Harmony

One of the things that makes this season both wonderful AND extra-busy is Harmony.



Let me tell about Harmony. It is a group of women, usually 12-15 of us, who sing in a service choir. My mom is the founder and although she is no longer singing with us, the spirit of her vision lives on.



We practice every Thursday throughout the year, except summers. We pay dues, and we hire babysitters so we can actually practice. There are usually 15-20 kids in the nursery. There are no age restrictions or "try-outs" to be in Harmony, and all but one in our group go to church together. It really is a fascinating concept.



We have a spring season and a Christmas season. We usually learn 6-7 songs in three part harmony (I sing second soprano). We perform to senior centers and convalescent homes/hospitals.



Our motto is SISTERHOOD, SINGING, SERVICE. And that is truly the epitome (one of my fav words by the way) of what we do.



On an even MORE amazing note, my sister Lindy has joined Harmony this season. Miracles do happen! I wondered if it would ever happen since Lindy is NOT comfortable singing...but I knew she'd love Harmony despite that "little" hang-up...and I also KNEW she could sing. It's been so fun to have her in it with me.



Today was our second performance day of the season. This means we meet at the church at 8:30 am, dressed and ready to go. It's definitely a challenge, and a sacrifice...but also a blessing.


Many in our audience can hardly see, sit, or speak. They are old and worn down. It can be a sad sight. But occasionally you will see someone tapping their foot or singing the lyrics and their face will just light up to the music....and THAT moment makes it all worth it. You can tell their spirit is lifted and touched.


So, today we were at a convalescent home (see pic below). We started singing a beautiful slow Christmas song. All of the sudden, an old man by us started BAWLING. And the people working there started tearing up, and then basically our whole group was bawling! It was just very touching and it really gives perspective on the cycle and purpose of life.

Another fascinating part about Harmony is that we ALWAYS have a few babies with us each season we perform and the elderly people LOVE it so much! This season is a record breaker with 5 babies in tow. It's a lot of work for us to load up our props, our sound equipment AND 5 little ones! But these babies steal the show!

So, thanks mom, for having such a grand vision and fulfilling it! It has touched countless lives - both IN and OUT of Harmony!

O Christmas Tree

Yes, its that time of year again. I love it!

We got our Christmas tree last night. I love to get it as early as possible so we can enjoy it as long as we can.

We found a tree farm nearby and found a perfect one for $45. Seems to be hard to find a good sized one for less than that these days. It is THE most fresh and full tree we've ever had. Last year, our tree was prickly and half dead from the beginning. It never even drank the water! "

Fresh trees are great. The smell, the experience, the memories. But, there is still the lingering thought in my mind...should we get an after-Christmas fake tree for 75% off? And then it would already have beautiful lights on it, and it would be in our garage for any day we want to whip it out! No messy clean up! But I just can't seem to make myself DO IT....to let go of the tradition of going to get a tree.

Tonight we got all excited to decorate the tree, but when we pulled out the lights, EVERY strand did not work! What?! But since Tucker had to run off to church for mutual, we'll finish it up tomorrow. I LOVE to see things through the kids eyes. It is so magical and exciting. Jordyn had to call my mom tonight because she wants to know when we're going to decorate gingerbread houses. Its GREAT to re-live the excitement through the children. I love it!

Blogger Can Bug

OK, so I know beggars can't be choosers....and I know I shouldn't complain because Blogger is free!

But I will anyway.

Here are a few of my blogging pet peeves:

• I wish you could browse and choose more than one photo at a time.
• I wish you could upload more than 5 at a time! (What's wrong with drag-n-drop?)
• I hate how easy it is to accidentally delete a pic from a post once you've uploaded it.
• I wish the posting screen was a full screen, instead of a little 4"x4" square.
• I wish the background width was easier to manipulate on each template....sort of how they've made it easy to change the page colors.
• I wish you could choose patterns for your background instead of just one color.

What do you think?

Thanksgiving 2007!

This year was our turn in Utah for Thanksgiving. So we began our 12 hour adventure.




A break down of the family. Tucker's parents, and his siblings in UT are: Lynda Ann (5 kids), Jeff (5 kids), Maren (3 kids), then Derek is in China, Spencer (1 child) is in Colorado, and Lyndsy (1 child) lives in Arizona).



My sister Carly just recently moved to UT with her 6 year old Alyson. Lindy (2 kids), Kristy and Ryan are here in CA with us.

Anyway, the family is definitely growing and Jeannine (my wonderful Mother in Law) made a delicious feast for all 25 of us who were there. She even made this fun Turkey out of fruit and veggies!

While in Utah we were able to see just a few loved ones. One of our stops was at my life-long friend Tara's new house. Tara is family to me and it is always too short when we have time together.

