Zieht uns hinan!!

I sing with the Larimer Chorale here in Northern Colorado. It's an audition, non-professional, community choir. Wherever we've lived, I've always found a choir like this: Buffalo, San Jose, Syracuse, Salt Lake City. It's a great outlet for me, and even if the quality of the group isn't very high, singing the great choral masterworks (Brahms Requiem, Beethoven's 9th Symphony, etc.) is still so enriching. It's like getting to see Michaelangelo's "David". Really. It's been such a privilege all these years to sing in community choirs. Sooo, back to the Larimer Chorale. It happens to be an incredible group. Mostly, it's incredible because of the conductor we have right now. He's so skilled. Every rehearsal seems like part private voice lesson, part musicology lecture, and part stand-up comedy routine. It's so great.


So, this past week we got the once-in-a-life-time chance to perform Mahler's Symphony #8. It's sometimes referred to as "The Symphony of a Thousand". It has two full choirs, a children's choir, an extra brass choir, a huge, beefed-up orchestra, and NINE soloists. For it's premier performance, there were over 1,000 people on the stage; hence, the nickname: "Symphony of a Thousand". That's why it was a "once-in-a-life-time" chance to sing it. It costs so much to produce, and it can be such a logistical nightmare to prepare and perform that it's not done that often.


It was such a thrill. When we were in California over Thanksgiving, the San Francisco Symphony performed it under Michael Tilson Thomas. My parents, Catherine, and I went up to see it. We were totally blown away. As the conductor of this weekend's performance wrote in the program, "Mahler's 8th is not just a symphony. It's an event. It really is the original surround sound." He was right, too.


The Symphony has two parts. The first part is a setting of an old chant text, "Veni Creator Spiritus". The second part is a setting of the final scene of Goethe's "Faust", a sort of meta-physical look at man's attempt to overcome his own self and weak tendencies. The last words are my absolute favorite: zieht uns hinan or lift us higher. Mahler's 2nd Symphony has a choral part, too. It's referred to as The Resurrection Symphony, and the last movement is about being lifted or resurrected. I love that one, too. But somewhere in my lowly, little soul, I think that the miracle of being able to overcome my own personal weaknesses through the Atonement of Jesus Christ will be a bigger and much more difficult miracle than the miracle of the Resurrection. Here are the words at the end of the symphony. I just love them.


Lift your eyes!
All that is earthly is only an outward symbol;
That which is inadequate, here will be sufficient;
That which is inexpressible, here will be manifest;
The Eternal Feminine (the Virgin Mary, or as I like to interpret it, the grace of the Savior)
Leads us higher!


If you ever get the chance to see this piece, really you should go see it. It's only about 80 minutes long, but it's magnificent in its message and its emotional force. What an awesome week...which leads me to talk about how this week was possible.


We had 3 hour rehearsals Thurs night and Fri night down in Bolder which is about an hour away. Then, there were the two performances: one on Saturday night and one on Sunday afternoon. Tim had some training in Bend, Oregon, so I needed to find some child care. If you count up those hours, you find a pretty hefty babysitting bill at the end of it all. So, I called up my lovely mother a couple of months ago to see she if she was up to the task. She said she'd come out and have my Dad join her. They could babysit during the week and then go and see me perform it on the weekend. They love Mahler, too! So, Tim flew out Wed afternoon. Mom flew in Wed afternoon. Dad flew in Friday morning (We picked him up and went over to the Denver Zoo. Why, you ask yourself, would Caroline choose to go to the zoo after a 3 hour standing only rehearsal the night before, knowing she had another that night? I should have known when I saw the 2 dozen busses in the parking lot that I was destined to not enjoy our trip to the zoo. Why don't I see these things coming? Anyway, to say the least, I was a cranky mommy at the zoo, so no one enjoyed themselves. sigh...). They watched the kids. Tim got home Sat afternoon. We got some babysitters and headed down for an evening of Mahler in Bolder. It was such a great night. We had a nice dinner at this Italian place on Pearl Street, and I still made it on-time for my 6:30pm call. Phew!


