Santa Stress

Standing in line at the mall to see Santa is a stressful experience. Especially when it's already been an hour and you finally see the small print sign that says you're not allowed to use your own camera. That's how they trick you. You can't see the sign until you're up front and then you think "We'll I've already given them an hour of my life. I might as well give them 30 minutes more. And twenty bucks." That's how it went for me anyway. Luckily, soon after I saw the sign, I also saw this:

It is one of those rentable mall carts, shaped like a car for extra fun. And if you look really closely, you can see this:

That helped brighten my holiday spirits.
Luckily, Joel was there with me so he could let Dane run around while I secured our place in line. Dane seemed to like wedging himself in tight spaces.


Finally, $19.95 plus tax later, here is the result:

The picture quality isn't great, but it is a cute picture nonetheless.
The next week, we had our ward Christmas party, which suddenly became very stressful. Even though there are plenty of able pianists in the ward, I have apparently become the go to piano person. Combine that with my inability to say no, and we develop a little problem. Out of the six musical numbers, I was in five. A couple were legitimate; as choir accompanist and primary pianist, I naturally was in those two numbers. Then, I had signed up to play the violin in another number. Then, they asked me to play some rousing carols so everyone could sing along. Fine. Then, someone's accompanist backed out because of the weather, and I was their backup. That was the most stressful. She wanted me to play this awful arrangement of Mary Did You Know? I didn't try very hard to play it well so she would switch to a different song. I guess I sabotaged her piece. But she ended up singing a much better piece, so I regret nothing. Maybe it was karma when a little girl started pounding on the piano and pulling my music off the piano during the choir piece.
Anyway, Santa came to the party. Dane didn't handle this one so well.


Haha, how we take joy in our child's suffering.
I'm not sure if I'll post again for a while since I'll be in Oklahoma for Christmas. But may all of you have a very Merry holiday, and I'll be back next year!

Christmas Prep, Etc.

I was talking with an older coworker of mine about all the projects I'm working on for Christmas. She laughed at me with a "You'll learn" kind of glint in her eye. I feel really busy with a bunch of fairly unnecessary projects that I voluntarily took on. We'll see if I learn next year. I bet I won't.
Anyway, it's been a while since I've updated. Here are a few pictures from Thanksgiving weekend that Meghan sent me since, of course, my camera batteries died.
Here is Joel blowing out almost thirty candles:

That weekend, while Joel's mom was still in town, we hit downtown and went to the I Am a Child of God exhibit in the Museum of Church History. Even though Dane was too small for a lot of the activities, he really enjoyed himself, and we enjoyed watching him.
He is too short to hold to the rod, and he kept slipping off the straight and narrow path. Should I be worried?

Then we saw the beautiful lights on Temple Square.


Since then, we have been doing a lot of Christmas prep. I say "we", but I mean "I." It makes me really happy to decorate for Christmas. Joel has been kind enough to haul out our tree and help when I've needed it.
Here are the matching stockings I made:

I did a quick little sewing machine embroidery on them: tree, ornament, and star. The ornament one is kind of ugly, but overall, I am happy with how they turned out.

This is the fourth year now that I have strung cranberries and popcorn to decorate the tree. As I was doing it this time, I told Joel this may be the last year because it takes so long, but I really like how it looks on the tree...so we'll see what I decide for next year. Here is a poor representation of its splendor:

Does it look like the decorations are disproportionally distributed on top? I have one hyphenated word for you: 14-month-old. Those ones on the bottom are shatterproof. He likes to take them off and yell "Bwoh!"
Finally, I got an early Christmas present from Joel, courtesy of IKEA as-is department. A new bookcase! It is so pretty. Our old bookcase was an ugly yard sale find, and it was overflowing with books. So I got my Christmas wish! Here is Dane, climbing on it:

Here is handy man Joel, admiring his work:

And here it is, all filled:

I should've taken a "before" picture, but it was pretty scary.