Tara and Bill have three kids ages 10, 5 and 8 months, and all the kids (including cousin Alyson) had lots of fun playing in the basement while we visited. Thanks Jade!

Thanksgiving was at Gam & Pa's house and the cousins PLAYED a ton! Here are some of the girls coloring before dinner.

Tucker and two of his sisters, Lyndsy and Maren

Enjoying the feast...

I just get a big kick out of these two little redheads. Cousins Peyton and Brock (he's 2 months older). Can you tell which is which?

We were also able to squeeze in a trip to see Tiffany and Eliza. Eliza and Peyton are 8 months apart and as you can see Pey loved Eliza. By the way, Eliza talks more (and clearer) than any 21 month old I've ever met!

It's crazy to think that we used to be two college beach bums at BYU-Hawaii....and now this!

I was also very lucky to be able to meet up with Mike and Elisa and baby Calli. There were honestly two of the nicest, genuine people I've ever met. It was fun to get a peek into the special story Carly shares with them. Thank you guys for doing that!

Tucker and his Dad went to the BYU vs. Utah game. WOW, what a game! BYU likes to win in the last minute, so that made for quite the exciting (and sad) game for our Utes.

Next was another big get together (way out in Stansbury Park) where Aunt Annie had lots of fun things for the cousins to do. We also did a little party for Lexi since it was officially her bday and there were, of course, games afterward.

Pa and the Birthday Girl!

And lastly we were able to see Carly and Alyson's basement home on our way out of town. Alyson, Jordyn and Lexi sure love eachother!

And our final stop out of town was Great Grandma Shirl's house. She and Grandpa Milt (both 85) are in St. George, so we love to stop in and see them. Shirl always treats us to quite a spread of food and some fun memories. The girls loved her electric piano. We also got to see Tucker's Aunt Vicki and cousin Jen with her cute family.

Whew. And then we were on our way home. Eyeballs falling out and all. Sadly, I did not get to meet Katie's baby Luka this trip....which was probably good because this cold I/we have is pretty fierce and is NOT leaving me/us! I'm on the 9th day.

It was a great Thanksgiving and spending it with the ones you love is the greatest blessing there could be!

NEEDED: Post-Vacation Vacation

I always have such mixed feelings when I come home from a big trip to Utah. They are:

1. I want to blog all 200 fun pictures

2. I am so freakin' tired I need a vacation from the vacation to recover.

These two feelings don't coincide very well together.

Usually on the 4th or 5th day of the trip, I start to feel "done". Not done seeing family [ I have the greatest in-laws in the world]. But "done" with things such as:

• no sleep
• baby on stairs
• a head cold
• sick baby
• living out of suitcases
• 24 hours round-trip driving
• being T-I-R-E-D
• did I say no sleep?
• our car DVD player breaking

Last night it was midnight and we were hitting Barstow CA - only three short hours from home. But the holiday traffic was still around and I was cross-eyed with exhaustion. We decided we better get a hotel. We got settled around 1:00 am.

At 1:45 Peyton was crying and awake.

Got to sleep around 2:30.

At 6:45 Peyton was WIDE AWAKE and made sure her other 4 family members knew it!

Woohoo, nice 4 hour nap! Back on the road home!

We got home at 11:00 am. Tucker left for work an hour later and I stayed home to unpack and take care of tired/fighting kids and baby throw up everywhere. All the while I was deliriously tired.

See what I mean?

I have our first Harmony performance in the morning and family pictures in the late afternoon.

Sounds like I'm trying to kill myself off, huh?

But we had a GREAT Thanksgiving and the kids loved seeing their cousins (in Utah, there are 12 on Tucker's side and 1 on my side). They absolutely LOVE it!

Whew. Okay. Had to get that out and now I can move on to some trip posts.

Happy Birthday Lexi!

My dear sweet Alexis Leilani....

Today is your 4th birthday! What a big girl you are! Thank you so much for being such a light in our family. I love your sparkle, your humor, your happiness and your giving personality. You are such a great little sister and big sister!!

***********************

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEXI!!!

***********************

Actual Birthday!!!

1st Birthday

2nd Birthday

3rd Birthday

Today!

I LOVE YOU LEXI!!

(pics of our Thanksgiving trip coming soon)

V.I.P.

Lexi was the Very Important Person today at pre-school.

This means she gets to:

• Bring a snack to share


• Wear the special cape and lead everyone in opening songs, etc


• Pass out Snack


• Bring something for show-and-tell
  

She has a lot of anxiety about things like this....but secretly she likes it. She'll complain and cry that she doesn't want to do it. But then she'll answer all my questions like...

ME: "What do you want to bring for show-and-tell?"

LEXI: "My pauper barbie."

