In the Past Month

Kevin is sitting in the dining room with Allie and Sami right now, making snowflakes to decorate our house for January. Allie believes there is always something for which we need to decorate the house (at least, she has believed that since Halloween)... and I think she's a little depressed that we've taken down all the Christmas decorations-- well, everything except the tree, which is coming down today, so the yard waste truck can pick it up in the morning. Sami just barely skipped over to me, a broad smile on her face, whispering (because Drew's sleeping), "Mom! Mom! Look!" It's her first snowflake. Kevin was hesitant to let her make one, since she'd have to use the scissors and all. But it worked out. She has a good-lookin' snowflake, and all her fingers are still attached! I'd say it was a success.

Except now that Sami is done, she's banging on the piano.

Thank goodness for a digital piano-- I just showed her how to use the headphones.

Today is cold... for central Florida. Currently, it's fifty degrees and cloudy. Tonight, it's expected to get down to 32, and by Wednesday night we're supposed to get down to 28 degrees. Brrrr! We came home from church, and while usually I just stay in my skirt or dress, I was so cold I had to change into pants and throw on a sweater. Kevin has tried to put on two separate sweaters, just for both of them to throw him into sneezing fits from the dust they had been collecting for the past 4 1/2 years. I told him to put on a sweatshirt, but he doesn't think he has any.

I'm not looking forward to Kevin going back to work tomorrow. He has been home since Christmas Eve. That day we spent a couple hours at the zoo, and then came home to prepare for dinner at our house with Mom and Dad Smith and the sister missionaries from our ward. While our "big" dinner we traditionally have on Christmas Eve, the fare tends to change each year. We have always wanted to try tamales, and this year we got the courage to try them.

I guess there's no "we" about it, really, since I'm the one that made them.

Kevin did get the needed groceries from the Latino foods market, where a Mexican woman noticed Kevin's items and concluded that he was making tamales. She and her husband helped Kevin find the rest of the needed items on his list, even leaving him with their phone number in case I needed help along the way.

I had prepared the tamales the afternoon of the 23rd, and then put them in the fridge ready to be steamed on Christmas Eve. They weren't half-bad! Of course, a bit more spice would have been nice, but if that's the only complaint for my first attempt, that ain't too shabby!

Christmas morning we continued our tradition of our gifts to Jesus, and opened the gifts we had under the tree. The kids had significantly fewer gifts to open, thanks to some divine inspiration received a week earlier. The week leading up to Christmas, we let the kids open a gift from extended family each day. It really worked out nicely-- each gift they opened they played with that entire day, and therefore truly appreciated, and by Christmas morning, they were left with only our family's gifts. No one was overwhelmed or burnt out, and the task of opening presents didn't seem like so much of a task. This idea had never occurred to me before, but it made for a very relaxing Christmas morning for us. Mom and Dad Smith came over while the girls were test-riding their new bikes out front, and after having lunch together, we headed over to the hospital for caroling with some friends, something which is our family's new Christmas Day tradition. We had gone caroling at the same hospital with our ward's choir at Christmastime every year while I was choir director, but since I was released, we decided to make it our family's tradition. In planning for it, it occurred to us that Christmas Day would be a nice day to go, and a day when the patients would probably be needing it the most (something else that had never occurred to me before). We had a good group of friends that joined us, and while the majority of patients were grateful for the Christmas spirit, I think our little group of singers felt grateful, too, for the way it helped us look beyond the materialism of that morning. Several times we were summoned to someone's doorway, where we sang of the Savior's birth as they smiled and listened intently from their hospital beds. Humbling.

The previous weekend we had celebrated Drew's birthday with Reddin and Lochlan, two other December one-year-olds from the ward, at a park along the Indian River. The week leading into that weekend had been rainy, just for a cold front to swoop in the evening before the party and, while blowing out the rain, bring in a pretty stiff, dry, chilly wind. In spite of the weather, we had fun downing hotdogs and punch, and Drew really loved his cupcake. Sisters Heather and Stephanie, Reddin and Lochlan's moms respectively, prepared oversized cupcakes for the boys. Reddin took a few licks and cried, Lochlan took respectable gentlemanly nibbles, and Drew, after taste-testing a few bites, shoved fistfuls of frosting into his mouth, smearing it all over his happy little face, and then into his hair. Once there was nothing left for Drew to eat, Kevin lifted him him up and ran him into the park bathroom for a rinse. Too bad our camera died just after we sang "Happy Birthday." I was able to get a good picture from Stephanie, though. What cute boys!

Later that week, we got to enjoy both the Christmas program at Sami's preschool (since it's through a Baptist church, it literally is a Christmas program), and Allie's winter holiday Kindergarten program (a lot of songs dedicated to Santa...). Both programs were cute, and both girls looked beautiful in their Christmas dresses.

Going back to the week of vacation with Kevin home... We got to visit Sebastian Inlet with Mom and Dad S. one evening, even seeing and petting a small hammerhead shark some kid had pulled in while fishing on the pier.


Another day we spend in Vero Beach, visiting the botanical gardens as well as the outlet mall for a few spontaneous purchases. Of course, one morning Kev spent with the Scouts, but since all of them showed up for once, I guess it was worth it.


And now I'm staring at that Christmas tree, knowing I need to get the ornaments put away so we can throw the tree out front. But it's so pretty. I really don't want to do it. Plus, we'll get all those dang needles everywhere...