My Five Sons

I wanted to name this post "Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch" but when you spell Marc with a "c" it just doesn't look right. "Marcy Marc and the Funcy Bunch" See? No good.
The point is, this post is about Marc and his boys. While we were at his mom's house for Christmas she showed us some pictures of baby Marc. The similarities between Marc and our boys are unreal. So, for fun I decided to post pictures of Marc at the same ages as our boys for comparison. He's often said he thinks the majority of our children look more like me and my family and that most of our boys are "Momma's boys". After seeing these comparisons, though, I don't think anyone can argue that these little guys don't belong to their Daddy.

Tobias and Marc, ages 9-10 months:

Benjamin and Marc, age 2:

David John and Marc, age 4:

Gabriel, Elijah and Marc, age 6:

If you need help figuring out who is who, let me know. I think I can tell them apart. :)

So This is Christmas

I confess that I was not excited about going to Utah for Christmas. I dreaded the drive through the snow and I was frantic with preparations. I was stressed out about how my boys would do in someone else's house for a whole week and, more importantly, how our host family and house would cope with the strain of our five. I needn't have worried. Well, except for the driving part. That was bad.
Anyway, Christmas in Utah was truly wonderful. There were so many moments in which I wish I could have just pressed "pause" and frozen them in time. However, since I don't have a freeze ray, I will just have to record some of my favorite things here in hopes that I can recapture those moments when I read this in the future. So, to me, this is Christmas:

Laughing with Lora and John about so many random things.
Attending church with Oma, Opa and the Flinders.
Watching how amazing the Flinders kids are with our boys.
Hearing Gabe's sudden realization that, "Hey! Everyone here is related to us! They are all part of our family!"
Singing Christmas songs with Rebecca a capella in two-part harmony.
Killing it at a morning zumba class, after I got over that whole altitude difference I-can't-breathe thing.
Visiting our dear friends in the hospital. All the boys wore their minion hats that CJ gave them. We brought a lot of smiles to those who were spending the holidays at Primary Children's in Salt Lake.

Getting to see the Conleys again, our former neighbors and parents of Elijah's fiancee. Love you guys!
Watching our darling niece, Maya, play with "the five boys" as she always called them. She was truly a saint when it came to sharing her toys and rolling with the rough-and-tumble play style. She didn't smack anybody until the second to last day of our trip. I'm sure they deserved it many more times.
Taking the whole family to see "Frozen". It's a good thing our extended family filled most of the theater because our boys made some very loud comments during the film. When the snowman said he didn't have any bones, David John shouted "It's true!" and when the ice castle broke Benjamin yelled out, "The castle breaked and the girl died!" *Spoiler* Don't worry, no one really died. She was merely unconscious.
Celebrating Marc's birthday with a date to Tucanos and to see Catching Fire.
Marc's birthday dinner with the whole family. Can we say French onion soup made by Marcus?
Cute kids opening their Christmas Eve pajamas.

Group hugs with cute cousin Maya.

Little children on Christmas morning. Who could ask for anything better?
It was Tobias' first Christmas. He liked tearing paper and trying to mouth everyone else's gifts.

One of the favorite gifts were these amazing super-hero capes made by Grandma. They wore the capes all morning.

I borrowed one so I could try my hand at being a supervillain. They call me Mean Mommy. Maybe my mom will make me one in black for my birthday.

Eating slightly crispy but still delicious banana-chocolate-chip muffins. This may have to become a Christmas tradition.
Opening gifts from Marc that always come with an adorable clue. See if you can guess what these are: To: My Past, Present and Future, From: Your Scrooge (A Muppet Christmas Carol) To: My Prince sess From: Your Meteor (The Little Prince, out of print English translation) I love that man.
Napping.
Singing Christmas carols in the car with our boys. We did a lot of driving and our boys would serenade us. "Angels We Have Heard on High" was a favorite. Benjamin's version of Jingle Bells was particularly endearing. "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. Oh what fun a bumpy ride and horse and soap and sleigh. Hey!" Benjamin also liked to sing the ABCs. The problem with that is that his ABC song never ends. I believe we heard it for at least 10 minutes straight on our drive to Salt Lake. "A B C D E F G, H I J K L M N O P, Q R S, T U V, W X, Y and Z. Now I know my A B C D E F G...." You get the idea.
Christmas dinner with the incredible Dutton family.
Seeing the lights on temple square as a family. The boys had seen some footage of the lights when we watched the first presidency Christmas devotional earlier in the month. They were in awe when we got to see the lights in person.

We ran into an old high school friend of mine while we were there, Brigette. It was so fun to see her. It turns out that we both married men named Marc (although her hubby is spelled with a "k") and we both have five kids with the oldest being twins. What are the chances? Only in Utah, right? She took this family picture for us.

All of the boys were fascinated by the fountains and statues as well as the lights. We tried our best to keep them well away from any water, but we let them get up close and personal with the statues. Here, they are all gazing at some shepherds and sheep.

Everyone thought this representation of the new star that appeared in heaven was beautiful, but David John clearly missed the symbolism. He exclaimed, "Look Mom! It's a party hat!"

