December 19, 2010
Dear Family,
Happy December! What a fun month this is—we've been enjoying it SO much, I can barely keep up! We've had lots of concerts, programs, dinners, and even a FHE to see Christmas lights. The children are now out of school for the next 2 weeks, so hopefully we can cozy up and enjoy the last few days before Christmas now.
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| walking through the Layton lights |
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| Lucy excited to try her first ice cream cone at Emily's party |
We started off with Emily's birthday celebration. She finally got to have a party this year, and we had a blast w/ her friends: making lipgloss (out of KoolAid and Vaseline) and decorating jars, playing the "foil game" to see who could come up w/ the best aluminum foil outfit, painting nails, and having pizza rolls and ice cream cones! That was Friday, for Saturday (her actual birthday), she got to get her ears pierced!! So exciting!!
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| painting nails |
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| Foil Game: Kaylee, Emily, Paige, Paige, McCartney, Hailey, and Ashton |
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| lipgloss jars (had to use up those babyfood jars somehow!) |
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| brave Emily!--and lucky she got both ears at once! |
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| all done, but "It still hurts!" |
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| Birthday cake time (German chocolate seems to be a favorite around here!) she wanted pesto sauce and bruschetta for dinner |
Then came school choir concert:
and First Grade Christmas program (Miss Hellewell is the BEST--every child had a speaking part and they all sang and did actions for many Christmas songs PERFECTLY while she played the piano--I don't know if she's a hypnotist or what, but she's good!)
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| Spencer takes his singing VERY seriously--as he puts it, "Singing loud is one of my best talents!" |
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| I love this pic, b/c all but the boy in the middle are children in our ward!!--can you imagine how fun?!Spencer, Kylie, Sara, and Todd |
Maddie's Orchestra Concert:
We could even put up w/ a few screeching strings, b/c cute Lucy has learned to join in the applause!
In other accomplishments, our very own BRENT DUNCAN won the entire school Geography Bee!! He won a great Kid's Atlas to help him study for the state competition coming up in a few months!!--I guess all those hours on "Google Earth" are worth something! And Emily finally got to sell her finger puppets at the "Economics Fair" She did sell out (as did most everyone by day end), and I only wish we'd kept more!!
In other concerts, Brian and I went w/ some friends to a "Simulcast" of the Annual Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert w/ David Archuletta. While it wasn't nearly the same as being live, we did get the benefit of the huge screen of the "Legacy Theater" over in the Joseph Smith bldg, and really enjoyed it--AMAZING quality the church pulls together for this! David's singing was great, and guest narrator Michael York told the precious story of the beginnings of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and its first leader (from Wales) John Perry, ending w/ the entire cast/choir singing "Angels from the Realms of Glory" with such breadth and depth and thrilling power of Christ's coming and Second Coming and Reign--it was stunning!, and a warm celebration of Christmas.
Now, as to our hurdles this month, Anne's skin is still as afflicted as ever, but I AM learning a little bit,
1-to completely appreciate in a whole new way, how healthy everyone else is--esp. delicious little Lucy!!
2-I'm learning (by force) to be better at cutting out non-essentials--some I don't mind letting go of so much, and others I find I'm quite fond of. I like leaving everything finished, and I enjoy making things as cute as I can, but there are other things that matter more than getting Anne's hair done every day, or having every dish for dinner I wanted to make, or even getting all of the laundry folded in one day
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| Anne's favorite snack: oatmeal |
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| a day w/o brushing (and there are many!) |
3-I'm also learning to appreciate the happy moments, instead of just waiting for this trial to be over. Anne can be SO happy--her music melts us all as she picks up songs so quickly, and loves them! She recently caught on to Spencer singing the new Primary song, "I Know that My Savior Loves Me" and asked me to sing it to her. She happily said afterward, "That MY song Mom!" I was so happy the other day, while rubbing cream on her feet, to be able to the the Toe Rhyme of "Old Tom Bubble" w/ her. I had thought a few months ago how much she'd love that one, and how unfair it is that her toes hurt too much to touch, but we DID get to do it, and she did love it. Here she is dancing around to her own solo of "Ring Around the Rosies"
Then, to keep me from worrying too much about Anne, I had to cut Lucy's "Toe Tourniquet" the other day (a somewhat common occurrence, where a strand of loose hair gets tangled around a baby's toe). I noticed it in Wal-Mart, and thought I could just break it right off, but after 3 minutes of SCREAMING and her toe getting more and more swollen around the disappearing strand, I figured I could deal w/ it more easily at home or in the car--which I did, thanks to a new nailtrimming kit Anne found in the glovebox for me, and a lot of Purel to keep it clean. It was HORRENDOUS cutting into my baby's flesh, esp. since the indentation didn't go right away!!--her circulation getting better was the clue, but it was SO wretched!! I just knew my only other option was having someone else do the same thing in the ER, and did my best! She was a GREAT sport, and recovered quickly. She's also NOW crawling (up on her knees) AND cut her first tooth! Here's her toe the next day-yuck!
And as if I hadn't witnessed enough suffering for one month, I backed over our poor Cosmo kitty last week!!! My poor heart can only be wrenched so much!!! She did survive, but can you imagine the agony of watching her cry in pain and drag her back leg around. I was such a wreck, not sure of what to do, but finally took her to the vet, had her x-rayed, and found she had a cracked pelvis on one side, and a broken femur (right at the hip joint) on the other, not to mention who knew what internal damage?! The Dr. was VERY good and kind and reasonable though (said to be grateful it wasn't a child!), and sent us home w/ pain med's and some time to make up our minds. We couldn't justify surgery for $1000s, but the Dr. did say cats can be amazing w/ healing bones (even talked about the story at Haun's Mill of the boy whose hip got shot out :)), so we decided to wait and see for a bit how she'd do. The Dr. was impressed the next day when I called and told him she was eating and using her litter box all right, but soon after that, she got SO listless and had such shallow breathing, I was sure she wouldn't make it through the night. She did though, and living on her bed in our kitchen, she's gotten better and better already! By Thursday night, she was purring and purring while I held her, and today she was even bold enough to move around the kitchen a bit. I'm beginning to understand where the "9 Lives" idea comes from! From drowning to impoundment, to being run over!! If this cat makes it to her first year, it'll be amazing!! Poor dear--I still have nightmares w/ her in them every night! (the children were sad of course, and Brian's called often to check on her, but no one's cried like I have!--oh these pets!!!)
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| finished curtains! |
Love, The Duncan's
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| Anne sitting w/ Santa--I don't know if it was the free candy cane or what, but she begged to go see the Santa at the mall too! |
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| Emily after her ears pierced--an Asian Santa w/ visible scotch tape holding up his beard! |
Hotchie Motchie!! First of all, How do you get so much done all the time!?!?! Second of all, your kids are amazing and gorgeous. Third, I am pretty sure that there is a genetic trait for having bad luck with animals in our family.
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