Ring Out, Wild Bells

We sing this in church around New Year's Day. Only a few verses are included in the hymnbook, something I didn't know until I looked it up online. Beautiful.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out thy mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

We spent our New Year's Eve at the Turleys' house and had a great time at their NYE party. We brought our Wise and Otherwise game to play and a plateful of chocolate-covered bacon. Oh yeah! We did cover that bacon with chocolate!! Later we came home and toasted the new year with Martinelli's sparkling apple cider. What a fun night.

Awesome Santa

DREAM:

We moved back to Logan and I was enraged to learn that there was no WinCo or Burgerville for miles. Quelle nightmare!!

To have Logan painted in that light was a shock. I miss the canyons and the mint brownies and the snow (a little). And my Logan friendies.

Carter's Birthday Party

We have a local gymnastics center that rents out for birthday parties.

That's what Carter chose for his party.

We held it earlier this year, since his birthday is so close to Christmas.

Left to Right: Roz, Nathan L, Harrison, Carter, Carson, Tyson, Luke,
Ethan, Hailey
Bottom row:

In the foam pit

What's On Your List Today?

I found this at Fred Meyer.
Heheheheheeee

Life Returns To Normal*

Concussion Child is much better today and going back to school tomorrow. Let us all rejoice. By the way, did you know concussions make people cranky?

*Whatever that is

Anyone Care If I Take a Nap?

No? Okay.

Later: Good nap. Hope I can sleep tonight.

"Luck had nothing to do with it!"

A lady from the ward called me yesterday and, perhaps being surprised that she caught me at home at 10:00 AM on a Monday, said, "Are you one of those lucky moms who gets to stay at home?"

I don't feel lucky so much as grateful - that I CAN stay home, that Hubby agrees that it's a good idea, that President Kimball gave this advice, and that we followed it. I don't fault any mom who wants or needs to work. I've held jobs and run little home businesses while I've been a mom. But today, I'm grateful that we made this choice. It was the right one.

A Personal Day

What you may not know is that if you give a talk AND perform in a musical number in the same Sacrament meeting, it's like a get-out-of-church-free card, which I cashed in with my family today, like the big heathens we are.

No explanation for our naughtiness, we have just been really busy lately and needed a day off. I realize this is not a good excuse, but it's the only one we have.

Later, watching Say Anything:
"Nobody thinks this is gonna work, do they?"
"Yeah. You've just described every great success story."

Today is Thankfulness Day #3. I am thankful for our success story: our marriage and family.

Whaaaaaa?

It's Thankfulness Day #2, and I am thankful for this song.



It's so dippy. It's so cheesy. It makes me laugh. I bought it on iTunes some time ago - why, I cannot tell you. I think I saw a clip of it on one of those Time-Life CD informercials.

(You know, I can appreciate those CD collection-selling companies trying like mad to hold on to their little corner of the music market, but I can't think of anyone who would rather make five payments of $26.99 for 8,000 CDs with maybe three good songs on them, when they can look the songs up on iTunes and get only the ones they actually like for 99 cents. More than once, a Time-Life informercial has been responsible for my music purchases.)

Miss Pam called me later in the day and asked if Bella was going to the Priest-Laurel murder mystery thing. I said, "What Priest-Laurel murder mystery thing?" But no matter, if the Turleys are in, we're in. Mike and Jaydn went to the high school to fetch Bella, where she was ushering at the school play. It ended up being at another stake, for the young single adults. Ooops! And that was how Bella ended up eating Taco Bell at the Turleys' tonight. Fun :)

ELLENOR GEE I THINK YOU'RE SWELL

Carter stayed home from school today not feeling well, and it wasn't because of the copious amounts of candy he brought home and then tried to eat last night.  Along with a snotty nose and cough, his jaw was really tender on the right side of his face - I was thinking, "WE IMMUNIZED!! This better not be mumps or some weird disease!!".

Thankfully, he later remembered that he and another kid bumped into each other and knocked each other down on the pavement last night, and he landed on his face and then rolled over and hit the back of his head, which - when he touched it - was also sore. Whew! Problem solved.

Today is Thankfulness Day #1, and I am thankful for indoor plumbing. I'm glad I was born into an era where that function is firmly in place and working well. Otherwise, YIKES.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Our first Halloween in the Main Street house was a very happy one indeed.

Carter as Robin Hood
 

We had a heck of a time finding a costume to fit Carter. He wanted to be Batman (The Dark Knight) but all the kid costumes were too small and the adult costumes too big. It's hard to be an in-betweener. Fortunately Dada found this one. It was adult-sized as well, but I altered it a bit. It's not Halloween unless I'm fixing someone's costume at 4:30 PM.

Carter, T as ??? and E without his Viking costume, which was apparently too warm to wear until trick-or-treat time.

Rosalind as a WALKING ZOMBIE!
(That's what the packaging of her costume said. I found it offensive and discriminatory -
what about wheelchair-bound zombies?) 

ZOMBIE FACE

E as Athena the goddess of ...wisdom? And Roz

Brennan used his mad culinary skills to carve our jack o'lanterns :)



ooooh, scary.

Carter left around 5 with his buddies for dinner and trick-or-treating. We were sad to see him go - just another reminder that our kids are growing up too fast. WAAAAA! No growing up!

