Santa Claus, he came to our town!

Grace and Hattie and I started out the Christmas 2-day-event by taking around the neighbor gifts. This is a foreign concept to people in New England. No one really does it, (except our neighbors across the street do participate with just us) but being a Utah native where this thing is required, I just can't shake the task. I actually love doing it here because I have nothing to live up to, no one else to compare myself to (you know what I mean - when you get the unbelievable neighbor gift that no one will top and you are suddenly embarrassed by your tiny plate of cookies!) Plus, my neighbors here are totally appreciative of the gesture. It's not just the 14th plate of mystery cookies they've gotten this month. It is also one of the few times a year we actually speak to some of our neighbors and it's great to get to know them a little more each year.

So, I was trying to figure out how to take 2 kids and 8 plates of goodies at the same time. Surely Hattie would ask to be picked up somewhere along the way too. The wagon won't go in the snow. Wait! We have a big sled! ("Over the river and through the woods" brings new meaning after you've lived here!) Both kids and all the trimmings went right in the sled and I pulled them around our snowy neighborhood. Dirt roads do come in handy ONCE in a while. I think this was one of the most fun things we have done for a long time. Grace just kept saying what a great time she was having. I feel like I must have kept these guys cooped up for way too long lately!After delivering our goods, we came home to clean up a bit. Our neighbor, "grandma Jeanne" did stop by with presents for the girls since she wasn't home when we dropped off her gift with Roger. This is as close to visiting a Grandma at Christmas as we get. She is such a dear. We just LOVE her and her family.

Then, we went on our merry way to the Bahe's Christmas Eve party. We have a standing invitation at their house, so we always have something to look forward to and never have to dread being left without plans and home alone. Their family is unique and funny and a total blast to celebrate with. Their traditions are becoming ours (what will we do when we can't ring their chimes or have their vegetarian dinner or participate in their nativity with all of Shawn's crazy clothes?!)(Hattie played Mary in the nativity with a baby Jesus bear)

Grace and Aydan tracked Santa during the night on NORAD. He did get quite close before we headed home. I think he was on Prince Edward Island as we drove away.Quick, home, have a bath, put on clean jammies, wait!, we forgot to frost some cookies for Santa, ok, everything done, in bed at 10:30??? Holy cow. Glad we did so much in advance to prepare! Have to remember to lock the dogs in our bedroom so that they don't get an advance advantage to go through the stockings full of treats before we get up...

Christmas morning. I wake up to Grace poking me in the shoulder. It's about 7:30. We slink down the stairs to see what is waiting for us under the tree. Hattie is DELIGHTED to find (and hasn't stopped talking about it) that Santa ate the cookies and drank the apple juice she left for him!

Hattie opens the first present - A MOON BOUNCE!!! Something she's been wanting all year. As we cycle through the turns, Grace keeps trying to figure out which box holds the ipod she's asked for and had in mind all year and told everyone that she might get. She finally chooses the right box. Yay! A blue ipod - just as she wanted.

(Grace giving Daddy the present she bought in SLC in October. She's kept it a secret all this time!)

Where's Red, our elf? Oh, Santa picked him up last night. He isn't here anymore. This is the saddest part of Christmas. Saying good-bye to our cheerful friend. Grace did say at the end of it all that she was so thankful that Santa came to our house. She was quite worried he wouldn't after how naughty we have all been lately. (glad she at least knows that we haven't been on best behavior lately!)

We hate being so far from family on these days, but one good thing about it is that we don't have to go anywhere or entertain anyone. We stay in jammies all day, sit in our mess, play with our toys, and eat our food in no particular order. We did cook a pretty Christmas dinner, just for us. I love making a candle-light dinner in the dining room. The girls love it too.We do think of everyone we miss and we are so mindful of our friends who are suffering hardships and losses this year. We are truly grateful for all that was sent our way from presents and treats to cards and e-mails. We feel so lucky. We hope we've been able to spread our Christmas cheer as far reaching as it was felt coming, but we're quite sure that we have had more to be grateful for than we have given.

Merry Christmas to all...

and to all a good night...
We wish everyone who is far away a Merry Christmas Eve and Day. We miss you......much love from Boston...

feelin' pretty good

I shouldn't say things like that, because when you feel like things are going well, they always fall apart. (shouldn't say things like that either!) But, today, I AM feeling good! Here's why:

I RODE FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE JANUARY 1, 2008!!! I think this is the longest time I have gone with out riding in my whole life (maybe even counting the pregnant/newborn baby years - I did ride up to about 4 months prego...)We had a huge snowstorm yesterday that closed schools, businesses, and just about everything else. Still, being the Utah natives that we are, we went out to dinner for a late birthday party for me. We were nearly the only ones in what is usually a very popular restaurant. It was great! We were the only ones on the roads except the snow plows.

