Good Morning, Your Dog Died.

Waking up on Christmas morning is like....well, like waking up on Christmas morning. You wake up suddenly, and the air feels fizzy, and you know that it's the beginning of the best day ever. {Or at least the best day that year...}

Waking up on the day after Christmas is like waking up the day after your dog died. And you wake up kind of slowly and then all day it kind of sinks in that your dog is never coming back, and you keep remembering your dog as you go about your day, and by the end of the day you just feel rumpled and depressed.

Christmas morning this year was just as fizzy as the Christmas mornings of other years. It started at about 8:00, when the little boys woke up.

{I wish I had pictures to share of that, but they are all in Indiana and I am not.}

Luckily, the day after Christmas this year didn't start until 11:30, and when I did wake up, it was to kisses and hugs, and when I got up after that, it was to spend an hour putting on Natalie's fancy makeup and curling my hairs with her fancy curling iron so that we could go and eat lunch at the cutest little fancy historic lunch / brunch / dessert place I have ever seen: L.S. Ayres' Tea Room.

 

 

L.S. Ayres used to be really hoppin and iconic of Indianapolis, but then Macey's bought it and shut down the restaurant, which was the L.S. Ayres Tearoom. Stephen's mom went a few times with her mom so it was a really fun memory for her, and the Indiana Museum reopened the tea room just for the month of Diciembre 2013, so all the girls got to go (me, Stephanie, Natalie, Diane, her sister Angie, and their mom, Stephen's grandma).

 

We had hot chocolate and yummy sammiches and salad and soup, and they checked our coats, and it was just really fun!  

 



You know what I really like? Whenever we go out, Diane says: "These are all my daughters," or, "Can you get a picture of me and my daughters?" I know I'm not really her daughter, but it is so sweet.

 

The plan for tonight was ice skating. But when we arrived, there was no ice on one rink, and the only sign of life was a hockey team practicing on the other rink and two very nice black guys walking around with a boombox ish thing and also wondering where the ice rink was.

 

So instead, we wandered around the square, which was all lit up for Christmas and was home to the biggest fake Christmas tree in the world.

 

This was their first date years (and years and years and years...jk...) ago!

This is a statue that somebody thought was a good idea, but the rest of the world is just confused by.

This is some guy.

This is either a nutcracker or a steadfast tin soldier.

This is where people used to ice skate, but now it's all dry and people can only dream of skating in such a perfect ambiance.

This is across the street from the real  L.S. Ayres. See that clock? That's how you know!

Not too shabby for the day after Christmas :)

Baby Jesus and a Shimp-Load of Presents

Christmas, at the Shimp home, is not just a one-day celebration. It is not even a two-day holiday.

It is a month-long festival, and when you cram all of that yuletide into the one week that your college kids are home, it becomes a week of dashing through the snow from mall to family party to classy Christmas event and back to the mall, at high speed and dragging along as many brothers and sisters as possible. Also, food.

This is us at the Scottish Rite Cathedral in Indianapolis. We watched the Nutcracker Ballet! Which is basically the music of my childhood, so I was in heaven the whole time. And Stephen liked it too.

We had a Christmas gift exchange for the kids on Christmas Eve. Stephen gave to Michael and Logan, and he told them he had gotten them a Hershey's bar. It was actually a rocket....that he ended up assembling on Christmas. 

Then we got our Christmas jammies!! And Stephen ruined some pictures. And so did Brandon. 

The whole family got Christmas jammies! I love this tradition!

My favorite decoration in the house was this ginormous ball of mistletoe. It is a very popular hangout with the newlywed couple and the engaged couple, and also the married-with-seven-kids couple. 

The girls and their Christmas jammies :) 

We like each other. 

 This is another tradition that they do - every year, someone hides the pickle ornament somewhere on the Christmas tree, while everyone else waits in a different room. Then the person who finds it gets a Christmas book that they read to the whole family, and they are the one who hides the pickle the next year.

...GUESS who found the pickle this year??

Well it was me :) I promise they didn't just let me win, either. I know because there were tears.

Then I read "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" in my best teacher voice and it was on to the next tradition of making gingerbread houses!