ME: "What do you want for snack?"

LEXI: "Chocolate chip cookies."

So that's what we did. And she did a great job.

I have to laugh because when Lexi is embarrassed, she can have the most un-friendly face on. And it was captured great in this picture!

Season Finale

All I can say about the time I wasted watching (or more like listening while I was doing other things) the Bachelor is....

WHAT THE F-R-E-A-K???

Welcome Baby Luka!

Ryan, Katie, Cooper (3 1/2), baby Luka and Savannah (5)


Check it out HERE on Karla's blog. One of my closest friends of 20+ years, Katie, has her baby this morning! It was a surprise...he was nearly two weeks early.

Welcome baby Luka, all 5 lbs 14 oz and 20 inches of you!

Adventures in Hair Color

So, a few nights ago, my 18 year old sister Kristy called me and said "Hey, I want to go back blonde, what should I do?".

I told her to be really careful because I've heard horror stories from Carly, who has done hair for like 8 years, about color correction. The story usually went like this: person dyes their own hair, doesn't like it and tries to dye it again, turns green/grey/ugly, and person desperately goes to stylist, person spends 6-8 hours in the chair, and person leaves with semi-damaged decent looking hair and about $200 poorer.

I saw flashes of this being Kristy's story.

So I offered to go to Sally's Beauty Supply with her (we got there 15 minutes before it closed). We got back home and I figured I was in for a late night of experimenting.

Little did I know that over the next 27 hours, we would spend 12 of them ON HER HAIR! We had no idea what we were getting in to.


There were several points where we both wanted to cry...feeling quite devastated.

We tried and tried and tried....and I think an angel from heaven literally came down and magically made her hair turn out good. Because when I took the final foils out, it was 11:00 pm and we were both totally OUT of ideas. We could not believe our eyes that it actually looked great!

Here are some pics from our adventure.....

Kristy was done with her three month stint of dark hair. She wanted her platinum blonde back!

So we began our adventure with a color remover soluation...

I thought I'd join in the fun and add some of my own high and low-lights

Ummmm, not QUITE the color we were going for....we'll keep trying....

OK, so we got it lighter...but it had a VERY orange/yellow barbie doll tint to it.....

so, back to the drawing board (or kitchen).....

Many, many, many steps [and hours and bleach and color] later, which I didn't take pics of.....here is the final product! Not the platinum blonde she had originally wanted, but it was a fun and pretty change from the DARK. She has a ton of highlights and it looks really good on her.

I tell ya, it was QUITE the adventure!

Settle This

What do you think?

Is this cute? Or is this just mean? Help settle this for us.

Flashback Friday

Jordyn 2004 (2 years old)

Peyton 2007 (1 year old)

Pumpkin Yummies!

I'm a baker at heart. I mean, I don't MIND cooking meals....and I do think I'm a good cook. But I really LOVE baking....breads, cookies, desserts, etc.

And because I eat SO much (too much) of what I bake, I'm always looking for ways to make it healthier without sacraficing taste.

This time of year I especially have the urge to bake. And I especially want to bake pumpkin stuff.

I've made a few pumpkin bars/bread recipes this fall, and I finally found one that I like! I modified it a bit (less oil, more pumpkin and whole wheat flour) to make it healthier. But it stil tastes great! You can add raisins, nuts or craisins if you want, but I like to serve it with none other than Cream Cheese Frosting (THAT I don't make healthy, sorry).

Here's the recipe. I love to make huge recipes so I can deliver some to other people....just to keep with the whole Thanksgiving feel of the season. So, here you go!

Pumpkin Spice Bread/Bars
(this is a large recipe)

1 Big Can (29 oz) canned pumpkin
2 cups sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups water (you can sub ½ cup water for lemonade or orange juice)
1/2 cup oil (vegetable or canola)
1 cup applesauce
6 eggs
5 cups all-purpose flour (I like to use wheat flour)
3 teaspoons baking soda
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon ground cloves (optional)

This makes 6 loaves. Cool and wrap with saran wrap.
OR you can bake in a large cookie sheet (this recipe will probably fill 2 cookie sheets)

(Optional) Top or spread it with cream cheese frosting:
1 8 oz package cream cheese
½ cup butter
4 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla

Today

Things I love today:

My girls playing "school" out back in the beautiful 70 degree weather.

As always, Jordyn is the teacher

Who doesn't love the fall leaves? The colors are breathtaking!

I love our lemon tree! Look at these beautiful lemons!

And I love this cute little baby trying to pick the lemons.

Peyton really watches her big sisters! I looked over at her today and this is what she did all by herself! Purse on arm and baby in hand.

Things I DON'T love today:

The barren trees, like this crepe myrtle. It used to have such vibrant colors all over it!