So, I'm still recovering from all the excitement. Little phrases of the music keep floating through my brain. It was so wonderful. But now, back to reality: I spent all day cleaning. (My ulterior motive: if I get the house totally clean, then I can justify putting time and energy into my flower garden idea. Why do I always need incentive to clean?)


Blicket auf! Zeiht uns hinan!! Lift your eyes. His Love/Atonement lifts us higher!!

And....here are some random pictures from the week. I think I even got some at the zoo before we all fell apart. Poor Grandma and Grandpa...

I got to chaperone Miles' class field trip to the Water Treatment Plant, another perk of Grandma visiting. I don't get to do this kind of stuff enough. It was fascinating. I just kept on imagining a James Bond movie or something. You could really see how someone could do some serious damage to our infrastructure if they wanted to. Do you all have drums of clean water in your food storage? Eeeks. We only have one. I'd better get more.


That same day Lindsay had her 5th Grade Exhibition. It's a project that they've worked on since January. The central theme was "Human health is affected by changes in ourselves and in the world around us", and yes, my child chose HIV/AIDS to study. Nice, an STD. She really focused more on the microbiology/immunology of it all, though. It was fun.

Julia, looking at the elephants.

Miles and Samuel with the elephants

feeding the Lorikeets

No visit from Grandpa Call is complete without a trip to The Dollar Store or Chuck E. Cheese. The kids lucked out this time and got both. Here's from your favorite place and mine (especially on a Saturday afternoon....): CHUCK E. CHEESE. Julia's not too sure about this ride.

Miles is in heaven.

Wesley hammin' it up, and yes, it looks as though the girl behind him is picking her nose. Nice.

Lately, Wesley loves to steal my camera and take random pictures. Here, he has caught his little sister in one of her favorite past-times: taking apart Mommy's wallet. Is it scary that she already loves shoes, credit cards, chocolate, and jewelry? What a woman!!

WESLEY, self-portrait, circa 2009

Miles' 9th Birthday

Monday, May 4th, was Miles' 9th birthday. It's hard to believe that he's 9 years old. I always feel this pressure to make my kids' birthdays be extra special. I guess it's just the mom-guilt thing I've got goin'. I think he had a great birthday this year. I know I had a great time celebrating with him. I just love this kid!!

For breakfast, he ordered the Grandpa Call special: waffles with strawberries, ice cream, and whipped cream. I don't think I had my camera out at this point, but just imagine: kids + ice cream + in the morning before school = heaven for kids. I have to admit I enjoyed mine, too.

Then, I brought some donuts to school for his celebration there. After school, I surprised him by taking us all to see the new Disney movie: Earth. It's the one that was released on Earth Day this year. It was awesome and totally up my kids' alley. We were the only ones in the entire movie theater, so I wasn't worried at all when Julia lost interest and started walking around the place, talking loudly. It didn't even phase me when Lindsay started in on her antics and ran to the absolute top of the theater for some reason or another. We never quite know with her...

Daddy was able to meet us at the movie. Then, we all went to Old Chicago for some pizza. The original plan was to go to Olive Garden per Miles' request, but we were all too full on popcorn and soda to eat a full meal. Plus, the Old Chicago was right there by the movie theater. Thanks again, Dad, for being the "voice of reason" and suggesting we wait until Grandma and Grandpa are here to go to Olive Garden.

Also, this week we got the rest of our vegetable garden in. Well, not ALL the way in, but it's all completely ready for the seeds. It's even "Daisy proof". Tim rigged up a great little fence that should keep her (and the bunnies in our neighborhood) out of our veggies.

I even tried to get a little artsy in some of my pictures. I hope you're all as impressed as I was. I just switched around some of the settings on my little digital camera. Remember the one that had the mysterious black dot in the upper right corner of every picture. Well, good news: the dot is somehow gone. I have no idea how or why. I'm just grateful.

Well, I'm violating my own personal curfew here. It's after 10:30pm, and I'm still on the computer. That's a no-no.

Here are the pictures:

Miles with his make-shift blind-fold (an extra outfit for Julia from my purse) Hey, sometimes ya gotta improvise, people! :):)

Ready to open his presents

Oooohhh, the excitement: a new WII game and CANDY!!!