Then, due to the storm, none of the usual riding instructors were able to get to the barn this morning. So, it was all me. How do you teach huge classes of kids all at once in a foot of snow? You take them on a trail ride! And, I got to ride with them myself! Usually, when I take kids on trail rides, I walk alongside them in case of emergency, but this group was pretty self-sufficient, so I rode. It was a GLORIOUS winter wonderland. We were sure we had stepped through the wardrobe doors into Narnia as we stepped onto the fresh, untrodden white powder, and brushed past all the low hanging trees filled with snow.

I rode the cutest little mare named Dori. I've never ridden her before. She's really young, but she was a blast in the snow. She's got 4 wheel drive, well 4 leg drive, for sure. It was like driving my pathfinder through a snowbank, which is something I also got to do today.

There is nothing like riding, for me, that clears my head, boosts my spirit, and makes me feel alive. This was a long-awaited treat.

I wish I could say I was this positive ALL morning. But, after completely soaking myself with snow on the first ride, going out on the second and starting out as a wet popsicle made it not so fun. I was frozen stiff by the time we got back from the last ride. Frozen in both temperature, and stiff muscles. Oh, I forgot, you have to use muscles that aren't used for ANYTHING else when you ride, and those haven't been used in almost a year. We'll see if I can manage walking into church tomorrow.

Still, a beautiful start to winter.

I have another reason to celebrate today. (Barbara, you should sit down for this one. I'd hate for you to hurt yourself when you pass out with shock.) I FINISHED HATTIE'S CHRISTMAS STOCKING!!!!!
Now, if you don't know what I mean by that... I started hand-stitching this Christmas stocking for GRACE when she was born. She was born in March 2005. (CORRECTION, as my sister put it, I'm crazy! Grace was born in 2003. Even David didn't pick up on that. We are bad! We moved in 2005, so that year is also embedded in my brain.) In December 2003, she used a little substitute stocking instead. In December 2004, she used the beautiful hand-stitched stocking that her Grandma Barbara made for her when it was CLEAR that I would never finish my project. I kept working.

For Hattie's first Christmas in 2006, I bought a beautiful little white baby stocking. I lost it in the mall before I could get it home. Then, I bought a not-so-cute "baby's first Christmas" stocking from Sears in desperation. She used that one again for her SECOND Christmas in 2007. I kept working! (WHY???? I DON'T KNOW!!!) Luckily, I had started at the bottom so that one of the last things I did was put the name on it :-)
On December 18th, 2008, Harriet hung up her very own Christmas stocking next to Grace's.
I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that I have spent more clock hours and definitely more calendar years on this sewing project than I spent on my ENTIRE college education. I truly feel like I deserve a PhD for it. (I'm sure David doesn't think so - he also had NO faith in me and was sure I would never finish at all. So much for my cheering section.)

I have more awe for Barbara than ever before. We have multiple stitching projects hanging up in our house that she has done. They are amazing. She is a better woman than I. Still, I am basking in the glory.

A "Christmas Card"

I just realized that as we're sending out our Christmas cards, our blog address is on the bottom and when people check it, their first glance at our blog is the entry "well this sucks!" Some people send out nice beautiful letters with positive highlights of the year. Not us, you get the real deal at the Chapman house.

So, for a change of pace, here is some true Christmas cheer to you from the Chapman Family:

(Santa's little helper)

(waiting for the bus in our first snow)


MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Well this sucks...

...as Grace said mid-morning on Friday morning. I know I shouldn't be amused that my 5 year old says "sucks" but I laughed so hard! I guess it is a line from a penguin in Madagascar II, but I'm sure she's also heard me say it.

This was the longest weekend of my life. Or as Homer Simpson would correct me, the longest weekend of my life SO FAR. Friday, Grace didn't have school because we were supposed to go to parent teacher conferences and the elementary school book fair. This is what we did instead:

4am: Hattie crying "mommy". mommy goes to check. Hattie and her bed covered in vomit. mommy cleans up and brings Hattie back to bed with her.

4:30 am: just after getting back in bed, we see all of the nightlights and power indicator lights go out. power is out. Oh, did we mention it was forecasted for freezing rain? we did hear TORRENTIAL rain outside, but it hadn't frozen at our house, so we weren't worried. oh well, no power, go back to sleep. (not sure what the thinking was there - should have checked the basement the second the power went out...)

4:45 am: apparently we didn't get the message from God that we needed to wake up the first time, so Hattie threw up again. big enough mess to force me downstairs for towels. heard the siren coming from the basement. what is that? David get up! check the basement. David goes downstairs. Michelle hears a SPLASH like he dove into a swimming pool. NOT GOOD!!!!!!!! The siren was telling us that the battery backup to the sump pumps was used up and the pumps had turned off.....

We headed immediately downstairs with Hattie vomiting on my shoulder to start rescuing things from our super messy basement. We've been moving things around, tossing things down there to make room for Christmas decorating, moving toys from the playroom down there to make room for holiday visitors in the playroom/guestroom. Needless to say, everything wasn't organized neatly into plastic bins as it should have been.

