Ben Walking

Ben has finally started walking. But he's doing it on his terms which means that if it doesn't involve either food or his mother there's less than a 15% change he'll do it. Still it's exciting to see him progressing.

Preparing for a Good Flight

It feels like I'm being pulled in two different directions. Ever since I've taken this position as a lead of a portfolio of people doing media work I have often felt under qualified to do the job well. That has forced me to my knees to ask God for help. As a result, I have grown in my relationship with him. That's the pull up that I feel.

But I also feel a pull to developing talents that gather more dust the more years I focus on doing managerial work. It feels like I'm growing tremendously in my relationship to heaven but not so much in my talents and skills in the service of others. That's the pull over. Similar to a plane that needs forward momentum in order to have the lift needed to fly to new altitudes. I feel like I'm on a steep incline in the skies as I try to depend on the Lord but I'm not growing in my talents and skills and sooner or later, I'll stall.

So I've been thinking about talents lately and what I can do to sharpen them. I made a little list of some talents that I'm interested in developing:

• Charity
• Loving kids
• Storytelling
• Encouraging
• Organizing
• Planning
• Making peace
• Baking
• Presentation
• Design
• Animating
• Drawing
• Listening
• Compassion
• Presentation
• Exercising faith
• Creating happiness
• Giving clear feedback
• Courage to do what's right, whatever the cost
• Instructional design for children
• Effective communication
• Writing
• Design management

That's the forward momentum. If I develop these in the service of others and couple that with a strengthening relationship with God. I can really get somewhere.

Worth Every Penny

Alicia has a very strong kid magnet built inside of her.

I'm so glad that we were able to take this trip this year. Money has been a bit tight lately so there was some question as to whether we would be able to do it but we cashed in some credit card rewards and a bit of cash to supplement and were able to make it happen.

On our way to the bakery

Today's use of those funds included swimming at the hotel pool, a big breakfast provided by the hotel, spongebob marathons (It seems like every time we go to a hotel there's a spongebob marathon going on. Do they do that all the time?), treating the kids to oozy yumminess from a local bakery, a pay per view version of Cars 2 while the little kids had a nap, and an evening in downtown salt lake looking at lights, a new Christmas display machine thing at Deseret Book, a scating rink, and dinner at a mall food court.

We were joined for the last part of the evening by Tam, Mark and Whitley. The kids lit up when they came along. Before that, Emily was dragging her feet but the night brightened up as soon as they saw Markie. It's nice that our kids love those guys so much. It makes for good family time together.

Vacations can be expensive but every time we go (except that one Disneyland trip when Em was a baby) the expanded bank of happy memories of family togetherness has been worth the expense. That is certainly true of this little get-away too.

Thanksgiving

 Dad was able to transport from the assisted living place to Jen's house for Thanksgiving. We transported him from Susan's car, into his wheelchair and then down the grassy slope on the side of Jen's house and into the back entrance. He sat at a table in the family room and became the center of attention during the meal. That alone is worth some thanks.

We were also able to have everyone there. With the exception of Jennifer and Richie and their kids (they never come anymore) all family was there. All 17 grandkids and a few extras including Brianna and Brent. That's becoming more and more rare with all these kids growing up, having busy jobs and even getting married in some cases.

The food was yummy. Sometimes I think Thanksgiving is more about eating than thanking. Celebrating Christ's birth is too sacred in Christian hearts to get glossed over by its more secular veneer of gifts but it seems that the luminescence of thankfulness isn't bright enough to overcome it's more temporal outer layers. I wonder what Thanksgiving would be without food and family gatherings. Probably just a few words on a calendar space that people small talk about at work.

But the thankful highlights of the day were present. Dad gave the thanksgiving prayer and blessing on the food. It was great to hear him express gratitude with similar sentiment as he has in the past. His mind is still functioning at very near the capacity he had in the past. It was also notable how much of his prayer was focused on gratitude even though he's been through this stroke and difficult moments.

Keeping with tradition, we left directly from dinner and took the family to a hotel. Despite our learning that two bedroom hotel rooms are much better for our family, budget constraints wedged us into a smaller room. But at least tonight it wasn't so bad. The trick seems to be to spend as little time as possible in the hotel room. We did that tonight by going swimming within the hour of arrival and then settling down quickly for sleep.

Decorating With Love Part 2

Alicia finished decorating the girl's bedroom today to match the festivity of the boys bedroom decorations done a few weeks ago. The theme on this room was christmas trees. She made a tree shaped decoration out of curled pieces of green construction paper and the decorated the bed frame with lights and ornaments. The girls were, of course, thrilled with her work.

Now we'll have a contest in a few weeks for which bedrooms look the most festive. Either way, Alicia will get top prize. She did a great job with both of them.

The Thrill of Christmas Lights and Snow

We heard that a snow storm was coming tonight so I got off work a bit early to go home and put up the lights on the house. I made it just in time too. I worked on it until after dark then we left to go see a play that Ada was in (Thoroughly Modern Millie) and by the time we came back a nice blanket of snow was over the shrubs, trees, lawn and rooftop.

I don't know where this positive association happened with snow and Christmas lights but it's pretty strong. Now that it's okay (mostly) to be excited about Christmas, I'm checking the weather almost every day to see when the next storm will hit (nothing next week by the way). But until then at least I have pictures like these to give me buzzes of happiness.

Another Halloween

I remember when I was in high school we did little goofy things like having one week of the school year set aside for wearing one color, theming our attire to a comic book, or wearing pajamas. We called it spirit week although I'm not sure if it really built that much school spirit. Mostly it was just a novelty to see people in different attire. It was an excuse to have a bit of fun at school.