I know, I know. I really out did myself.

Aaand, just for fun: the kids dressed up on "Dress Like Your Teacher Day"

A fun day at the park recently

Getting the final "riggings" done on the vegetable garden

My attempt at "artsy": a spring bud on our apple tree

There's just something about a warm, summer evening. Dusk when it's still warm and kind of late is just about our favorite. Julia had a late nap, and so she got to stay up and play with brother.

Getting spoiled with breakfast in bed on Mother's Day!! I am so blessed.

It's May!

Definitely, the highlight of my week was going to BYU Women's Conference. It was nice to be relieved of the stress, work, worry, energy, etc. of the kids for a few days and just concentrate on filling my "reservoir". I flew out Wednesday night with my sweet friend Janell Lambert. I had to arrange all sorts of child-care for the kids for Thursday, but Friday, Tim was able to hold down the fort. I'm so grateful for the great profession he chose that gives him that flexibility.

Anyway, Thursday and Friday were spent in classes. Seriously, Thursday, I figured, I sat in the Marriott Center for like 9 hours (I went a couple of hours early to participate in the "Instant Choir" which was led by a friend from my BYU days. It was so fun to sing under her again.) Then, there was a couple hour break where we went down to the Smith Field House and put together hygiene kits, etc. Altogether, I think the Women's Conference assembled something like 13,000 hygiene kits. I might have been more, though. I'm not sure. It was awesome. I just kept on thinking as I folded two white towels together over and over again that these towels could be going to a hurricane victim in the Dominican Republic or an earthquake survivor in China. It was amazing.

Then, we came back for a Concert in the Marriott Center. I thought I wouldn't be into it. I'm not really one for the whole Mormon "Pop" stuff, but it turned out to be a pretty good concert. Jenny Oaks Baker played a few numbers on her violin that were seriously incredible. Then, there were a few other people who were more "pop" ish, but they were still enjoyable. I have to admit that Hillary Weeks was great. She was as much a stand-up comic as she was a singer-songwriter, and it was so nice that all of her jokes were clean and not vulgar. It was great.

I'd say the main thing I gained from the conference was a renewed committment to the basics: daily scripture study and personal prayer, regular temple worship, daily family prayer and scripture study. Nothing new and exciting, just the same thing they say to us over and over again. I'm glad for the renewed committment. It's something that has sort of been building in my life over the past month. It started with General Conference. Then, that very evening I got to sing Handel's "Messiah" with my community choir out here in Fort Collins: The Larimer Chorale. It was so enriching. Then, we had Easter which is always inspiring. Then, I was asked to speak in Stake Conference. It's been a great month for me spiritually. I've really appreciated and felt the growth that can come from fervent prayer and scripture study.

One cute, memorable story. Ann M. (as in Monson) Dibb spoke one morning. She seems to really resemble her father. She's a really natural, enthusiastic speaker with lots of great stories. Anyway, she spoke right after Sister Andersen (the wife of the newest member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles). She got up and said, "It's so exciting to hear about what your family is going through with your new calling. I remember when that happened in our family. I was 9 years old when my Dad was called to be an Apostle. At that age, it's so exciting. The photographers come to the house, and you get extra attention. But then, we've just had a life-time of sharing our Dad with the world, and it's been wonderful. As he's gone out and been magnified through his service, he's come home and shared all that wonderfulness with us." Can you even imagine how much they've had to share their dad/husband? Wow. Anyway, I obviously paraphrased what she said, but that was basically her sentiment. It was just so cute, I thought.

I don't think I took any pictures the whole weekend. I didn't even bring my camera. Oh well. Who wants to see a picture of the boring Mom anyway. :):)

Here's a funny recent picture of a time when I thought I had finished bath-time for Julia, but she, apparently, had other ideas. Here she is after I'd already gotten her out and lotioned and dressed in her jammies. I looked away for one second, and there she was: right back in the bath with "Wabby", as she calls Wesley.