 This was not a "let's build our gingerbread houses and whoever has the most fun is the winner" kind of contest. Teams were picked out 2 weeks ago. Barricades were put up between competition sites so other teams couldn't look. And we were given a time limit of 18 minutes.

So it got a little intense and some feelings got a little hurt, but in the end, three works of art sat on the table, ready to be judged.

At some point in the middle of the night (or at 6:45 in them morning), Santa came and filled up the living room with gifts!

So that's how Christmas began up in here. More pictures to come of the rest of our break :) 

Shimp Home for the Holidays

This year is my first year not going home for Christmas.

.....I KNOW. Hash tag, big girl.

Instead of Baltimore lights twinkling up into my airplane window on Friday, I experienced the lights of Indianapolis for the fist time.

Then I experienced:

-some delicious cheesy bread, sugar cookies, peanut butter fudge, and cold medicine
-getting tackled by little boys who quickly stopped when they realized I was not their sister
-using all of Natalie's makeup since I apparently left all of mine in Utah
-going out Christmas shopping in the middle of Indianapolis flooding

{I'm serious. I got an emergency weather alert txt telling me to stay away from potential flooding areas}

-sleeping with Stephen in the bed his parents assigned to us. Oh, with his brother in the same bed.
-the Christmas program in the Indy 1st ward, which included a fabulous special musical number and donuts after the meeting
-a Christmas dinner at an interior designer grandma's BEAUTIFUL home

-a conversation that went like this:

me: Brandon, are you taller than me now?
We stand up to measure ourselves and find that he is a good 3 inches taller.
Diane: Oh yeah, I can't keep him in the same pair of pants for more than a month! He just grows out of them so fast!

-followed by a riveting game of boys vs. girls Catchphrase

-in which I got "growing pains," and the timer was speeding up, and it was up to me to help my team guess it, and I blurted out: "Okay, this is what....Brandon keeps doing this out of his pants."

-and my team didn't guess it and instead just got really confused.

-so I said, "Diane was just telling me about it!"

-and then people just laughed instead of guessing and I had to try something else.

There's no place like home for the holidays, but there's an H on one of the stockings here, and Natalie drew me in the family picture she put in Eric's room, and I'm surrounded by people I love. Besides which, there's a huge ball of mistletoe that I can stand under whenever I want. So for my first Christmas away from home, it's going to be a pretty nice one :)

Picture a Christmas

Once upon a time, I flew home for Christmas. Just like I do err year. I was greeted at the airport by my cute (suddenly giant) family.

And then, I gained 30 pounds.

And Jacob grew 30 inches.

And we all froze to death.

And so did Sarah's American Girl doll magazines. We found them in the freezer.

Then, I made some really fantastic potato soup. It was so fantastic, I cried a little about it.  (Although that could have also been the onions that I cut....)

"Julie. I am so happy to share with you, because you shared with me. ......Nicole lied." - Nicole

"What do I know? I'm just a fat old man with jowels." - a very self-pitying Dad

*everyone listening to "I want you to rock me" by One Direction, when Dad comes and turns it off*
Jo: Dad! We were listening to that!
Dad: I've been rocked enough!

"He has nose hairs?? How does the man survive!" - Dad

This year is looking like it's going to be pretty good already :) We miss you, Delly!

Lumberjacks

Some people put up fake Christmas trees. Some people put up real Christmas trees. I'm not saying that one is better than the other.....but let's be honest. Real Christmas trees are better than fake ones.

Some people buy real Christmas trees from a lot. Some people chop down their real Christmas tree. Again, I'm not saying that chopping down your own Christmas tree makes you better than other people. But it might. 

This weekend, Kailyn, Caitlin, the Jew, Erin and I ventured over to the far corners of Utah:

That's right. We went to Richfield, Utah.

One-stoplight-town, Farmville, home-on-the-range, we're-from-the-country-and-we-like-it-that-way, Richfield. We made a brief stop at this place:

"Are we going there someday?" "I don't know, you tell me...."

Once we were done there, nothing could stop us from getting to Kailyn's beautiful home! Except for the one stop sign in the town. We met her family, talked up one of our friends to make a good impression on Kailyn's family in his absence, and then took a nap, all of us piled on Kailyn's bed.

