Gray Matter

It's not often I make a book recommendation . . . . this one is a great read.
Just make sure you have some free time, because you will NOT want to put it down for long.

What would you do if your neurosurgeon offered to pray with you? (those readers who have one). This is the story of a doctor who prays with almost every patient he takes to surgery. It describes his journey of faith & details how & when he began praying with them.
What I liked best was his description of the agony he felt when complications arose. He is an endovascular neurosurgeon and does all his work in the brain by entering the femoral artery. AMAZING!!!!! If I needed brain surgery, I would want him involved.

A few December details

1)One Monday night we watched the Polar Express for FHE.
When Edwin saw Santa, he said, "That's God."

2)For Andrew's December request, I made Spaghetti with Turkey Meatballs. This time, I substituted onion powder because
      A)I didn't want to cut an onion and
      B) I wanted my girls to try it.
They all did, and I will use it again. One of them may have even commented, "This is good."
I like the idea of using ground turkey but in reality I've only got a couple of recipes that I love with it. Send me yours if you have any that are worth repeating.

3) If each of my family members went to the dentist twice and the doctor once a year, that would be 21 appointments . . . pretty close to an appointment every two weeks. That doesn't count the orthodontist, which we are starting soon, or any sick visits.
Conclusion . . . . I better increase how often I pick up the phone to make appointments.

4) We are a hula hooping family. Today they did some timing and . . .

Andrew     9:26
Caitlin    9:39
Bryn stopped herself at 15:04. She chose to stop there--who knows how long she could keep it up. Her goal was to beat the standing record, which she easily accomplished.
Nathan 15:18
They have also learned to walk, run, and jump up and down while hula hooping. We will only post photos if we upgrade our camera. It's too slow for hula hooping photos to turn out.
I still can't hula hoop, but I'm practicing.

5)With several struggles and a little prayer, I figured out how to print address labels for Christmas cards. Not much less work this year, but it will be next year, and the year after, and so on.

6)Meal planning is much easier and less stressful than not meal planning. I've tried both ways.

7)We never carved our pumpkins. I planned to throw them out and spoke openly about it before they made it in the garbage.
Diana said, "I don't want to throw them out, I want to see them decay."
Thankfully, they had decayed enough by the time Nathan was throwing them out that he pointed to a rather unpleasant part of the pumpkin and said, "Look, Diana, DECAY."
He carried 4 of them to the garbage and saved the others for pumpkin soup. The first installment was last night. It's good. We had twin 11 year olds boys over and they asked for more. Try it.
Somehow, we'll have to fit "carving pumpkins" into the schedule next year.

8) Last December I got a card from employees at Nate's work. It said, "Thanks for the luncheon!" referring to a luncheon put on by physicians' wives. It was the first I had heard about it. I felt bad.
This year, I found out in time to contribute. I made dozens of oatmeal raisin cookies and was able to attend. I loved talking to and meeting Nathan's co-workers. They employ over 200 people.

9) We bought & decorated our tree today. Then we sang "O Christmas Tree" and some other carols. Great family time.

10) Nathan straddled the b-ball hoop at the park to put the net back on. Unfortunately, no photo, use imagination.

11) This week my mom watched Ed & Diana so I could go on choir tour with Bryn's early morning choir, the Treble Makers. They toured two nursing homes, two banks, and ended up with lunch at the mall. One boy in our group brought $29 with him. It was probably the first time Bryn ordered food for herself. My mom brought the little ones to the second bank so they could listen, too.

This Treble Maker is awesome!!!!

Santa the Veterinarian

Caitlin's assignment was to give Santa another job that he could do to "moonlight." Caitlin picked a veterinarian. She was assigned to dress him as a vet, explain his duties to him in a letter, and to give him veterinary tools.

Lessons learned:
1) Start earlier. Perhaps the night the project comes home, and not after it's already due. Hiding the project from herself and yourself isn't a good option, either. You will have to ask the teacher for another one.
2) When your daughter has an opinion about her project that is different from yours, back off. Leave the room if you have to for awhile, and come back to check on her later. It's her Moonlighting Santa after all, and it will turn out just perfect. Or at least better than expected, as this Santa's beard did.

Double digits

A certain girl hit a certain birthday this week. Earlier we joked about how we were going to turn back the clock this year and have her be younger on her birthday instead of older. I didn't figure out how to do that exactly, so she hit double digits anyway.

Her birthday was a very busy day from morning until bedtime, but we celebrated with many of the things Bryn loves. We love her!

A few things that made this birthday stand out:
New (warmer) gloves
More masking tape
Turkey pot pie
A friend party with pizza
Hula hoop
Trident "Layers" gum
New thermals
Taking doughnuts to school to share
Having enough extra to bring home to share
Boise State gear

Though I'm not . . .

a chocolate cake fan,
this one was the best I've ever had.

Of course, this is not my photo. We used a whipped chocolate frosting, instead.

Here's the link.
Chocolate cake seems to be the favorite of most of my children. I think we will use this again in the future. The fudgy filling makes it not so dry--my complaint with most chocolate cakes. More expensive than a regular mix, but definitely worth it.
Making a second one tonight for the "friend" party.

the aftermath of 41 attempts at a family photo for Christmas cards

I think we got a good one.
(And this is not it, even though it is a good one).

Every boy needs a (neighbor's) dog

For the past several weeks, Andrew has had a job walking our neighbor's dog, Tucker. Nathan went with him the first time to show him the ropes. Since then, he's been on walks with the dog three times a week. Many times he is accompanied by a sister--one at a time.

Today it was my turn to go. We got Tucker, his ball, leash, and trash bag and walked to the park down the street. Andrew played fetch with him for a few minutes and then we went on a walk through the neighborhood. It was impressive to see how comfortable Andrew was with him. Tucker is a good dog, and didn't bark at a single dog or passerby. On our walk we saw the neighborhood fox--but he was running the other direction. I've loved this chance for Andrew to grow and help our neighbor, and to experience pet ownership without the responsibility of owning a dog ourselves.

While we were out, Andrew asked me if I wanted to hold the leash.
I declined, explaining that I was on the walk to see what it was like.
"Don't you want to hold it once? That's all the girls do when they come with me, is ask me for their turn to hold the leash," he said.
I smiled about how different it must seem to have me along instead.