Christmas Traditions

Merry Christmas, all! We hope you are having a great holiday! Ours has been very relaxing and a lot of fun--the best kind of holiday, in my opinion.

Recently, a friend asked us about our Christmas traditions, and I couldn't really think of anything unique that we do for the holiday. Well, even if they're not that unique, there are a few things that are traditional for us (or becoming so):

• Reading the Christmas story together, sometimes with the help of Joseph Brickey's When Jesus Was Born in Bethlehem (which has beautiful paintings and which uses the text from Matthew and Luke to tell the story chronologically)
• Eating treat cereal on Christmas morning (breaking from the norm of oatmeal, bran flakes, Cheerios, etc. The family favorites are Lucky Charms and Count Chocula. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find Count Chocula these days???)
• Treasure hunting for presents. For L, I write cryptic riddles. ("I have four legs and one leaf but no branches") and hide the clues around the house. For the younger kids, I take pictures with the digital camera to use for clues.
• Watching It's a Wonderful Life.
  
• Watching A Christmas Carol (Mickey's Christmas Carol, A Muppet Christmas Carol, and the Patrick Stewart A Christmas Carol--but not all on the same day!)
• Listening to our favorite Christmas music: Josh Groban's Noel, Julie Andrews' Greatest Christmas Songs, and Amy Grant's Home for Christmas. (I miss John Denver's Rocky Mountain Christmas from my growing-up years. It was my mom's then-favorite.)
• Sledding down the hill at Grammy Grace's house (a tradition introduced by C's dad. Just take care not to careen into the fence or the hedge--ouch!)
• Coming home from sledding and thawing out with a steaming mug of cocoa (with the little freeze-dried marshmallows that are just like the Count Chocula marshmallows from when I was a kid. Did I mention that I love Count Chocula yet?)

Not unique, perhaps, but I can't imagine Christmas without any of it!

Happy holidays to everyone! I hope your day has been as wonderful as ours!

MOJ

See, Daddy! Santa IS Real!

I have a confession to make: I'm not a Santa Claus enthusiast.

I know it's shocking, and everything, but there you go.

Now, it's not that I have anything against Saint Nicholas of Myra--I love the stories about him. I just want my children to know that presents show up under the Christmas tree because THEIR PARENTS love them, and we budget and scrimp and save and sacrifice to make Christmas fun for them.

L, S, and R all know this, of course; they've known it for years. But J is only three, so he doesn't remember the holidays from last year. It's all new to him: the lights, the tree, the stockings...

...and Santa.

Now, I've tried to explain. I've told him how I'M Santa Claus, and I'M the one who wraps the presents and who eats the cookies that we leave out.

And just about the time I thought I had convinced him, we had the annual Christmas Party at church and (I should have known this was coming) in walked Santa Claus, jingling bells, laughing merrily, and handing out candy canes.

And while all of the children were happy to see him, there was one little boy who was beside himself with delight. His voice rang out, over the excited chatter of the other kids: "See, Daddy!!! Santa IS real!!!"

I couldn't bear to shatter the dream. He was so excited. His eyes lit up and he was grinning from ear to ear. He was nearly dancing with anticipation as he stood in line, waiting for his turn to sit on Santa's lap and chat with him. He couldn't stop asking me when his turn would come and kept telling me that Santa was real. Santa was real!

I was very well behaved. I refrained from yanking the beard off the imposter and exposing the conspiracy.

That's probably good, I suppose. Think what might have happened had I not kept my peace. Families may have been torn apart as children found out their parents have been lying to them for years. Hurt feelings. Tears.

Who needs that on their conscience?

MOJ

p.s. We're still working on the "I'm Santa Claus" thing. But ever since that party, it's been an uphill battle.

Final Relief

I'm DONE!!!! My last final exam was yesterday--two questions, nine hours, suffering beyond imagination. I hope I did okay; I won't find out until mid-January.

Either way, I feel like I learned a lot this term, and it was fun (in a sick sort of way) to go through the final exams, because it brought back all of the topics we've studied and made me appreciate how much we've learned.

For now, I'm just enjoying being done. Vacation -- now there's a good idea!