Another Week

As I type this, it's pouring rain outside. To me, rain is the sound of winter. I still can vividly remember lying in my bed falling asleep to the drum of raindrops on the roof above. It's funny to think that this California girl has now lived through winters in Utah, Russia, Buffalo, and Colorado. I have to say that weather isn't a huge thing with me. I like the variety that comes with each of the seasons. And I think I'm saying that honestly.

This week was full again. Mainly, we had the usual busyness of school for the kids, work for the parents, etc. If this is truly my new "Owens' Family Journal", I should write a little about what we did.

The kids had no school on Monday. Lindsay had a play date, so the boys wanted to do something fun. We decided to go to Fort Fun! It's sort of like a Chuck E. Cheese experience, plus they have bumper cars. I even remembered to throw my camera in my purse (yes, Mom, I finally have one. Does that mean I'm grown up now?). So, you ask yourself, where are the pictures? I took my camera out of my purse and went to turn it on and realized: no batteries. Sigh...Maybe next time.

Tuesday and Thursday morning it was my turn to "teach" Joy School. Wow. It's a bit crazy sometimes. Some of the kids aren't quite ready for anything really structured, so I try to keep my expectations low. We made "Stone Soup" on Thursday. That was fun. Wesley enjoys it, but he is already looking forward to his new pre-school that he'll start this fall.

Wednesday I finally got the piano tuned. The guy opened it up and found that the damper rod had bumped off and fallen on the hammers. Hence, the clumps of keys that haven't been playing lately. Nice. Also, that afternoon my neighbor and I rented an aerator and aerated our lawns. I'm still sore through my shoulders and triceps. I guess I should add lifting weights to my exercising.

No week would be complete without a trip to the orthodontist. Lindsay seriously busts something off those braces of hers once a week. That orthodontist is going to really regret offering to do the braces for free for our kids. It looks like each one of our kids will need them. Neither Tim nor I ever had them.

Friday and Saturday we got a vegetable garden going. We de-sodded a nice chunk of our back lawn and are pretty much ready to plant some tomatoes, zucchini, and any other vegetable we can think of. Tim keeps on trying to think of the veggies that are expensive in the stores. He's funny.

I got a picture of the kids this morning after church. I had them in their Easter/Spring outfits. The picture turned out okay. My normal camera (besides being found ocassionally to be without batteries) has some weird dark blotch in the upper right corner. I used the still shot on the video camera. It doesn't do well in some lighting. Anyway, here's the picture.

Plus, here's a totally cute video of the best bed head this side o' the Mississippi!!

Another Try

Really? It's been almost two months since my last post? Pathetic! I think I figured out how to go "private", but I never seem to have enough time to get everyone's emails together and type them in. Excuses, excuses. So, for now, I'm just going to go back to trying to document our crazy, little, imperfect, perfectly wonderful life!

Easter in Buffalo

We decided to take a trip to see family in Buffalo. Tim's Grandma Shirley (Mom's Mom) passed away on February 13, and we just felt the need to be close to family. He had a chance to go out in February, but we just all really wanted to go out and be there for each other. We thought we might even get a chance to be helpful and clean up a little of Great-Grandma's house, but who was I kidding. Anyone with 5 kids in tow is really not going to end up being a lot of help in the cleaning up department. Grandma Helen is always so sweet and accomodating, but we really do totally take over their house when we visit. It's nice now with some of the kids a little older. They get to go over to Uncle Kevin and Aunt Sandi's house for a sleep-over. Such a treat. Anyway, a little synopsis of the trip:

Thursday AM: Left the house at about 4:40am and felt like we were okay on time. Somehow we TOTALLY miscalculated. It was a longer trip into the airport from the long-term parking PLUS a longer wait to check in bags PLUS a longer security line than we've seen in a long time PLUS well, I guess we just should have left a little earlier. After the last stop on the train, Tim just said, "Run for it, hon. I'll get everyone and everything. You just go tell them that we're here." I bolted and ran for the gate. I go running up to the gate, and the lady said, "Are you the Owens?" "Uh, yes." "Go run to the boarding spot. You barely made it." I run over there. The guy was like, "Are you all here?" I said, "Yes, they're very close." He said, "Well, they'd better hurry." I ran back out to the hallway and could see them all like 150 yards down. "RUN, you guys. They're gonna leave without us." It was so seriously crazy. How did we underestimate so badly on the time. We finally make it down to the plane, and the flight attendant literally said, "He sent you down? We can't take you." Thankfully, the other one was nicer and said, "It's okay." Anyway, are you imagining what is just about to happen? We have to find seats for 4 kids and 2 adults on a plane that is basically full. Tim and I found seats across from each other. Miles was 2 rows up on my side. Samuel was 2 rows back on my side. Lindsay was 2 rows on Tim's side. She wouldn't sit down because she has a phobia of people throwing up. She heard someone's story about someone else throwing up on a plane (thank you, Aunt Catherine), and now she refuses to sit next to a stranger. The available seat was next to some unsuspecting guy and his young daughter. I could feel that Lindsay was about to throw a fit (isn't she 10 years old, you say?...gotta love her), so I just tell her, "Most people don't throw up on planes, Lindz." Then, I turn to the guy (this is with a whole airplane full of people waiting for the annoying family of 7 that showed up at the absolute last minute) and ask, "Excuse me, sir, do you usually throw up on planes?" He just looked at me, puzzled, and replied, "Uh, no." "See, Lindz. Now have a seat." She did. Phew.

On the three hour lay-over in Chicago:

Who gave that baby a chocolate marshmellow bunny?

Tim had the kids doing "airport art". Did I mention that it was a three hour lay-over?




The flight was actually totally easy. No one was sitting next to anyone that they could bicker with. Tim and I thought that even when we arrive early for a flight and get to pre-board with kids that we should still strategically place them singley through-out the aircraft. I'm sure people wouldn't mind...hee, hee.



Thurs PM: arrived to find Aunt Sandi, Ryan, and Shaylyn waiting for us. Let the cousin time begin...For all the moving around we've down and for however badly I feel for my kids because they haven't ever had best friends that they've had since pre-school or whatever, one thing they do have that will always be a constant in their lives is cousins. And boy do they have cousins: 6 on the Owens side (plus another dozen if you count the cousins' cousins) and 16 on the Call side. It's really great on the Owens side because they have older cousins that they can really look up to. Ryan will be 18 in May, Lynette and Nathan will be 16 this year, and Mariah turned 14 in March. They're all great kids and good examples to our guys. It's awesome.



Since we were so late for the flight, two pieces of our luggage didn't make it with us. Tim and I drove the hour back up to the airport later that night, and I think it was one of my favorite times of the vacation. We had Wesley and Julia sleeping tightly in the backseat. The other kids were "sleeping" at Kevin and Sandi's, and we just enjoyed a nice, peaceful drive.


FRI AM: The boy cousins are doing track, and since Tim is still the Pioneer High School Record Holder for the Triple Jump, we thought that the track team would enjoy a little visit from him. J/K, of course. Tim just thought it'd be fun to see Ry working on his pole vault, and Nathan work on his long jump. They're both doing great. I even got a little jog in, too.


PM: I took Helen, Lynette, Mariah, and Sandi up to Buffalo to do some shopping and treated them to The Cheesecake Factory. Wasn't that nice of me? :):) The cheesecake was so good. Snickers, Low-Carb with Strawberries, and Chocolate Truffle. Plus, Lemon Raspberry and Peanut Butter Chocolate to take home for the guys. No pictures. Someday, I'll remember everything...


For dinner, we went out to a Fish Fry. Whenever I visit Buffalo, I have to get all my food groups. Pizza and wings. Fish Fry. Beef on Weck. Yum.



Sat AM: went to a Sugar Shack. It's the building below a maple grove where they collect all the maple tree sap and boil it down to maple syrup. This particular Sugar Shack has a pancake house, too. All you can eat pancakes and real maple syrup. It is the best.

Everyone having a taste of the actual maple sap. It tasted very faintly sweet. I wonder who ever thought of boiling it down so much to get that awesome syrup.



The boiler. The normal one is much bigger, but we were there on the last day, and this was just the very last bit that they were boiling down in this small boiler.


