Christmas 2006

We've had a pretty long but fun weekend, celebrating Christmas with the rest of our family. Friday night, the kids and I picked up Matt after work (7:00) and headed to my mom's in Yankton. We spent the night there, and Casey & Heidi and their kids showed up Saturday morning for our gift exchange. They brought Grandma Leigh Anne along too. We had a wonderful meal with ham and turkey, etc. and had fun afterward pairing up and hanging out, playing with our new toys. Here's some pictures.

Xander and Rylie adorning themselves with bows:

Xander & Grandma Leigh Anne building Bionicles
(very brave, Grandma!)

The boys went downstairs to play with
Casey's new cut capo for his guitar


It wasn't long before Chase went down to join them,
playing the drums on whatever he could find to hit.


Our two little princessess playing with their
Barbie dancing princessess

Soon Chase was trying to teach Maia how to play
drums. We sent them out on the deck because it was
so nice out. They still had to bundle up a little.
It wasn't long before Maia bullied Chase off and
took over the drums for herself.

Heidi and Rylie playing Polly Pocket


Grandma Leigh Anne helping out in the kitchen
"Gramma Jim" carving the turkey

Grandma Marilyn's failure to use the "Ga-boing Ga-boing" properly
Careful, Grandma! You'll break a hip!
Maia looking like a queen watching "Barbie Rapunzel"
in Grandma's bed

My personal haul for the first segment of the weekend
means our family will be eating in style this year! (The apples are just for show. No one gave me apples for Christmas)

After all the fun at Mom's we went home for church at Mercy Sunday morning. Things went really well for the 25 people or so that showed up. Once again, a reminder that our audience is not the people in the pews. Sunday evening, we had a very traditional Christmas Eve service, Matt wore a tie (!) and played his trumpet on some of the hymns. I played piano for most of the songs, and sang "O Holy Night" in my best classical voice. It was a nice service.

All dressed up and almost ready to go to church. The curlers did absolutely no good, but doesn't she look cute?

Afterward, we hopped in the car and headed for Bruce & George's to spend the night. The strange catch in that arrangement was that Bruce & George weren't even there. They went ahead to Fort Dodge, to George's mom & dad's where we joined them the next day. But what that meant was that we got to have a quiet Christmas Eve and Christmas morning together as a family. We hung the stockings by the fireplace with care, and sure enough, Santa was faithful to show up.

Christmas morning, we opened our stockings with the help of Mud the farm cat

We got dolled up and headed to Fort Dodge to celebrate Christmas day with Grandma Katie, Papa Svale, Uncle Dave, Cousin Eddie, Rena, Troy, Cassie, Lexi, Bruce, George, and Grandma Katie's cousin Blair from Georgia.

That was an adventure! Everyone opened all the gifts at once, so I have no idea what most people got, or how much they liked what we gave them! I helped Maia and she was decked out like a queen in no time:
We had another delectable meal featuring Cornish Game Hens- how fancy! Maia ate pickles and black olives. It wasn't long before people were pairing up again. Several of us took turns napping by the warmth of the fire in front of the TV showing 24-hours of "A Christmas Story." Xander and Lexi predictably took off and played as long as they could before the girls had to go. Nobody really knows what these two do when they play together, but they seem to have fun.

Here's Matt and his Uncle Dave jawing about something in the kitchen.

We returned home Tuesday morning, Xander has been playing his new Star Wars Lego Gameboy game for something like 18 hours straight. We were surprised to see that Santa stopped at our house and left a couple more gifts for us to open when we got home. Xander and Matt got a pair of baseball gloves and a ball for tossing around. I got a funky music sculpture, and Maia got a new toddler bed. She thinks it's OK.
Now comes the fun task of finding homes for all the new stuff, and coming down from the holiday rush. We have almost two full weeks to recover before school starts again. I have a feeling we'll be ready!

Eitemiller Christmas

We had the first of our family Christmas celebrations on Saturday, in Mitchell with Grandpa & Grandma Eitemiller.