MOJ

Final Terror

Okay, so I'm forehead-deep in finals--just one exam left (on Friday), and I just finished my (possibly) most terrifying exam: Civil Procedure. Even though I've enjoyed the course and was really thankful to have had an engaging professor (as the topic could be horribly dry in the wrong hands), I have been scared to death about the exam, based largely on the deplorable grade I got on the midterm two months ago. (And, no, it wasn't one of those, "Boo hoo, I only got an A-" exams. It was more along the lines of "WHAT? Is that my PERCENTAGE? Do they GO that low?") Apparently, missing the issues, failing to manage time during the test itself, and thinking-you're-prepared-when-you're-really-not is not a winning combination.

So I've been scrambling to get a handle on things so that doesn't happen to me again. With the exam scheduled for early this morning (Monday), I've been spending some LONG days studying (which also means I've been spending days abandoning my wife in almost every one of her parenting hours of need).

Then, late Saturday night, as I was trying to cram in the last of my preparation before the Sabbath, my computer cord decided that, rather than work SOMEtimes and not others, it would like to at least be consistent, and it chose not to work AT ALL. Yes, that would be the computer that I would be using on the 4-hour exam. Yes, it's the one with the 45-minute battery life. Well, I wasn't happy about its decision, but despite a fair amount of friendly coaxing and an extreme amount of not-so-friendly threatening, I could not breathe any life into it.

So what was, up to that point, trepidation for the looming exam now became sheer terror. What would happen if I couldn't get it to work? What if I could get it to work, but then it died in the middle of the exam? Yes, they provide blue books, but I can't imagine doing the exam on paper. It takes so much longer to write things out by hand (and the teacher told us that we WOULD be pressed for time on the exam--guaranteed); plus, the computer allows you to change/edit things on the fly, which is critical if you miss something major and need to go back and put it in during the exam. Terror, I tell you. Abject horror.

Can you pray for computer cords? I hope so, because I did.

A lot.

Still, I couldn't get anything more than a flicker of life, and it would die (a) if the cord was budged at all, (b) if I blinked, or (c) for no reason whatsoever. All Sunday, whenever I thought about it, I prayed that it would go back to it's almost-always-functioning self (or even its sometimes-functioning-self). This morning--same thing. When I actually went in to take the exam, I plugged the cord in and...

...it didn't work.

Aaaaaaaaaaaargh! ("Do you hear that Fezzik? That is the sound of ultimate suffering. My heart made that sound when the six-fingered man killed my father. A desperate law student makes it now.")

In desperation, I wrenched the cord around--which I had tried, without success, for quite some time Saturday night--and suddenly, it came to life! I was intensely-but-cautiously happy and was careful not to touch it at all (or to let the planets align in the wrong way or to let the blood flow through my veins/arteries too loudly), and my power cord survived through my entire exam! No trouble whatsoever--no sign of its determination to slowly sap me of the last of my vitality.

It was such a relief.

Simple mercies--nothing earth-shaking in even the grand scheme of things, but a blessing nonetheless.

I'm grateful for that.

MOJ

Update (12/16--got a new power cord now. Phew! No more taking chances!)

Final Exams

Final exams are upon me at the law school. I've taken one already--did okay, I think--but the three scariest ones are thundering toward me in the next few days/weeks. I've got one on Wednesday (the day after my birthday--come ON!), then one on the 15th and my final Final on the 19th. In two of my classes, the final exam grade is the ONLY grade in the class--there have been no assignments, projects, etc. Just ONE shot to sink or swim! Only 12 more days, and then FREEDOM!

I can't WAIT to be done! I can't wait for a break. I've learned more about "six days shalt thou labor" this semester than I've EVER experienced before.

That said, I've enjoyed it, too. I feel like I've learned a TON. I've learned what to expect and I've got a better strategy for doing well next term. And I've learned a critical thing about myself, something that I never, ever would have discovered in any other setting: I have extremely loud shoelaces. (Amazing how the silence of a law library opens up these new vistas, isn't it?)

MOJ

p.s. Okay, so there's no telling whether I'll be able to post again until Finals are done. I don't seem to have much spare time these days. And the little time I do have is mostly filled with fearful sobbing.



Just kidding, Mom. I know how you worry.