On the wagon ride into the maple forest


Do they have great smiles or what? Hmmmm, he should be a dentist. :):)




Miles ended up winning the "spoon on the nose" contest.

They take a sample of the maple syrup that they boil down each day and display it like this. The darker the shade of amber the warmer the temperatures were at night. This year was the exact opposite of usual. It was warmer in January.

Sat PM: potluck at Kevin and Sandi's. More cousin time.

Sun, Easter: Tim spoke in Church. We had a nice dinner at Grandma Helen's house.

The troops are ready for an Easter Egg hunt in Grandma's backyard.

Miles and Samuel

Lindsay and Julia

Wesley, reaching...

Does that look like the face of a boy who loves his cousins?

(This was before they had the fun idea of smooshing their cute little faces into the whipped cream that was on the delicious pies Aunt Sandi made...)


Lindsay tries to look as weird as possible for pictures. For this to be a true Owens Family Journal, I figured that I better just start posting the pictures of her even if she looks less than perfect (although she can never look less than perfect in my eyes).

Mon: visited Grandma Shirley's house. More cousin time.


Tues: headed home and made sure we were plenty early.

Something new

Okay, so for my Mom's generation of moms, it was the photo album that always hung over their head as the project that needed doing. It was the project that the we as kids resented that she never did. How many boxes of unmarked pictures are in her garage? But I am now slowly realizing that my own kids are going to resent that I wasn't more diligent with our family's blog, especially considering that I could just write a little bit about what we do every day or so and then print up one book per year. Voila!: Our family's history in print. I've been uncomfortable, though, with how to do a sort of journal/family history without sharing too much personal information. Sooooo, I've decided to go private and really put some effort into this blog-o-world. I think it would be so cool to have a blog book per year of the Owens Family's Adventures. Now, how do I go private? Hopefully, I'll be more successful in that endeavor than I was in trying to upload the puppy videos. We'll see. One final picture to remember us by:

PUPPY LOVE

Ask me how much I love our new puppy. Today, Wesley was enjoying a bowl of oatmeal. He got distracted as three year olds do and ended up tipping over his bowl of oatmeal on to the kitchen floor. Before I even had a chance to get all worked up and mad (did I mention that the kitchen floor is my least favorite job?) about the kitchen floor being smeared with oatmeal, Daisy ran in and licked it all clean. Seriously, I love this puppy. hee, hee

February

Hey, since I'm always about a month late, I thought I'd be a month early this time instead. True to life :):).

I feel a little like a poser actually having a "cute" background on my blog, but I went for it anyway. Maybe it will inspire me to blog more.

We finally got a new camera (we lost the our old one at the zoo this fall...sigh), and now it seems to have some kind of smudge on the lens that shows up on all our pictures. We also got a new digital video camera (we've wanted one for years. The ol' high 8 one we've had since Lindsay was a baby just seemed so old school.), but now we can't find the box it came in that has the battery charging stuff. Lovely. Are those good enough reasons to not have posted anything for a month?

We've all been trying to get back into the swing of things post-holiday. It's taken a while. We now finally have a box on the washing machine specifically for any more Christmas things that we happen to find in random spots. I'll probably leave that there until Valentine's Day. Sad but true state of affairs around here.

We've all cycled through the winter cough/cold.

The puppy keeps us on our toes, but overall, she hasn't been too much trouble. Tim and I both frequently catch ourselves accidentally enjoying her. Although, I have been offended now several times when she has chosen to go and snuggle to sleep on HIS lap on the couch in the evening. The injustice!!

Well, if I find my camera, I'll post something.