We had a nice time hanging out with Casey & Heidi and crew, the kids got good and sugared up eating mostly m&m's and cookies, played with some presents, but mostly the toys that are always at Grandpa & Grandma's, and of course, the ever-energetic Grandpa Dave and Uncle Casey.

Here's some nice pictures from the afternoon:
Casey & Heidi

Maia & Rylie pigging out:

Matt & Xander playing X's new Bionicle Quest board game

I love this picture! Grandpa's telling stories again. At one point, Rylie says to Grandpa, "I'm not even listening to you!" -Right in the middle of a very long explanation of ... well, something.

Chase caught in the act with the m&m's, using the serving spoon as a personal shovel.




Here Chase was cracking us up because he was hiding a ball in his shirt. He was trying to keep it away from Maia, who was using the same tactic earlier. Rylie hollered, "You look like you're preg-a-net!" Chase later moved the ball up to his chest which gave him a different look entirely.


After the kids got all sugared up on cookies and m&m's, somehow they got into a tickle fight with Uncle Casey. He's good for that kind of thing.



Proof that Xander & Rylie can actually get along. This might be a first. They usually butt heads like two billy goats!


Here, Maia is upset because Grandpa is interrupting a perfectly good fit. So she plugged her ears so that she couldn't hear his wailing over hers.One of Chase's favorite toys of the afternoon: The Lincoln Logs cannister, which made a nice drum. I put a throw pillow inside it so that the rest of us could still function while he relentlessly beat that "drum" to bits! When we got there, the 6-year-old cannister looked brand new. Not anymore!

A good time was had by all. Thanks to Grandpa and Grandma for a good kickoff to Christmas!

Waxing Sentimental

Some nice pictures from the last year.
Story time




Cowhand in a Spiderman Cap

From when we tried Matt's goatee on everyone in the family

First dance with Daddy



Aw, aren't they sweet?

I have an announcement: I have all my Christmas shopping done. Ahhhh! What a nice feeling. OK, a nagging little voice tells me I have one more gift to buy- for my brother. They were out of what I wanted to get him when I went this week, and now I have to wait for another paycheck. AND I have to get some stocking stuffers. I am so going to take it easy with those this year! I went a little overboard last year, so I'm limiting it to $25 each. I buy my own stocking stuffers, that way I get what I want. That's not really the point, is it? Oh well.

We have an interesting Christmas eve/ day planned this year, we are going to do our Christmas eve service at Mercy- surprisingly traditional because we're doing a joint service with the Mennonite congregation that owns the building we're meeting in. After that, we're heading over to Bruce & George's (Matt's folks) to spend the night. The interesing thing is that they won't be there. They're going to Fort Dodge to stay at Papa Svale & Gramma Katie's, where we'll go the next day. Apparently, Rena & Troy & kids (Matt's sister's family) are going to do the same thing! So we'll have Christmas morning with cousins and Aunts and Uncles, then head over to see grandparents later. I guess we'll have to take our stockings with to Grandma Georgie's and see if Santa can find us there!

I'm still trying to figure out what to do with Maia's big Christmas present. She's getting a SpongeBob toddler bed. I'm not taking that with us to Fort Dodge! I was thinking how cool it would be to have it out in the living room under the tree (well, not all the way under) on Christmas morning, so the kids could wonder how Santa got it down the chimney. But we're not going to be here. I don't really want to give it to her before we leave, because she'll want to sleep in it, and that would be mean. So I think we'll set it up under the tree for when we get back with a note from Santa.

Christmastime is Near

This season really zooms past, doesn't it? I have been enjoying Christmas card updates from friends young and old, and am trying to be in the process of getting ours written. I stalled out when I realized that we had to put a family picture in. Of course, we don't HAVE to, but we are going to, and I don't have one that will fit the bill. As a matter of fact, I had to go buy Xander new clothes yesterday because he has nothing to wear for the upcoming Christmas programs he's in, so I chose things that would coordinate well with the rest of us, so we can all look nice together.