When we woke up, something was different. We didn't have facial hair or rough, callused hands, but an unmistakable change had taken place: our nap had turned us into lumberjacks.

There were about 8 trucks in the driveway - Kailyn's family believes in trucks - so we all climbed in and struck out for the mountains.  First, the trucks did the hiking. Eventually, we had to get out and do the rest of the hiking ourselves. K-Mom gave us one piece of advice: "When you bring the tree back to the truck, you'll want to carry it down the mountain, not up the mountain. So go uphill to find it."

Our tree was living in a little patch of ankle-deep snow when we found him. He smiled at us with his soft, sage-colored needles, and even though he was a little bit balding on one side, we felt in our hearts that he was our tree. (Or maybe it was just getting dark and we weren't sure how long it was going to take to chop him down or if we would be able to find another one if we left him.....)

Lumberjacks have riveting conversations while they chop. Here's what ours sounded like:

"Hold that pose, can you just wait there a second?" "Wait the lighting was weird! Take it again." "Why do I have an alien head?" "Now you two together. Smile!" "Are you still holding onto the tree? Because it's probably going to fall soon...." "Did you ever txt him back?" "Perfect! I love this one!" "Can that please not go on facebook?"

In case you couldn't tell, at least 3 of us were on our phones or cameras at any given time.

Sawing down the tree was one thing; getting it down the mountain was a whole 'nother task. A mother of a nother task. Gravity swung on by to help us, but it still took all of our Kailyn and Caitlin and Erin's strength and muscles to bring it to Kailyn's brothers. Then it took about 1/18th of their strength to hoist it off the ground and carry it on their shoulders to the truck.

So what did I learn from all this?

Sometimes, boys are like trees. And you have to climb a mountain to find one that you like. And sometimes, he is a little bit balding on one side, or his needles are a little poiky, or he's stuck in the spot where you found him, on account of his roots or whatever.

Sometimes, you need your friends to help you saw down the tree that you want. Wing-girls are so necessary.

Sometimes, you kind of love the tree the moment you see it. But then you still have to cut it down and find a way to get it back to your apartment.

Sometimes, trees look a lot taller when they are laying in the snow than they do when they are standing in the snow. Sometimes, you notice the same thing about boys.

Sometimes, you see all these people coming down the mountain with their trees, and you think how easy it must have been for them to just pluck their tree from the side of the road. But sometimes you're wrong, because probably they didn't pluck their tree or their boy from the side of the road, and probably they had to go through the same process that you did.

Sometimes, there's a tree that really freakin' wants to be your tree, but he takes his sweet time coming down the mountain and puts up such a fuss about it that you almost leave him there on the dead log that he's hanging onto. But then you don't, because he really is the most beautiful tree you've ever seen, and besides that he is really good company, and you like it when he txts you and comes over and even when he eats your food, so whatever. You'll drag him down the mountain even if it kills annoys you, because let's be honest: the chances that he'll end up flying off the truck on the way back to Provo are looking pretty slim, and you honestly believe that one day he will look beautiful, all decked out in lights and ornaments and popcorn in your apartment, and you'll forget about the sap and the splinters and the bruises, and it will all be worth your stupid day month as a lumberjack.

Here we are putting up our beautiful Teddy:

Cute bum, where ya from?

And here he is, all lit up and beautiful:

Joyyyy to the World!

Today I went to ward choir for the first time ever in this ward. I had a brief stint in choir last year and then all of a sudden I just....stopped going, I don't know why. Why did I decide to start going today? I guess the reasons just all stacked up in a way that it would have been silly for me not to go. For one thing, the choir director, a girl in my ward named Megan, stood up and announced that we are singing next week at some big stake thing and she wanted everyone to come to practice today, even those who had never been. It sounded like the perfect day for me to start going! Also we were going to be singing Christmas music (of course) which is my favorite thing to sing. Furthermore, she put out a special plea for more girls to come because the boys have historically outnumbered the girls every time. I am almost always more than happy to volunteer in situations where more girls are needed because they are being hopelessly outnumbered by boys. (Oh and did I mention that Megan was bringing treats for those who came? This also may or may not have contributed to my decision.)