Harrison wasn't going to go trick-or-treating this year, but we finally convinced him to come with us. He threw on a cape, a witch hat and glasses (he did it so fast, I didn't get a chance to grab a pic) and went as Harry Potter. Hubby and I took him, Roz and Emma around the neighborhood.  I wore my Betsy Ross costume and Hubby went as Hubby. The kids made A HAUL and we met many sweet people living nearby.

Brennan and Bella stayed home and handed out candy to our small number of trick-or-treaters - but they did come, which made us very happy. Halloween is alive and well in our neighborhood.  Hooray!

All Hallow's Eve Eve

Bella stayed home sick from Seminary and school today. Get well once, will ya? :)

One of the conditions of our moving into this house was that our friend the landlady would come over to inspect the house every six months, in April and October. Her previous tenants were prone to doing unhelpful things to the house, which she would later discover after they moved out, so she figured it was in her best interest to come visit every so often. Can't say I blame her, but the previous tenants I'd like to line up and fire-hose.

She's coming tomorrow, so today I'm scrubbing the bathroom grout. GROSS. I've decided that if the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the rest of hell is paved with tile. "Here's your toothbrush, Mr. Hitler!"

Speaking of odious people... then there's the overly helpful neighbor in Fargo, North Dakota, who planned on passing these out to the Fatty Fatterson children who come to her door for trick-or-treat tomorrow night. I hope she grows a heart. Or a brain. OR some courage (to sign her name).



How superior you must feel :)

After the daylong scrubfest, I settled in for some TV and watched Warm Bodies with Brennan and Bella. Such a HAPPY movie!  I loved it! And then of course Survivor. No Mutual tonight, we begged off since Bella was sick and Harrison had to clean his room. Meanwhile Hubby took Carter and Rosalind to a soccer meeting, which for some reason, they always enjoy.

Culinary and Marching Band Prowess

Today, after running people around to their various stuff, I came home to find Brennan making onion rings from scratch. Mmmmm. So happy that kid likes to cook.

Found this on the loveseat.

Found this in the bathroom. I think Mr. Loveseat did it.

This is seriously so cool. Watch and be happy.

The Incredibly Participatory Sunday

Hubby and I spoke in Sacrament meeting today. Our bishopric likes to (has been asked to?) assign a choice of two General Conference addresses for topics.

I took First Observe, Then Serve...

Hubby took See Others As They May Become.

Matt and Candice S, the ward choir directors, had asked me weeks ago to accompany them for a musical number today, so I played for them after I gave my talk. Kind of funny how that worked out. Here's what they sang.



Then choir practice after church... we're working on our November song and Christmas stuff, including this gorgeous, gorgeous song:



After all this, I put on my jammies and crawled into bed, only to be happily (I swear) surprised by my visiting teachers' coming for our scheduled visit.  Fun surprise #2: Candice was also wearing pajama pants. Fun surprise #3: Brenda brought pumpkin chocolate chip cookies which were promptly devoured after she and Candice left.

A good, busy day. Holy heck.

From the Derp Files

Today was our ward Halloween party. We absolutely love, adore and cherish Halloween at this house. I sent Bella up to the attic to fetch our Halloween boxes so we could costume up for the evening, and in one of the boxes was this little plastic pair of handcuffs:

Derp de derp derp

I tried several ways to remove them, including Hubby's real life handcuff key, but they weren't budging.

Some thirty minutes later I had to take Harrison to his soccer game and was just about to escape his embarrassed teenager notice when he spied my new attachment. "You're not wearing those, are you??"

Okay, I guess I'm not.

He had the bright idea of using a Swiss Army knife accessory to flip the little switch (this one's switch was broken, the other side's was fine - go figure) and free his mother from her stupidity...at least in this instance.

The game was great - I sat in the car and rehearsed my talk for Sacrament tomorrow - and we rushed back just in time to hand Hubby the candy and decorations and kiss him and the other kids goodbye. Brennan stayed home - ward parties aren't his scene. :) We had signed up to take one of the doors at the church and pass out candy, and also to bring a bread item. I made two pans of our favorite breadsticks and then Harrison and I were off.

Lots of good chili, tons of variety, and lots of food. Cute costumes, fun people, and candy. It was a good night.

Later: "Cry me a river so I can swim around and laugh in it" made me laugh myself to sleep.

And who names a town in Montana "Musselshell"??

My question, while doing genealogical research or something today. I have several relatives who were born there. I finally read that the town and county Musselshell are named after the Musselshell River, which was named by Lewis and Clark after they found freshwater MUSSELS living along the banks of the river.

WHO KNEW!!  It's an amazing world, isn't it?

Meanwhile, it's Parent-Teacher Conference week, and the kids are home from school, which means: keep the food coming and the dishwasher running. The Five Mouths are living up to their name.

Oh it's a tough little life

Messing around with iTunes today, I was reminded of this golden oldie, and of spending rainy days down in our Brookings basement with BC, listening to Mom and Dad's records. Good times.

Watch out for hop-ons

You're gonna get some hop-ons.

"How was your birthday?" (wink, wink)

Tonight I went out with the guy I started dating 22 years ago today.

We went to Red Robin and had burgers, and pretzel bites for an appetizer. Mmmm.

I'm really, really glad I started dating him. :)

Hubby's Birthday

A very fun day. Hubby stayed home from work and we ate, a lot.

If you order a biscuit, this is what you get.

For dinner we went to Red Robin with the kids. It was one of our weirder RR experiences - the table was VERY small and the service was slow (on a Wednesday night?). But we made it through, thank goodness.

Happiest of Birthdays to my sweet man.
The world is a sunnier place with you in it.
Love you always.