I was surprised to learn recently that Emily's and Ethan's charter school has a spirit week too. They've don the crazy sock day, the pajama day and now the book character day. So Emily dressed up as Hermione from Harry Potter and Ethan dressed up as Splat the Cat from one of his favorite books. They had a great time and looked rather cute.

Decorating with Love

The boy's bedroom door.

Sunday afternoons have been quiet times at our house. It has at times been a nap day for Alicia and me and I think that because of that we mentally start to slow down after Church is hopeful longing for some down time. Today Alicia was very tired too so I was expecting some naps. But today wasn't like that and I was impressed with why.

The kids got the idea that they were going to decorate their rooms for Christmas and then have a contest to figure out who won. It sounded like several Sunday afternoon game and craft ideas that they invent to keep themselves occupied while Mom and Dad sleep so I didn't think much of it. I also didn't think much of their invitation for our help. We usually leave them on their own during this time and they do just fine. But this time, Alicia agreed to help them. And she didn't simply help them, she dazzled them with her decorating. And she spent hours doing it adding fun and interest to their day and idea.

This room is glowing with motherly love.

There are many times when the more noble thing would be to put aside our wants and preferences (even needs sometimes) to labor for others. Even more noble than that is to invest in labor for others and go the extra mile to help them. Alicia did that today and was an example to me of the happiness that comes from such whole-hearted service and love. 

Christmas Lights Are My Business!

I've realized that my purpose in life is to serve people. That's what God wants of me and when I'm doing that well, I'm truly happy. I remember good days on my mission when I had that perspective and it was amazing. I felt so energized. Recently I've been reflecting on the most valuable thing to do while I'm in this life. And it has a lot to do with relationships and helping people. "Mankind was my business!" from the Christmas Carol has been ringing in my ears all week.

So today I was thankful for the opportunity to help Susan with some Christmas lights and various other things around her house. I was double-thankful for Emily's willingness to come and serve also. She took lights out of packages and I put them up. I'm anxious to see how our work for Susan looks at night.

One Sock Boy

I have no idea where our kids get some of their quirks. Some of them I can trace back to Alicia or me (usually the latter) but sometimes they come up with weird ones. Jace is a great example. When at home he prefers to wear only one sock. Giving him the option to either add the other or take away the one doesn't do anything. He prefers to just wear one sock. And he'll do this going to bed as well.

He's never seen anyone do this, it's not even an understandable habit (like taking shoes and socks off when you get home because you prefer being barefoot at home). It's 100% Jason and he's proud of it.

Christmas Too Early?

It seems like more people are getting into Christmas up early. I spoke to someone at work who admitted openly that she and her husband put up Christmas decorations on Halloween night. "We're not the only ones!" I thought. My own father thinks it's a sin to put Christmas up before Thanksgiving. Funny thing is, I'll be at his house on Saturday putting up Christmas lights while he's out recovering from his stroke.

I don't get what the big deal is. Are people worried that we're not being grateful by not decorating for Thanksgiving? Are they sick of the same 40 Christmas songs being regurgitated by various artists on the radio? Are they just procrastinating the effort of decorating for Christmas? Do they not like the holiday?

Well whatever. Our house is decorated and I have a Christmas tree in my office.

Lamb Christmas Day

Christmas is such a fun time. We're lucky to have two this year. The kids slept in our room under our Christmas tree and although we didn't sleep very well at all (especially Alicia who had Jace hogging her side of the bed) I know the kids enjoyed it. They woke at 6 am like usual but were wired for being able to go downstairs and see what Nana and Papa had done for Christmas morning. After tiding them over with several Chipmunk cartoons, we finally went downstairs to discover our stockings filled and presents under our trees. We spend the next few hours together opening, assembling and playing with presents. Ben was thrilled to get a little talking bear, Claire got her own little bike (she's been "borrowing" bikes from Jace or other neighborhood kids), Ethan got this awesome remote control 4-wheeling guy, and Emily got a digital camera. Alicia and I also received a few gifts including clothes and we gave Nana and Papa a few gifts as well including a photo book and a DVD of movies made from pictures of the kids.

But the nicest part of the day was simply spending time together. The toys are sometimes just a convenient excuse for gathering everyone up and enjoying each other's personalities, interests, and happiness. It was a great morning that was followed by (surprise) food at breakfast and a fancy ham dinner.

What a great pretend holiday!

Faux Christmas Eve

Since Alicia's parents won't be around for Christmas and we haven't had a Christmas with them since Emily was a baby, we are celebrating two Christmases this year, one with them this week and the usual one with our family next week. As part of this celebration, Alicia's parents are trying to pack in as many Lamb Christmas traditions into this time as possible. I'm glad for this because Alicia has been longing for many of these traditions for years.

One of these is a traditions is loads of food. In these last few weeks Alicia and I have eaten more food than in the whole previous month combined. There have been dessert trays, cheese balls, canada dry, egg nog (we've gone through 8 or so cartons), turkey and ham dinners with all kinds of sides. So after a big dinner, we had a big desert of Black Forest Cake (and egg nog) and then watched a little cartoon with the kids and had a second desert of a christmas goodie tray (compare the picture this year to last year). Egg nog too. After we put the kids to bed we were all so groggy and full that we didn't want to think about food or even be in the same room with food.

One thing's for sure, with all this food we're eating we'll be well insulated for winter.