Just kidding, Everyone Else. I know Mom hasn't read this.

Thanks

L taught the Family Night lesson this week. It was awesome. It was on being thankful -- a good lesson for the week of Thanksgiving. As part of the lesson, she split the group into two teams and gave each team a piece of paper; then she gave us 90 seconds to write a list of things we are thankful for. It was really interesting, because you think of the "big things" fairly quickly -- family, church, health, a home, etc. And then you begin to think of things that are easy to overlook when you're thinking of your blessings--things I tend to take for granted every day. Each team ended up with a list of about 45 items, things like:

1. family
2. friends
3. church
4. laughter
5. mp3 players
6. beds
7. blankets, and pillows
   
8. chocolate
9. other treats (cookies, cake, brownies, etc.)
10. grass
11. cell phones
    
12. bike helmets
13. brains
14. computers
15. airplanes
16. trees
17. the internet
18. ribs
19. wireless internet
20. music
21. cars that work
22. roads
23. indoor plumbing
24. seasons
25. flowers
26. scriptures
27. fire/heat
28. food
    
29. memories
30. carpet
31. refrigerators
    
32. maps
33. good health
34. DVD players
35. sunset & sunrise
36. prophets
37. microwaves
    
38. stoplights
39. books
40. chairs
41. buses
42. good movies
    
43. storytelling
44. dishwashers
    
45. couches
46. windows

Simple things--things I don't usually think to be grateful for. This week, L's lesson has reminded me to be thankful for them.

And, in a culture that focuses so fully on what we DON'T have, L's lesson reminded me of how very much we've already been given.

Try it! Take 90 seconds and actually write down things that you're thankful for. It can be an eye opening experience!

MOJ

Our Family Is Growing

This month, our family grew has grown substantially. Our newest (and feather-iest) member is Birbie, a parakeet that our friends gave us. Apparently, the family had TWO parakeets and, for some reason, that made Birbie rather cranky. She became a biter (which, as many of us know, does not make one very popular in most social circles). The pet store owner assured the family that Birbie would become a delightful parakeet again if she lives in a loving home that is (except for her) parakeet-free. As a result, the family made some assumptions about the love--and parakeet--levels of our family and asked us if we would take Birbie in.

So we have become a part of a social experiment--to see whether parakeets can be reformed or whether, once they show a penchant for violence, they are destined for ongoing lives of brutality.

There is also a human-development experiment going on--to see whether children who beg and beg and beg their dad to allow them to have a pet will REALLY live up to the lofty promises they make about caring for said pet. As a first-year law student, I naturally had L sign a contract regarding pet care. I made sure that we included the consequences for breaching the contract, and that the "damages" would involve chocolate.

Would it be unethical for me to sabotage her from fulfilling the contract?

MOJ

p.s. I'll try to post photos of Birbie and the kids some time soon.

The "Song Game Boy"

One of my classmates gave away a set of LeapFrog Fridge Phonics Magnets (FOR FREE!!!) today. I brought it home and J has had a ball with it. When he's not actively playing with it, he carries it around the house, saying, "I wuv my new pwesent" over and over.

Here's a clip of him playing with, as he puts it, his "Song Game Boy":



Man, that kid's got MOVES!

MOJ

Big Celebrity -- Little Hair

L has become a big celebrity writing little books.

A week or two ago, she wrote and illustrated a miniature comic book about a superhero named Super Crush and his arch-enemy I.M. Crush. I wish I could post it here--it was hilarious. It was followed by several more Super Crush books, some with surprising twists and each one ending with a marketing-guru plug for the next book: "Check out other Crush books!" or "Coming soon: Zombie Dance!" It's great!

The books have been an instant hit. When she announces that a new book has been finished, S and R literally race to get their hands on it first. It reminds me of the craze surrounding the release of famous books, like the Harry Potter installments. The crowds may be smaller, but the excitement is still palpable.

She keeps the books in her Li'lbrary (Little + Library = Li'lbrary), where family members can come and check them out. We all have Li'lbrary cards with our own "namecodes" and numbers, and she keeps a detailed log of which books have been checked out. She has even begun adding new types of books to the Li'lbrary, including how-to books on math and poetry. It is quite complex, and it's been fun to watch her develop this intricate system for her books! She is so creative!