So, at 1:30 this afternoon, I found myself marching through the first real snow this year to the Raintree clubhouse where the choir practice was being held. It was a quite enjoyable practice. We started out singing "I am a Child of God," just to warm up, and then started on the Christmas songs we will be singing in church next week. I don't know what it is about Christmas music, but I cannot stop smiling when I'm singing it. I'm sure I looked ridiculous, but it just makes me want to smile as big as I ever have and sing as loud as I possibly can. It's like I want everyone to hear me singing about Christ's birth or something. We are just singing three songs, O Come all ye Faithful, Joy to the World, and Picture a Christmas.

The people in my ward choir are a really fun group, and we don't sound bad, either! I think I am going to continue going next semester. When I go for a long time without singing, I forget how much I like it, but I really do love singing, even if I'm not the best at it.

At one point during the rehearsal something really funny happened that reminded me of a discussion we just had in my marriage and family class this past week. During one of the songs, the girls sing while the boys hold an "ooooooh" on a D. I guess that's the starting note for "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas," because while Megan was trying to explain this to the boys, someone started singing that. Almost all of the boys joined in and proceeded to enchant the rest of us with a lovely rendition of this classic Christmas song. Before they could finish, one of the boys who wasn't singing (named Sam) interrupted. "Hey, everyone! Megan is trying to lead a rehearsal and you are all being very disrespectful! She has worked very hard and no one is giving her the respect she deserves. I have been in positions where you have to get up in front of people and I know that it is very difficult when no one is listening or giving you the time of day." etc. He went on for a full minute, calling everyone in the room to repentance.

BRIEF INTERMISSION TO SAY THAT I HATE WHEN PEOPLE THROW SNOWBALLS.

At some point in the middle of his scolding, I realized that I hadn't been doing anything wrong when he got mad; in fact, the girls had all been very cooperative! It was the boys who had started singing "White Christmas," which had prompted this outburst in the first place, that he was really talking to. I looked up and scanned the choir. All the girls had assumed a penitent stance, their eyes lowered and their expressions remorseful. I then glanced over at the boys. Every single boy had his head up, his eyes trained on Sam. The top of the tenor section was rippling as every head nodded in agreement with everything Sam was saying. When his speech was done, I watched as several guys reached over to give him a high five or a congratulatory pound. I was amazed! How could these boys think that he was talking about anyone but themselves?

After pondering this for a few minutes, a discussion we just had in my marriage and family class came to mind. I don't remember how it came up, but I raised my hand and mentioned that I had been doing an exercise video recently and I noticed that the whole time, I was being barraged with enthusiastic compliments by Lena Pareira. I said that I have never seen a football huddle that contained that much love and encouragement, and therefore, I have concluded that boys are encouraged by different things than girls.

My teacher said that was very true and brought up a friend of his who has coached men's and women's soccer for years. His friend said that you need to adopt two totally different coaching methods when you're talking to each team. When he would talk to the men's team during their halftime, she would just tell them everything that needed to be improved. He could maybeee throw in a compliment or two, but for the most part, it was yelling about what they should have done, what they had better do this time around, and what he never wants to see again. As he presented this pep talk, he would look at every boy's face, and he could tell that they were all thinking the exact same thing: "Oh, he's talking about so-and-so. Yeah, he really needs to step it up. I'm doing my best, I'm carrying this team! He's not talking to me, definitely not. Gosh, why don't these other guys get it?" Then they would go out and play harder to make up for those other guys who the pep talk was clearly intended for.

When coaching the girl's team, however, it was a different story. 90% of the talk had to be complimenting their performance. "Great job on this, really nice work. I like how you're working as a team. Susie, I love that pass you did. You girls are awesome." Then he would say one thing, one thing, that they needed to improve on, and every single girls eyes would just drop, and he would know exactly what they were thinking, "Oh, he's talking to me. He's totally talking about that time I totally blew it a few minutes ago. I really should've been on that. There's no excuse, ughhh I haveee to do better! All the other girls are good. I'm the worst on this team. I know he's talking about me." And with just that one little suggestion, the girls essentially do all the work for the coach.

In choir it was the same situation. All the boys were certain that Sam was talking to someone else. All the girls were certain that Sam was talking about them.

Anyway, the rest of the rehearsal went smoothly. We sound beautiful, and I'm sure that we will inspire thousands with our voices next week :)