christmas preparations

 

christmas pillow cases on everyone's pillows? check. 

 fresh cut christmas tree filling the house with the smell of pine? check.

 the stockings were hung by the chimney window with care? check.

fisher price little people nativity out for the kids to play with? check. (this is beth and bruce's. i need one of my own)

candy dish filled with christmas chocolate? check.

looks like we're ready for christmas. 

spools

1

2

which is better, 1 or 2?

dreams of sugar plum fairies

2010 christmas pillowcase

since 1995, my mom has been making us christmas pillowcases. at some point during thanksgiving, she would sneak into our rooms and put our pillowcases on our pillows. it is always a sure sign to me that the christmas season is in full swing. now that the family is getting bigger, she doesn't do it every year, but this year she made them for everyone.  madeleine and diane haven't had them before, so it is fun to have them for the whole family.

pillowcases of christmas past

i have quite the collection at this point. i have to admit, i usually keep my pillowcase on my pillow for most of the year. it is a fun reminder of my mom and a good way to tell the difference between randy's and my pillow. they are also great for taking camping or to sleepovers. nobody mistakes your pillow for theirs.

madeleine loves her new pillowcase. she usually sleeps with a tiny little pillow but decided to upgrade to a bigger pillow last night so that she can have her pillowcase on it. a perfect backdrop as she dreams of the coming christmas.

trimming the tree

we spent thanksgiving weekend up at my parents' house (i will post more about thanksgiving once i get some photos from my mom). our family likes thanksgiving, but once it is over, we waste no time getting on to christmas. on friday, my mom set up her tree and on saturday morning, all of the grandchildren helped her hang the ornaments. it's become a bit of a tradition over the last couple years and to say that the kids look forward to it would be an understatement.

my mom handing out the ornaments to the grandkids

my mom controls ornament distribution and the kids run back and forth between her and the tree, trying to hang as many ornaments as they can.

austin reaching for a higher spot

matthew

 

elizabeth

 elizabeth participated too, but usually, one of the older kids would see her with an ornament and rush over to "help" her. madeleine was her main helper and i'm not sure how many ornaments elizabeth actually got to hang before madeleine got to her.

austin utilizing a stool for even more height

a rare moment where elizabeth is actually holding an ornament on her own

diane has been fighting a cold for a couple weeks now and it finally manifested itself in its full glory this weekend. she had a runny nose and was fussy a lot of the weekend. after a few near-disaster experiences with her and the ornaments, randy parked it on the couch with her and a bottle of juice. 

with five grandchildren decorating the tree, all about the same height,  most of the balls ended up clustered in one area on the tree. they will be redistributed later.

the finished tree

can you tell how tall the kids are?

after the kids decorated the tree, we put them in front of the tree to take a picture. this is always a comical experience as several adults holler and make fools of themselves to try and get the kids to look at the camera at once. 

rachel wasn't thrilled with the whole experience.

another attempt, sans rachel

 

madeleine must have still been in the mood to help elizabeth because she had her arms around her the whole time we were trying to get this picture. elizabeth didn't seem to mind. 

my grandparents were also at my mom's for the weekend and we also wanted to get a picture with them and all of the grandkids. rachel and diane weren't up for it, but we got a few with them and the rest of the great grandchildren.

post 500

we were driving home from my parent's tonight and madeleine was singing. diane was exhausted and trying to sleep, but apparently was not able to due to madeleine's singing. madeleine said this:

"i am waking diane up. but i just have to sing my songs."

and i think that is how madeleine feels about singing. she just has to do it. she can't keep her songs inside of her and that is why she is constantly singing.

i love it.

thanks

time with family. pumpkin cookies. toddling steps. books spread around my children's room. diane's smiles in the morning. strong body and mind. magical brownies. a temple nearby. beautiful home to live in. madeleine's constant singing. hooded sweatshirts. christmas playlists waiting to debut. stack of sewing projects. snuggling on the couch. modern family. kind and thoughtful friends. the rare coordinated nap. knitting needles tangled with yarn. shelves lined with home canning. randy's music. sunday morning naps. bookclub. sweaters. m&ms. date night. books. bed time. a testimony of jesus christ. the love of my little ones and my favorite. christmas around the corner.

proof

here is proof that my little one is walking. today it really took off. she is now going for long distances consistently and getting more and more confident. it's only a matter of time before she's running around with the big girls.

friday workday

pinwheels

since last friday workday, i finished my pinwheels block. we had already learned the skills for it, so my mom and trish just gave us instructions and told us to put them together on our own. done.

drunkard's path

this was the week for drunkard's path. my mom loves this square. it's pretty, but i don't know if it was worth the hassle of putting it together. i don't like sewing on curved lines. it didn't get better as i went, either. in fact, i would say it probably got worse and worse. this was the week of the seam ripper. i can't tell you how many seams i had to take out and redo. i'm pretty happy with the result, but the square is a little warped when you see it in person. not great. but i'm not taking out another seam. 

kaleidoscope before

we also did our kaleidoscope square. i liked this much better and am really happy with how everything came out. that is not to say that i didn't have problems during the process though.