Here is a video clip of her and S at the Li'lbrary--don't worry, her eyes aren't closed through the whole clip.



You might have noticed that the new celebrity has short hair -- she recently got the biggest haircut of her life. It has not been this short for years and years. And though it had grown really long and needed to be cut, she wanted to keep letting it grow so she could donate it to Locks of Love, an organization that makes hairpieces for kids with medical hair loss.

Problem is: in order to donate it, you must have 10-12 inches of hair to send. And when (a) you're only 4 feet tall and (b) you have inherited your dad's ultra-thick, frizzy hair, well . . . that means you're locked in the choke hold of incredibly long, impossibly-unmanageable hair!

So I was counting the days until we could cut it off! Imagine a nearly-36-year-old asking the grown-up version of "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" One night, she suggested she MIGHT be ready to get it cut. And before she could finish the sentence, I had grabbed a ruler and a pair of scissors and had sent 10 inches of hair flying in every direction!

(Oddly enough, the most recent book in the Super Crush series involves a dramatic haircut. Coincidence?)

Now her hair is ready to be sent off to California. And while it seems like such a simple thing to give away hair that you're not even using any more, I was touched by her thoughtfulness in providing this simple service for needy children.

She's a sweet kid, and I'm proud of her!

MOJ

Our Basketball Star

Sometimes I think I know my kids pretty well, and then they suddenly materialize with new talents and interests I didn't know about. On my way home from work one day in Pennsylvania, I saw some kid zipping down the road on a bike near our house. I knew the neighborhood kids pretty well, since our kids played with them so often, but I couldn't tell WHO this kid was. He was wearing a shirt that looked like one of S's shirts, and he looked like he was about S's size. But it was a regular bike WITHOUT training wheels, and S had never been taught to ride one of those. I remember thinking, "If I didn't know that S can't ride a bike, I would swear that's him!" Then, as I drove slowly around the kid, I glanced over and noticed that it WAS him, zooming along on his bike like he'd been riding for years. I couldn't believe it!

Something similar happened this week. S came into the house one day and announced that he wanted me to come see him play basketball outside. He said he had made about 20 baskets on Grammy and Grampa's basketball hoop in the backyard. I had seen him TRY to make baskets out there, but he can't really get the ball up to the basket with any degree of accuracy, so this was sounding like a bit of an exaggeration. Still, I went out and watched him play, and in the few minutes that I watched, he got the ball in the hoop OVER AND OVER AND OVER. In fact, he made it in almost every time! I have absolutely no idea when he picked this talent up!

He certainly did not get it from ME!

From 2008, Summer and Fall

From 2008, Summer and Fall

Click below to see him in action, though I think his estimate of the total number of baskets he's made might be slightly inflated. One thing that is NOT inflated in this video is the ball he's using!

Abacus and the Joys of Math

It all began last year in Pennsylvania, when a little girl stumbled onto the joys of math.

"Daddy, can you give me a math problem?" became a very common question around our house, and I was often surprised that she could figure out the answers in her head. One night, I gave her the problem 8 + 9, not really knowing if she could do problems whose answers were higher than 12-ish. She answered "17" so quickly that it shocked me!

"How did you know that?" I asked.

"Well," she responded. "I know that 7 + 7 = 14, and 8 is one more than 7, and 9 is two more than 7, so you take 14 and you add 1 and 2, and you get 17."

I was blown away!

Over the next few weeks and months, we continued to play "Math Games," and the numbers and problems got increasingly complex. Then we started doing algebra, though we call them "Fish Problems." They would go something like this: "If you want to buy 3 fish at the store, and they each cost $3, how much would they cost all together?" or "You have $15, and each fish costs $5. How many can you buy?"

She LOVES doing this, which is what earned her the nickname "Abacus." Imagine our delight, then, when me moved here to Utah and found an actual abacus at Grammy and Grampa's house!

From 2008, Summer and Fall

After a few lessons on how to actually use a real abacus, our Math Games turned into Math Games on Steroids. She'll do dozens of problems in a row, asking for one after another. See her in action in the video below, working on 28 + 28 + 28. (Enjoy the cameo by J.)