Today, December 9 (Happy Birthday, Micah Hoeksema!) was kind of a fun day. It's a Saturday, so as usual, we started our day with a praise team practice at the church which took longer than it should. *sigh* We've got to whip these kids into shape! Check back in a year and see if that's happened yet. I'm betting not.

After worship team rehearsal, by dear friend, Amy Lu (from Sheldon) came over for lunch with her daughter, Gracia. They were having a girls' day out Christmas shopping day in Sioux Falls, and we invited them over for lunch. Gracia is a year younger than Maia, so sharing didn't go so well between the two of them, but we had a nice visit, though too brief. I think the two of us could just talk for days without stopping. We should have a slumber party like we did when we were kids. I doubt we'd get all the way caught up even then!

At 2:30 this afternoon, the kids and I walked downtown to witness 156 tubas celebrate Christmas in the 17th annual "Tuba Christmas." The weather was beautiful, over 50 degrees, and the company was great too, got to spend some time with our parents and friends- Jim, Marilyn, Bruce, George, Pete, Paula, John, his son, Terry, Lynn & Julie. They had come to town to hang out together, get some shopping done, eat at Minerva's downtown and see the Tuba Christmas.

There's nothing too fancy or sophisticated about the Tuba Christmas. From what I can understand (I couldn't hear the announcer, somehow I wound up sitting behind all the tubas, so his back was to me when he was making announcements), they send an invitation to any tuba or baritone/euphonium player in the tri-state area, regardless of experience or skill level, and
give them all a book of Christmas songs. The songs are not hard, just your standard Christmas carols, and they must not emphasize rehearsal or watching the conductor. A few phasing problems, and they sounded pretty bumbly a lot of the time, but hey, they're tubas. Many of the tubas were dressed up for the occasion, with tinsel, ribbon, garland and flashing lights. Several of the players wore stocking hats in various colors with TUBA CHRISTMAS knitted into them. There were sousaphones, concert tubas, baritones and euphoniums all piled together outside the Phillips Ave. Diner. Quite a crowd, too. Apparently a lot of people thought this would be a fun way to celebrate the Christmas season.

I think I should contact Lori Thomas, my bassoon teacher from USD and suggest that we do a bassoon Christmas. I still have my little bassoon stocking cap and scarf from when we played Christmas quartets and sextets at the USD holiday concerts. Good times.... 'course, I haven't played my bassoon in a long time. I think I still remember how. I'm not serious about this. The weather can't be this nice every time they do this concert. I don't like playing in the cold. We'd definitely have to play inside. And probably in Vermillion, since that's where most of Lori's students are!

My Christmas shopping is almost complete. I think I only have 2 or 3 people left to buy for. That's weird. This is usally when I start my shopping. I didn't do this on purpose this year, I just somehow accidentally planned ahead. Can that even happen? I guess I started noticing things that would make good presents early in the year this year (and by "early" I mean like October and November). Usually I wait until after my birthday (Nov. 23 in case you missed it. I'm still accepting gifts) to even start shopping. This is not a good idea, because the December paycheck is no bigger than any other paycheck, so it's foolish to think I could get something nice for everyone that way. What usually happens is that I cheap out and try to make gifts as thriftily as possible. That really makes people feel special. And I run my credit card way up. That's not a good option either.

Anyway, I'm feeling a little more on top of it this year, so that's a big relief. I just have Matt & Xander to buy for yet. And my Dad. Why am I procrastinating buying for the men in my life? Oh yeah, I don't have a gift for my brother either. So the truth of the matter is, girls are more fun to shop for. Good thing I have so many nieces!

Tomorrow, we are going to Mitchell to attend my brother's kids' Christmas program. AND we're going to Grandma Leigh Anne's to have homemade waffles beforehand. Promises to be a fun night. We got a lot of good pictures last year after the program, so this branch of the family is dressing in coordinating black and khaki and by golly, we're going to get a picture for the Christmas letter!

We're going back to Mitchell next weekend for Christmas with Dad & Marie. They always outdo themselves in the toy department. They love buying gifts for the kids. I've been trying to clean out the toy boxes in preparation for the onslaught of new stuff. Just what they need. More stuff.