Eating lunch at the Black Sheep Cafe with Marc's siblings. Bless Meagan for watching all of the kids.
Experiencing the incredible artwork of Carl Bloch at the Sacred Gifts exhibit. I was blown away by his paintings. Prints just cannot do them justice. It was as if the paintings were illuminated from within so brilliant were the colors and contrast. Just amazing.
Grabbing dinner at an old haunt- Burger Supreme.
Shopping with Lora and Nancy while the boys played "nerd ball". Scoring a cute dress for $5 that Lora just happened to have a matching cardigan for? Amazing. I was grateful to have the shopping assistance of two fashionistas.
Talking far too late into the night with Lora.
Meeting the newest family member, baby Finn.
Taking family pictures with the entire Ricks clan. It was chaotic but actually enjoyable. Fotogenix is amazing and our photographer was the best I think I've ever seen in dealing with kids. Phenomenal. The pictures turned out great.
Feeling really hip while eating lunch with bikers in a cafe inside the Harley Dealership. (Thank you Jen!) They had free kiddie motorcycle rides. The boys were ecstatic. It didn't hurt that the kids meals were served in a cardboard truck and included a toy motorcycle. Much cooler than McDonalds.

Spending the afternoon and evening just being with family, making photo books with the kids and chatting up a storm.
Sampling a variety of rootbeers and discovering that Berghoffs of Chicago is delicious while Always Ask for Avery should probably be named Never Ask for Avery.
Hugging. Lots of hugging and goodbyes.

Good times. We love our family. Next year, I'm asking for a freeze ray for Christmas so the good times never end.

When Heck Freezes

As I mentioned in my last post, we drove to Utah for Christmas. On the way there, we drove overnight with the intention that our children would sleep through the majority of the ride. This did not happen. We ended up driving for 16 hours in icy conditions with frequent white-outs due to the gusting winds. Marc drove, white-knuckled for most of the way while our children screamed and fought in the back. During only 2 out of the 16 hours was everyone sleeping and quiet. At some point, Marc made the comment that this is what hell would be like if it ever did freeze over. I wrote this commentary on December 20th during that never-ending night of driving:

Driving through Montana.
Stopped for gas in a place called Forsyth. No food. We have to drive to Billings, an additional 90 miles to find something to eat.
The boys have turned feral.
Benjamin screamed for 30 minutes straight because he wanted someone to open his package of fruit snacks. Unfortunately, no one could understand what he wanted until he had made himself so upset that he said he was going to throw up. We asked David John to pass the vomit bowl to Benjamin, but he didn't so Elijah grabbed it instead. This, of course, resulted in a fight about who got to hand said bowl to Benjamin. Elijah won which sent David John into a deep despair and he started crying. “I need a hug!” he wailed at 30 second intervals. Since we were currently hurdling down a somewhat snowy highway at 80 mph, me climbing over two rows of seats to give a hug was not an option. Enter Tobias, who chose this moment to loudly proclaim that he was very very hungry and sick and tired of being in his carseat. The triumvirate of crying increased in volume and pitch until Elijah started shrieking, “Quiet!” because the poor kid was trying to watch the Rudolph claymation classic, gosh-darn-it.
No one listened. David John had now been crying so long and hard that HE exclaimed that vomit was imminent. We called back to Benjamin to give David John the puke bowl, which sent Benjamin into a fresh wave of tears, “It's mine!” “It's David John's turn for the bowl,” I calmly explained, “if you need to throw up later he will give it back.” (Just to clarify, no one had actually thrown up yet.) David John got impatient and made a grab for the bowl. Thus commenced an epic tug-of-war and shouting match. “I am going to throw up!” “No, I am going to throw up!” each cried louder than the last while the bowl was wrenched back and forth.
Marc and I were snorting with laughter at this point. What else could we do? We asked Elijah to intervene on David John's behalf because he has a history of throwing up when upset. Elijah tried, but David John was distracted by Elijah reaching for the bowl and in that moment Benjamin regained control of the coveted bowl and held it upside down high above his head proclaiming, “I am going to throw up in this bowl!” Good luck with that kid.
The screaming continued for a while by all parties until Marc convinced David John to accept a hug from Elijah in lieu of Mommy. Some bribery with Swedish Fish didn't hurt either.

So, for the moment, peace. Maybe Santa should bring each kid his very own personalized Barf Bucket.

Fail La La La

It's official. I was a holiday failure this year. Christmas tree? Nope. Christmas lights? Nope. Christmas cards? Ha! Don't make me laugh. I haven't sent Christmas cards out in... well... since high school? Maybe? Still, I usually manage to at least put up the tree and set up the nativity and hang SOME lights and Christmas decorations. What, you may ask, on earth was I doing? You may, fairly, point out that last time I posted my kids were wearing Halloween costumes. Where have I been? WELL, let me tell you. It went like this...