She's now moved on to more complex problems -- 28 + 28 + 28 is so 30 minutes ago. At this very moment, she's working on 367 + 219 + 604 -- some pretty daunting numbers. But then, she isn't a six-year-old kid anymore; she's SEVEN now!

Go, Abacus!

MOJ

Life in the Way-Too-Fast Lane

Okay, see how there are no entries from September on my blog? It's NOT because I time-warped into October, skipping September altogether (though I AM working on building a time machine, to be used principally for the purpose of allowing me to get a few extra hours of sleep at night). And it's NOT because I dropped off the face of the earth (though the truth is really, really close to that theory).

It's because I'm in law school.

'Nuff said.

Still enjoying it and learning a TON, but it feels like the workload is going to KILL ME!!! The only saving grace about the pressure is that my classmates all feel the same way, as far as I can tell. In fact, just four minutes ago, I bumped into a cluster of classmates who were comparing notes on how to get by on less sleep. I suggested that they could get all the sleep they need if they just stopped studying. They didn't find my comment very helpful; instead, they accused me of trying to sabotage them in order to inch my way to the top of the food chain. We all had a good laugh.

Hey, as long as we're developing ulcers together, we might as well enjoy it.

Aside from the whining about how busy I am, there are things I'm really enjoying about school. I've made great friends, and I'm fascinated by the cases we're studying. At dinner, I often tell the kids about some of the more interesting (or bizarre) cases I've been reading. Just a few days ago, after telling them about a 1945 case where an armchair fell out of the sky and knocked a guy out (seriously -- click HERE), R breathlessly said, "I want to be a lawyer when I grow up!"

If she does go to law school, I'll let her borrow my time machine.

MOJ

Happy Birthdays

August is a big birthday month for us--L turned eleven, and R turned seven.

I've posted a few photos in our album. You can jump there if you "click the pic" below.

Happy Birthday: First to L, Then to R

p.s. See, I TOLD you R smiles sometimes. This one is quite a smile--maybe she was making up for lost time at S's baptism. Ha ha.

Bittersweet Summer

What a summer! Now that I'm back in school, with the kids starting school this week, it's given me time to reflect on our experiences this summer--changing career paths, moving across the country, settling in Utah once again. This is a summer we won't forget!

It's been bittersweet, though--we had to say goodbye to good friends in Pennsylvania, with no idea of whether we'll ever be back there again, but we've also gotten to reconnect with old friends and family, who we've missed very much while we've lived in the East (and some who we haven't seen for years).

And family! We live near our family! We've gotten to see some of them more in the past month or two than we could in a year's time when we lived so far away. I was never particularly fond of the idea of my children growing up without knowing any of their cousins (probably because I grew up cousin-less), so it has truly been wonderful to be here and to get to spend time with them. A week or two ago, we were at my Mom's house in Spanish Fork, and J was playing with his cousin (who is about the same age); when I saw them, I was flooded with emotion and nearly started crying.

(How embarrassing!)

It just feels good to be around them all again!

I Live!

I live! A whole week of law school, and I'm still ticking. Now, that MIGHT be because this was only Orientation Week, but it still felt like school. I had class/meetings every day, reading assignments/homework, and even an exam on Friday (though the faculty said they decided to call it an "exercise" this year). It was a very busy week! And frankly...

I LOVED IT!

I found the material really interesting (as I've mentioned before) and got to tour several law firms in downtown Salt Lake City, which got me really excited about the future. One of my favorite things has been meeting my classmates--great people, several of whom have experienced things very similar to what we've been through in the past few years (and one whose in-laws live in Altoona, PA!). I'm really looking forward to working with them for the next few years (and beyond).

Olympic Inspiration

We are really enjoying watching the Olympics. My favorite so far -- by a mile -- was the men's 4X100 freestyle swimming relay. What a race! If you haven't seen it yet, it's posted on NBC's website (click HERE), though that tells you the outcome before you watch the race, which isn't NEARLY as fun as not knowing ahead of time.

One of my favorite details is that the world record was set by the US men's team during the prelims. Then, SEVERAL of the teams beat that record during the final though only the fastest of those really matters, since that is the new record. Still, it was a phenomenal race.

Inspiring!