Christmas 2008

Someday I'll get it together...Okay, who am I kidding here. So, this summer I figured out that I can't get three kids ready for a smooth first day of school if we take a trip to Buffalo the week before and only leave ourselves one day to prepare for the first day of school. Lesson learned: don't go anywhere the week before school starts. Well, this Christmas season I learned that when you take a somewhat last minute trip to California with 5 kids for Thanksgiving, you're going to be a little behind on Christmas and all its trappings. At least I didn't stress out over it too much. And we had an awesome Christmas even if my delicious home-made gingerbread house pieces are still un-assembled and the 5 pounds of Christmas candy I bought to decorate the gingerbread houses with are still in a bag on the counter screaming out my name. Here are some highlights:

I know it sounds kind of un-Coloradoan, but we just go to the local grocery store and pick out a tree. We've done it three years in a row now, and they are great trees. Our first year in Colorado we went up to the mountains to choose a tree, but they were all a little too "Charlie Brown" for us. We ended up going home empty handed. Now, our new tradition is the unraveling of the tree. You pick it out looking like this:


And then, you pull on the string and watch the shape of your tree appear before your very eyes. It's quite exciting. It's become a "moment" in our family.

Here they are all, waiting anxiously for the "reveal".





My brother Matt and his family made a trip out to Colorado all the way from North Carolina. They spent the first part of the week with Leslie's brother and family down in Castle Rock, and then, they came up to our house for the second part of the week. That meant that we got to have the world's cutest little baby Jesus star in our family nativity program. He was so adorable. When the program was over, and my Mom was done playing the piano, she finally had a chance to turn around and see Baby Dean. He looked so angelic my Mom almost started crying. He really was so sweet, even when his cousin, Julia, thought the whole point was to shower him with gifts. He just sat there all peaceful. Literally, Julia slammed like 6 gifts down on him, and he just sat there quietly smothered in gifts. It was so cute. I think I have a video somewhere. Here watch me be techno and find it for you. First the still shot:





Now, I'm off to find the video. We got a new digital video camera for Christmas, by the way. Wow. It's nice. Okay, I just watched the video. Excuse how long it is. I don't know how to edit videos yet. Some of you will enjoy every second of it. You others can just stop watching when you get bored. Excuse also my loud voice. Eeks.






Then, of course, the picture of the Christmas pajamas. We loved having Clive and Van be a part of our evening. By now, I think, that Baby Dean had gone to bed.




Then, the priceless videos of some of the moments of our Christmas. Yes, we did get a trampoline. And, yes, we did get a puppy. I guess I should just devote one whole post to the puppy. She really is cute. See for yourself.



The arrival of "Daisy" as she is now named was anticipated by the whole neighborhood. We had our neighbor watch her for a few days before Christmas, because the breeder was from a few hours away. Her daughter lives just a few minutes away, so I picked her up on Monday morning. Jessi, the neighbor who watched her, was so nice to help us out like that. Anyway, you can see at the end of the video how into it everyone was. It was a great moment.



I was an anxious wreck the whole morning hoping that no one would be too disappointed with what was under the tree, not realizing the other presents that were waiting for them in the backyard and at the front door. My brother Matt was so great and helped Tim put up the trampoline late Christmas Eve night. It was FREEZING out there. Leslie and I did our part, too. It was so fun to have it all ready for the kids to discover the next morning.






All in all, it was a great Christmas. We are so blessed. Please know that we count you, our dear family and friends, as some of our greatest blessings.

Okay, I'll try again later on the videos. It was taking way too long.

BIG HUGE UP-DATE

Well, let's see...all I have to up-date is Halloween, Julia's First Birthday, Thanksgiving in CA, and if I don't get my act together, I'll have to blog about Christmas, too.

So, here are some pictures and remembrances:

We got our pumpkins fairly early (a Cub Scout troop at the school does a pumpkin walk) but finding time to carve them was another story. We ended up doing it on Halloween afternoon. It was such a beautiful day. We got to do it outside. I think the final scraps of pumpkin goo finally disappeared. Phew! We did a bunch of the tracing kinds. We had a vampire, a spider, a gravestone, and a traditional Jack-o-lantern, if my memory serves me correctly. Regretfully, I didn't get a picture of them when they were all done. I was lucky to even run up to my bathroom at dusk and grab as many little votive/aromatherapy candles as I could find and throw them in my pumpkins.
As for costumes, we went sort of "ghetto" this year and not intentionally. The Halloween parties at school were on Thursday afternoon, so of course, Thursday morning the kids were tearing around the house trying to come up with costumes. We (mainly Tim) had convinced them that we should try to be frugal this year and just make up costumes from stuff we already had around the house. Mistake #1. All week long is Red Ribbon Week at school. So, every day there is a different way to dress up. Crazy Hair Day, Wacky-Tacky Day, etc. This craziness brought us to Mistake #2. We were searching, frugally, for our Halloween costumes Thursday morning five minutes before we should have been at the bus stop. Nice. Are you envisioning this with me? Sigh. Well, Miles came upstairs and to his credit, came up with a costume that had both Tim and me belly laughing. He was Darth Vader's Mom. Sadly, again, I have no picture. Maybe I'll make him dress up in it again this afternoon and just take one. It was so hilarious. He had on the Darth Vader mask and head thingy with a long, blonde wig and one of the dresses from the dress up box. The dress kind of has a rip in it, so I asked him if he wanted one that had no rip. Should have known. "No, Mom, this way it looks like I got in a fight or something." Miles.

