushed our way up to standing room only at the Christus with so many heads in the way of taking photos, it was useless. Once we nearly killed ourselves slipping down the sidewalks and got to the theatre, everyone there was dressed in Sunday best but us. The show began and Mr. T slid down into his chair asking me how long this was going to last, sighing and wiggling and humphing and hawing every time they broke out into a song. B was rolling his eyes and running his hands through his hair every time they broke out into a song. True Taylor's those two are through and through (as much as I like to expose them to music - genes are winning). Me, Ari and Lelu are crying after Christ is resurrected (thank heavens for my girls) and D leans over to me and says "Did you know Russel Crowe is going to be the next Robin Hood?" Pause..........huh?? A little sign of ADD perhaps? On the way home B and D decided to get into an argument about ?????? I don't remember what, but an argument nonetheless. I did get some really great photos that are lost in my camera.
And now found & posted!



Coming up next: My second attempt "A Christmas Carol" at Hale Center Theatre.

Our 2009 Gratitude Lists

Since you all got a very nice family photo x-mas card this year, instead of a homemade card including our gratitude lists. I am writing on here what we are all grateful for this year.

DISCLAIMER: ALL ITEMS ON THESE LISTS WERE QUOTED EXACTLY AS THEY WERE TOLD TO ME! The parantheses were added by me for clarification purposes.

Aub - A job she actually enjoys - Helga (the car that replaced Harriet) - and WiFi

D - Video cameras (he has a very close relationship with ours) - Family - Church (I hope not in that order but that's the order he gave it to me in)

Lelu - My family - Being in Young Women's - Earning a lot of $$ this year babysitting

Ari - My Family - my best friend Aubrey moving in up the street - Getting baptized

Mr. T - Getting Baptized - going to Caden's baptism - Earning his orange belt in karate

Me - Christ - Good Health - Great kids & husband - Mold removal - Laughter - Great friends - Kind people - Piano! - getting a family picture - Finishing my Christmas shopping by December 1st.

B - Finally after 3 sets of bad caps: Great looking new front teeth - Tazworks growing even in a slow economy - keeping up with younger stronger guys in jujitsu - K (me) finally getting motivated & slimming down

Thanksgiving, Stockings & Hooter - the Newest Taylor

Okay so I never even pulled out my camera for Turkey day this year. Enough said.........enough times!

We spent the day at Gma & Gpa's house. Thanks to them for hosting all of us. Peg, Jen and Sherisse & family made it up for the day. I made a Razzleberry pie instead of Apple and it was yuuummmy! Even if the name of it isn't well loved;-}Aub had a friend from Germany visiting so she brought him along. After spending a day at Temple Square - he was expecting "a mormon dinner holiday celebration" complete with a lot of praying, singing and talking about the Lord's love. I don't remember exactly but the conversation went from farting to pooping to a few racy things, a lot of laughing but he missed the prayer and nobody sang. I hope we didn't let him down. He also told Aub that B and I were "very young". Not knowing what his perception is on "mormon parenting ages", I wasn't jumping at the compliment. We were glad to have Kevin (not a very common German name - I asked him) join us. He was a very polite pleasant young man attending college in Ohio and if he ever comes back to UT, we'll have a prayer, sing a song and tell him the Lord loves him.

Saturday B took Mr. T to the very exciting BYU vs. Uof U football game courtesy of B's friend Grant. D went off to film a video for all of the seminary classes with his "acting troupe" and I took the girls to see a movie with the rest of the Sorenson family. The girls saw Planet 51 and the rest of us saw "The Blind Side". It's by far my favorite movie of the year. I'll be going back to see it again with B and the kids. It's that good! Then we went back to my house and decorated stockings for Roma's school to donate to Primary Children's.

See Hooter in the forefront - he's our newest pet that supposedly after being mounted on our chimney will scare away the plethora of pidgeons that unknowingly are committing suicide in the chimney. The very young cute chimney sweep that I called (and was really curious how you get into being a chimney sweep and wanting to break out into "chim chiminey chim chiminey chim chim charee a sweep is as lucky as lucky can be") told me that the birds just land up there to see out to the whole valley and then feel very warm with the gas coming up through there and just hunker down and go to sleep FOREVER! I said "don't birds fly south for the winter?" He said "not if they have a warm place to hang out in" Then I asked him how come all the birdies don't notice that their birdie friends are dead and decaying and think maybe this isn't such a good place to hang out? He said I should ask them if I ever see them hanging around. He had to clean out 9 of them! So Hooter will be a great addition to our family if he does his job well.

"The King and I" and the Best Angry Mean Guard Character!

Alta High School wrapped their fall musical "The King and I". D played the part of the angry mean guard that held down the slave so she could be whipped for trying to escape (she doesn't get whipped in case you were worried). He was also really torn up about the death of the king too. I say this every play, but I can hardly believe how much time is spent rehearsing for these, but it is definitely worth it because they do an amazing job. On the final night, gma and gpa, Aub, and the rest of the family came to see the play. Our cute back yard neighbor - Linda - who used to hop the fence on a regular basis and come hang out (she's too busy lately) had the lead role of Anna. She did an amazing job too. There were only 4 male speaking parts for this musical so D was quite lucky to get a role. Everyone was supposed to be asian (except Anna) so they all either dyed their hair or spray painted it every night. D chose spray painting but made quite a mess of the bathtub washing it out every night. He and his fellow guards were all shirtless too so they were asked to get spray-on-tan's. I got quite a kick out of explaining the spray on tan process to him. You would have thought I was telling him how to dress in drag! By the final night all the asians were fair complected again.

Next up "The Crucible". Auditions begin in 2 weeks, keep your fingers crossed and good wishes that D get's a really large speaking part. He's definitely put out the good karma, time and effort for it.