despite trish's specific warnings and my confidence that i wouldn't make such a mistake, i sewed the corners to the wrong fabrics on two of the squares (see before picture. did you catch it on your own?). i didn't even notice until i went to take a picture, and even then, only barely noticed it after the fact.

more seam ripping.

kaleidoscope after

but, i finally got everything in the right place and finished them up. waiting to put them together until i lay out the whole quilt.

we are marching along and almost done. next time, we are learning the "y-seam" with spools and le moynes star. only two more after that.

picture dump for the last few weeks

i've been a slacker with taking pictures lately.

i remember when madeleine started doing this,

and now diane has started.

we had a surprise visit from the hanks a couple weeks ago. something to do with a space shuttle failure to launch. we were just excited for the visitors.

elizabeth, diane, and rachel (all looking at the camera!)

my big girl has started taking steps. i'll post some video soon.

randy came home and spent some time with madeleine outside the other day. she was in heaven.

"trapped" in the toy boxes. this is madeleine's favorite thing to do to herself lately. i've put a ban on her doing it to diane, which she frequently attempts to do.

all in all, two pretty cute kids.

bean museum

all six linford grandchildren, actually looking at the camera at the same time. nothing short of a miracle.

last week, my mom was watching audrey's kids and we decided to all go to the byu bean museum together for a little outing for everyone. despite having lived in provo for nine years now, i have never been. so, we loaded the kids into our cars and headed down to campus.

as we arrived, we noticed that the fire alarm was going off and people were evacuating the building. soon after, a couple of fire engines and an ambulance arrived. we're pretty sure the whole thing was a drill, but it provided some unanticipated entertainment for the children. 

 after about fifteen minutes, we were allowed to go in. and because of the forced evacuation, we were the only ones in the museum while we were there. this allowed the live wild animals to explore the dead wild animals without us having to worry about disturbing anyone else during their museum experience.

not so lucky with getting everyone to look for this one

 the kids had a blast looking at all the animals and austin and matthew were surprisingly good at naming obscure animals accurately. they must have a biologist and an educator as a father.
the whole thing took less than a half hour for them to look around, which was just about the right amount of time for me.

wild animals

i have to admit, the bean museum was not my favorite experience. kind of creeps me out. the same feeling i get when i go to cabellas. just not my cup of tea. i much prefer live animals at the zoo. maybe we'll have to head there soon.

on my own

remember these? i haven't done much writing lately and am feeling pretty rusty. i thought this was a good way to get warmed up.

travelin' oma assignment number eighteen

the summer between my junior and senior years of college, i had about six weeks where i lived alone in an apartment just south of campus. i didn't have much of a social life at the time and aside from seeing people in class, i spent a lot of time alone.

but i wasn't lonely.

yes, there were times that the evening hours would roll in and i would realize that i had not spoken a word out loud for the entire day. and there were times that i would call my mom, just because i needed some kind of human interaction. but for the most part, i was content to be alone with my own thoughts. don't get me wrong, i like to be around other people, but i've also always been comfortable being alone.

and never more so than now. there's something about being a mother. i am rarely alone. even now, as i write this post, my children are sleeping in the next room and i do not feel alone. and in the rare times that i am alone, i usually have such a long list of things that i need to do that the time flies by and while i may feel productive, i usually do not feel rested at the end of my aloneness.

and so, if i lived alone for several weeks on end, with no responsibilities, i would rest. i would sleep more, read more, think more, and create more. but as glorious as that sounds, it would be much harder for me to be alone for several weeks now than it was when i was single in college. because now, the novelty of uninterrupted sleeping, reading, thinking, and creating would quickly be replaced with an overwhelming aching for randy and my girls.

but not for a few days. and those few days sure would be nice.



postscript: in writing this post, i just now realized that my willingness, and even desire to sometimes be alone is probably a result of the fact that i feel loved and know that there are people in close physical proximity that i can immediately turn to for company and affection if i did feel lonely. that must be what makes the difference between being alone and being lonely.

three little pumpkins

when we were little, my dad made us sing this song at every house that we trick-or-treated at. as embarrassing as it was at the time, i have lots of fun memories from it (fun halloween memories? gasp!). also, as my dad always tried to tell us, we probably did bring in way more candy because of how cute we were.

this year, i didn't think about the song until the day before halloween, but decided to try and teach it to madeleine anyways. after about three times, she had it down. i had her sing it for me on camera and the tune is a little off for this take, but she usually is spot on. it was fun to pass the tradition on to my own kid.

antiquated measurements

i often sing the song, "i love you, a bushel and a peck," to madeleine. she requests it a lot and calls it the "i love you song." this morning, i heard her singing it to herself. this wasn't the first time i've heard her sing it, but this version was a little different from previous ones:

i love you
a bushel and a petersen
a bushel and a petersen 
and a hug around the neck...

having no idea that a peck is a unit of measurement, she associated it (naturally) with our last name and must have figured it was replaceable with other last names- in this case, beth and bruce's. i had to laugh.

as a side note, this is not the first time i've heard this song mis-sung by a child. i had a cousin who used to sing it, "i love you, a bushman of heck..."

not quite as close as madeleine's version.