OK, that's all I know for now. No new pictures. I haven't taken any pictures since before Halloween. What's the matter with me?

Cobwebs

It's been a long time. This website should have cobwebs on it. I have missed Halloween, my son's birthday party, and am finally getting around to writing the day after our first day on the job at Mercy.

Brief update: Halloween was good. Xander dressed as a Bionicle (no surprise to anyone who's tried to have a conversation with him in the last year), and Maia was a cute little fuzzy bunny. I forgot to take pictures. I'm a bad mom. Well, here's one from before Halloween. How cute is she? Here she was helping Daddy practice his "trump-trump."

We went scavenging (I mean trick-or-treating) in the neighborhood and, as I suspected, that was a way better deal candy-wise than going to the indoor comfort of the mall like we did last year. Plus we got to meet some of our neighbors (of course, the kids were wearing masks and going door to door begging for candy, so it's not like we started any deep relationships or anything. Did get the chance to thank our next door neighbor for tossing our lost t-balls back over the fence.

Xander had a great birthday party. We invited all the boys in his class, and 10 of them showed up (there are 17, so I counted myself lucky!) plus one girl from church, whom Xander referred to as his 'girlfriend' more than once (already? *sigh* well, her dad's a cop, so good girlfriend to have). My mom helped me out with games and it was nice enough to play outside. Family showed up at cake and presents time- 4 cousins, 4 aunts and uncles, 6 grandparents, and of course a sister, a mom & a dad. After presents the kids went home, and the family stuck around and we had pizza and talked for a while. We were able to have it at New Hope's cafe, which was a nice location for us. Fun.

We are officially back on the job as worship leaders as of yesterday. Actually, we started on Wednesday, but there wasn't much to do, just go enjoy dinner at the new church and join a small group Bible study. Saturday was rehearsal. Scheduled at 10, started at 11. That's gonna have to change.

We chose music according to what Shel was preaching on (Living as a Christian and Dealing with Illness). So a lot of "praise You even when things are awful" kinds of songs and "finding healing in Your presence" types of songs. A lot of what they've done before is Vineyard stuff that Matt & I don't know, so we were trying to be adaptable and do stuff that the congregation might know, even if we didn't. Turns out we introduced 3 new songs. Oops. This is not good. If you're going to worship, it's nice to be at least somewhat familiar with most of the music. Not to the point of doing by rote, but just knowing the song makes a heap of difference. Major faux-pas.

Sunday afternoon after church, we were headed out of town, but had time to eat out, which is rare for us. We chose a newer restaurant called Ci Ci's Pizza and were quite surprised to run into Hal & Martha there (Hal's the worship leader at New Hope), so we got to have a surprise lunch with them!

Then we went to Vermillion for choir practice. That's right, choir practice. Larry Torkelson, the retired choir director from USD, has decided to start a choir and do really hard music. He chose about 30 singers from around the region- most of which are alumni, and we get together and practice music for 2 1/2 hours once a month. This week, we worked on Samuel Barber's "Agnus Dei," Leonard Bernstein's "Best of All Possible Worlds" from Candide, Mozart's "Laudate Pueri" from The Vespers Solennes di Confessori and a Brahms motet in German all about how youth is fleeting and you never get a second chance. Cheery little number. Great for an alumni choir.

We saw a few familiar faces. I still sing really loud. Nice to be back in the familiar halls at USD and do something familiar. I was back there 2 weeks ago for a music teacher's conference, and it was so weird because I didn't know anyone. There were only a handful of my professors who haven't retired. Made me feel old. Yesterday was better. Good times.

Looking ahead to this week... excited for only 2 days of school. I don't have to teach at USF this week, so my longest day is cancelled. I do have to play for one student on departmental recital this afternoon, then lessons all evening, and some more tomorrow after school.