Starting in November, if you wanted to know where I was, rehearsal would have been a fair bet. I played Mary in the musical Scrooge and we rehearsed A LOT. Marc was starting to wonder if he might be a single parent. It was all good fun though and we had a great turn out for our performances in early December despite truly frigid temperatures. We're talking windchills in the -30s. I call that snot-freezing weather. 'Cause when you walk outside, you guessed it, your snot freezes. I mean your nose suddenly feels very rigid until you walk back inside a heated building and your schnoz becomes appropriately soft again. So strange. Anyway, in the musical I got to wear this fancy little number:

Notice that my friend Malea, who did the musical with me, is wearing a cute but modest Victorian dress while I am wearing 30 lbs (that is not an exaggeration) of red and gold brocade and ruffles. I lived in constant terror that the sheer weight of the dress would cause me to fall over at which point I would be mistaken for a settee and sat upon.

When I wasn't at rehearsal, I was reading books for book club, teaching Joy School, and continuing the grand experiment of cooking with whatever comes in my bountiful basket. I took these wonderful photos of fresh coconuts with the intention of doing an entire post about them:

I was GOING to talk about how I'd always thought of coconuts as a feminine fruit. They are subtle and sweet and shredded coconut is just so pretty. Also, there's the whole image of coconut swimwear for mermaids or castaways. And then, I was GOING to tell you how I've come to the conclusion that coconuts are actually a man's fruit. Preparing those bad boys to be eaten requires a hammer, screwdriver, oven, potato peeler and mandolin. It is serious business. Also, not once did my coconuts split into two beautiful and completely even halves. Do you see those jagged edges? If I am ever a castaway (or a mermaid), I think I will stick with swimwear made out of palm fronds thank-you-very-much. I was going to write about that, but I was too busy.

Oh yes, I was far too busy taking children to doctor's appointments to get checkups and flu shots. I was too busy laughing at David John's antics. He stared at this poster for a long time while we were waiting for the doctor:

Finally, he asked me if that is what happens to you if you are bad at the doctor's office. A part of me wanted to say "yes" to ensure his good behavior but instead I busted a gut and then tried my best to explain to him what the poster was showing. He also made me chuckle when the doctor asked him what his last name was and he confidently replied, "chubby cheeks".

Also, in late November this thing happened where Gabriel and Elijah turned 6. Wait! What? Look at these cute boys! How can they be six?

This is the ultimate birthday picture. They still have their birthday cake on their face and they are laughing really hard about the "Happy Burp Day" cards that Grandma sent. The cards burped the entire song each time you opened them. They experimented with listening in stereo and having the cards do a round. It never got old and every guest had to experience the awesomeness of the cards.

You can see, right, that with all of this going on and then having Scrooge performances plus Marc being on call in early December that I was way behind on my Holiday to do list by the time I came up for air. I threw myself into Christmas shopping and making stockings, because by-golly it was about time my family had some homemade ones, as well as crafting some homemade gifts. I also had a trip to Utah to plan and pack for, all while combating the destructive forces of five little boys. I kept intending to decorate but it never happened. The one decoration we did have out was a toy nativity set I purchased for the boys. However, our house was so un-Christmas like that Mary, baby Jesus and the donkey took off after living in our house for two days. We still don't know where they went but they didn't even take Joseph with them. The poor shepherd, angels and wisemen ended up having a very awkward little party in the stable and it's entirely my fault for lacking in Christmas spirit:

I'm pretty sure those wisemen are trying to decide if they can return their gifts since the birthday boy isn't there and hey! Are those angels gossiping? You are supposed to be above that ladies. At least the shepherd is comforting Joseph.

Benjamin also sensed my distracted state, and used this time of extreme busyness to start a bad habit of sneaking into the food storage room and chewing open containers of food like some starving rodent. I thought, for a while, that we had a very strange mouse in our house with a penchant for fruit snacks. During one such adventure, Benjamin chewed open a box of rice krispies and then decided to "let it snow" all over the computer.

Meanwhile, I was upstairs sewing stockings that I made out of 2 pairs of jeans that I am now too small for (yes!). I am not a seamstress to begin with, but add to my initial lack of talent a baby that constantly unplugs your sewing machine and tries to plug it into his mouth instead (Tobias! How many times must I tell you that your body does not provide enough electricity to run this sewing machine?) and a 4-year-old that changes the settings every time you run to the bathroom to vomit because your body has chosen this very inconvenient time to have stomach flu (What the zig zag stitch? Why is this thing on high speed?) and you get some very special results: 

Why, yes, they are fully lined. Thank you for asking. And yes, some of them are patched because certain persons took a pair of sewing scissors to the fabric after it had been cut out and there wasn't enough to recut it. What was that? No, you cannot find these on Etsy. No amount of money would make it worth making them for other people when I had to let my children run feral while I was sewing them. If I ever change my mind and do make some to sell on Etsy I will make them sound fancy like this:

Each stocking is made from eco-friendly reclaimed denim. Patches, a variety of stitches, and some asymmetry lend these stockings a sense of Christmas magic and whimsy. Pretty good, huh?

Anyway, I am happy to report that we did make it to Utah for Christmas and that Lora and John, who we stayed with, had a beautiful tree and Christmas decorations. So even though I was a holiday hazard, our Christmas was still lovely. I guess I should make a New Year's resolution to do better in 2014. Then I won't have to sing Fail La La La, La La La La.