Lindsay came up in a hula skirt and some other concoction of weirdness. Samuel was a little more conventional and chose (with a little urging from mother) to use the vampire costume that Miles had two years ago. Wesley used an old, neon green, "mean" spider costume. Julia had an adorable witch costume (that turns out was totally uncomfortable and almost too small for her. More on that later.)

So, they got off to school. They wore those costumes for the Halloween party at Church, too with Lindsay kind of copying Miles' idea and using the other Darth Vader mask thingy with a short, gray wig and dress to become Darth Vader's Grandma. Ask me about Miles' reaction when she won a prize in the Costume Contest at Church with a costume idea that she had gotten from him. Ahhh, the wonderful life lessons one can learn from one's siblings....

Anyway, that brings us to Halloween. Lindsay still felt like she didn't have a costume, and Miles' Darth Vader mask was sort of digging into his face uncomfortably. So, I took them both to Goodwill. Lindsay quickly found her costume: a grape. Yep. You read right. A grape. See photo. Miles couldn't find anything he totally liked and was ticked that Lindsay again ended up with the long end of the stick. (Really, son, you're jealous about a grape costume. OK.) He and Tim finally found a weird, scary costume thing downstairs that ended up being perfect for him to run around and collect his 10 lbs of candy in. Also, at Goodwill, we found a cute little, comfortable, cow costume for Julia for 75 cents.

Wow. That was a long explanation about the Owens' Family Costumes for Halloween 2008, but you know, it is no way could explain to you the amount and intensity of emotional drain it was on me. Next year, it's back to the old reliable: go to a store and buy a darn costume 2 weeks in advance, so there's no last minute head-ache. But I might add the Goodwill as the new place to go. Seriously, a totally cute, cow costume for 75 cents.

Here are some pictures:



You can see Miles hiding behind the gravestone, Samuel as a vampire, Wesley: neon green "mean" spider, Noah (our neighbor, whose Mom MADE that costume), his brother: Luke, Lindsay the Grape holding Julia the Cow. How cute is she!

Here's Julia in her uncomfortable witch costume:




Some after Halloween festivities:



Okay, now on to Ju-bee's First Birthday. What is it about first birthdays? They just melt my heart. It signifies sort of the end of their babyhood. It's a big milestone for the parents, especially the nursing mommy. You made it through that first year of labor-intensive, sleep-deprived care-giving. The one year old is also just such a delicious little person. Each one of my kids at one year old has just been the epitomy of cuteness. Anyway, enough about that. Here are some pictures. I was good and kept things simple. We just invited over our friends, the Gulers. I bought one little thing for her and then had the kids go downstairs and find something she would like and wrap it. They did well. She had so much fun.













Now, Thanksgiving in California. It was so fun. The kids had so much fun with their cousins. I think they consider their cousins to be their best friends on Earth. I'm so happy for them. I know I will always remember so fondly my memories of cousin time as a child, and I still consider my cousins some of my best friends on Earth, too. :):)

Here are some pics:

Cousins, cousins, everywhere.

Dinner together

Julia does this funny hug thing that just cracks me up. Uncle Chris' tickling is making it even more fun to her than normal.

Thanksgiving Dinner

And, of course, no trip to Grandpa Call's house is complete without a dip in the spa.