We are heading to Bruce & George's (Matt's folks) for Thanksgiving Wednesday through Friday morning. We'll also celebrate my BIRTHDAY on turkey day (fitting), as well as Matt's Mom's and Sister's who had birthdays Saturday and Sunday. My mom's BD was last Tuesday. We like to clump them together. Excited to see Matt's Uncle Bob and Aunt Kris whom our kids have never met, as well as Uncle Dave, Grandma Katie and Pa Pa Svale, friend Julie, Matt's sister Rena & family, and who knows who else.... Glad I'm not hosting! Matt's mom is really good at that kind of stuff.

We'll go to my mom's place for Thanksgiving on Friday and Saturday. I get to help Mom start to decorate her huge house for Christmas. We won't get done, but we'll get it all out, and get started. She'll putter the rest of it up after we leave. Jim was in the emergency room last weekend with what turned out to be a vacuum-related injury, and thus is not allowed to vacuum anymore. You know what that means... the carpets are going to get pretty dirty.

I am stunned that Maia is sleeping past 9am. Which is why I've been able to get so much written. Mondays are my day off, kind of. Until about 3:00. So I have a lot of housekeeping to catch up on. Too bad I don't have a vacuum-related injury.

Blog Name Change

It looks like I'm going to have to change the name of my blog. I'm no longer considering myself quasi-unemployed. Funny, because last week I was asked the question, "Do you work outside the home?" I thought about it and realized that I'm a stay-at-home mom who works outside the home (USF), inside the home (voice and piano lessons) and in other people's homes (Premier Designs). If anything I'm over-employed!

Pastor Shel from Mercy Church called Matt on Wednesday and offered us the job. Matt tried to say yes right away, but Shel encouraged him to pray about it. Interestingly enough, I started to have some doubts. Everything looks right on the outside, but my spirit wasn't resonating with a resounding "yes." As a matter of fact, I started to doubt what I'd heard from God on Sunday morning, while we were worshiping. I was deeply immersed in the presence of God and cried out in my spirit, "Please don't take this away from me!" I felt like I heard God say, "See? I had something better for you." Which, as my friend Melissa Kessler said, "That's so like Him."

But then yesterday as I was praying and journaling, I started to wonder if he was saying, "Wait, I have something better for you." Which is something else entirely.

At the risk of sounding like a schitzophrenic, I try to listen to this voice and obey it when I hear it. So I voiced my concerns to Matt, who was sensing some kind of questioning too. We decided to take the day yesterday and pray about it individually, then pray together last night.

So yesterday evening, after Matt got home from work, and I got done with a very busy day helping out at Xander's school, teaching lessons at home and praying with a Mom's prayer group (Moms In Touch International), we started to talk about what we were wrestling with.

Matt said that he'd gone back to his notes from Shel's sermon on Sunday, about decision-making as a Christian. It was a very timely message with some really solid Biblical advice. The key point that I had already forgotten (my memory's like Swiss cheese) was not to pray for a roadmap, but pray for wisdom. That's a Biblical way to pray for guidance.

So Matt & I prayed together and it was a really wonderful prayer time. (We should do that more often). We both shared what God said to us during that time, and while neither of us heard "take the job" or anything like that, we both came to the same conclusion that we are supposed to take it.

So the job. It's a quarter-time position which we'll share. All this angst over that? Anyone who knows us, however, knows that we'll pour all of ourselves into this job, no matter what the salary or time commitment is. We're now trying to figure out how Matt's current job (fixing bikes) will work around his chosen vocation (worship leading).

Matt was commenting yesterday how cool it is, that he's a worship leader who fixes bikes and teaches a little trumpet. All the things he's passionate about. God is so good!

I guess I'm now a child of God, a wife, a mother, a worship leader and a voice teacher who sometimes sells jewelry. Life is good. I think my new blog name will simply be "Blessed." But I'll take more creative suggestions if you have them!

Artisans Road Trip

We had a fun weekend with Matt's family, as we headed to the Morrison farm south of Hartley, IA, to try to be a help for them while they were a stopping point on the Artisans' Road Trip. It was a lot of fun to be together with Matt's sister's family, as Lexi and Xander are practically inseperable, and Cassie loves to babysit Maia.

Here's some pictures of the farm and the fun we had:
The kitchen entrance to the house. There is a beautiful rose garden just to the left of this picture, and beautiful flowers and stepping stones all around. The red screen door is a new addition this fall.
The barn quilt. I guess this is a common thing in some parts of Iowa. They painted a piece of solid PVC with this star quilt pattern, and call it the barn quilt. As far as I know, that's all they use their barn for...

The chicken coop, now the cat house. Our cats, Maja and Morpheus, live here year 'round. They pretty much just lay around and look out the window all day long, climb in a little hay fort that Bruce made for them when it gets cold. Not too much different from when they lived in our house, but I think the chicken coop smells less like cat urine. Must be the good ventilation!

Here's Cassie with her cracked pot. She found a pottery shard in the ground out by the storm cellar, and now she thinks she's quite the archeologist. Cassie is Matt's sister, Rena's daughter. She is 13 years old this month!

Maia, what a little cheeser. You can see that her plate is full of food. Not even Grandma Georgie's cooking is good enough for her...

This is the "Crib Gallery." Bruce & George have made their old corn crib into an art gallery. Bet that doesn't happen very often! You can see that they installed some overhead lighting, and used old farm implements and stuff to dress it up a bit. It was just out of the wind that day, so it was a relatively comfortable place to view Bruce's work. You can see his actual artwork on his website.
Here's Matt holding Mud, the farm cat. She eats gophers and rabbits, but she gets in big trouble if she eats birds. They're cared for well at the Morrison farm.
Rena got to play the role of cashier all day, she would debate whether it was a warm, cozy place to be. Even the space heater at her feet didn't keep the chill away. She had her share of hot apple cider from the goody table!

Some of the bountiful harvest of gourds and pumpkins from this year's crop. If you look closely, you can see that George has made a cornucopia in the middle covered in prarie sage and wildflowers. We got to take a lot of gourds home for decorating. Pretty!
Xander came home from school on Friday with pinkeye, but we didn't let that stop us from infecting the rest of the family. I haven't heard about Rena's family, but Bruce and George were both sick on Tuesday after we left (the same day Matt got sick here). We like to share.

This is the outside and inside of the Potting Shed, or as Lexi calls it, The Pooh House. Outside, the siding is pressed tin, and inside is a cozy work shelf and seating area with handmade birch furniture from Lake Superior's north shore.
No Grandpa & Grandma's farm is complete without a tire swing. Cassie LOVES to swing, whether it's here or on the bench swing in the lean-to, which functions as a car port.



Another fun part of the weekend, was that we got to help lead worship at my friend, Amy Lu's church. Amy Lu (Verdoorn) Scheaffer has been a good friend of mine since I moved to Sheldon in the second grade. We used to sing together all the time in high school, we were a part of an All-State girls' quartet and and All-State girls' sextet (we always called it a "six-tet." Sounded more proper to us!). We were in tons of musicals together, in which Amy Lu was always the sweetheart and I was always the dingbat. It fit us well!

Anyway, Amy and her husband, Abe, live on a farm outside of Sheldon, and are a part of a Evangelical Free Church plant that has been in existance for a couple of years. They are meeting in the cafeteria of one of the buidlings owned by Village Northwest Unlimited, Sheldon's huge facility for care, education, rehab, etc. of handicapped individuals. I was surprised at how much physical manifestation the spiritual battle took on as we approached the weekend. I lost my voice completely the Sunday and Monday before we left, and had a terrible headache that only lasted through the rehearsal on Saturday... hmmmm... Weird.

Matt & I stole away from the art show on Saturday morning for a while, and went and rehearsed with their band. We had the challenge of working with a 7th-grade drummer on an electronic drum set. And we did a song in 3/4, which turned out to be a bit of a challenge for him, but he really did a great job, and was very consistent.

We had a great time leading their church in worship, and enjoyed singing with Amy Lu again for the first time in over 15 years!