The basement has several levels to it. Little steps up a few inches here and there. I moved everything I could to the most open room up a few inches from the water. Soon, the water spilled into that room and I threw everything I could into the highest room. In the mean-time, David goes to my car to harvest the battery and try to get the sump pumps running again. It will only run one of the three pumps. We figure out quick that this is not going to be good enough. Water rising... what time does home depot open??? 6am. good, it's almost that time anyway. David gets in the car with the credit card. He calls from Home Depot to ask "how much do we want to spend on a generator? The 7 people who beat me here bought all the lower-end ones and the few left are pricey." I'm standing in water half way up my rain boots with my pajama bottoms soaked looking at thousands of dollars of potential water damage with a throwing up toddler and say "seriously?!!! BUY ONE!!!"

Merry Christmas to us. David got half a generator. I got the other half. It may be our Christmas present next year too.

By the time he finally got back from Home Depot the water was flowing through the entire basement. We got the generator hooked up to the pumps and thankfully, the water quit rising. Also, thankfully, God answered our desperate prayers and the rain let up too so that the water wasn't coming in faster than we could get it out anymore. We got so much water in 24 hours. If you look at these pictures, the first one is how much water we got in one day, and the other one is the last time we flooded this badly. (by the way, our pond usually doesn't go past the line of bushes you see on the right.) It took 10 days to get that much rain water the last time we flooded in May 2006. I've never seen so much water come down so fast as it did on Friday.

(December 12, 2008)

(May 2006)

Now, no power, wet things everywhere, vomit laundry everywhere that can't be washed. Sick child. No heat. No running water (we have a well with an electric pump.) We flush the toilet with buckets of water from our new basement swimming pool. I wrap the kids up as best I can and we huddle while David does a long wiring job to get the house on auxiliary power so that we can turn on the furnace. We did get a space heater fixed up to the generator and started warming up the playroom. We spent most of the day in there. Most people we knew ended up going to distant towns to a mall or the movies for the day to stay warm. Where was I supposed to go with a vomiting kid? What friend would want us in their house even? I did plan on imposing on someone with a wood-burning stove for the night if we didn't get our heat back. But, thankfully, David did get the house wired so that we had the furnace, the well, a few lights, a TV, the internet, and the fridge running.

Rita called to check on us and brought us hot soup and corn bread in the middle of the day. COUNTLESS people offered us help, and we felt really lucky. I felt so lucky that we were able to buy a generator. Whether you could afford one or not, by the time most people woke up, the generators were long gone from the stores. I really am thankful that Hattie woke up throwing up at 4am. I feel bad that she had to take one for the team, but she saved us.

Our power finally came back on at dinner time. 13 hours in the dark. We were VERY lucky. We still have friends (4 days later) who don't have power. We've loaned out our generator and have done what we can to help people. It's amazing how generous people become in a time of crisis. Everyone would have done anything for someone else.

We spent the night cleaning up what we could and started the laundry!

Saturday, we had planned to really do a big clean-up job, buy lots of plastic bins, and try to get out to help other people. I also had a huge conference call I was supposed to do at noon for YouthLINC. Unfortunately, David ended up going on a scout activity to go flying (we thought it had been cancelled, but it was back on.) He left me to deal with the day alone and do my conference call with sick, tired, and screaming kids in the background. It was an extremely long day too. I got nothing done and I counted the minutes until he would be home to help again.

By the time he did get home, we had to start getting things ready for church the next day. We knew we already had to be there early, I had a thousand things to do for my calling, and to add insult to injury, one of the Stake Presidency called on Saturday afternoon to ask if we could meet with him Sunday morning. I knew this only meant one thing. From the second he said "this is President Durham" I knew exactly the next turn our lives would take.

On Sunday morning, David was called to be the second counselor in the bishopric of our ward. By 1pm on Sunday, he was ordained to be a high priest and set apart in the calling. He started his duties immediately after being called, which meant I was left alone at church. Something I will be for a long time now - alone at church. I almost threw up, literally, when they sustained him in Sacrament meeting and made him leave our bench to go sit on the stand.

I had so many things to do for RS that day. We were doing our gift delivery for our angel tree (sub-for-santa) and a myriad of other things. The aftermath after church was another marathon in tests of patience and running around like chickens with our heads cut off. David finally got home last night near 9pm from the Christmas broadcast at the church building and the kids were finally in bed. I have rarely felt so much tiredness and relief fall on me in one moment. It was similar to the moment after giving birth. In that one moment of utter exhaustion you feel the most intense sense of relief - even though you know the moment will definitely and quickly pass.

Back to reality today. Well, almost. Grace doesn't have school today since half the school district is still without power and roads are still impassable. David did leave us and go to work. Thankfully though, we have power, the kids are healthy (Hattie was only sick that one day and none of us got it from her), and we have minimal damage from the storm. It was a kind little reminder that when it comes to emergency preparedness, we were UNPREPARED. We were not as well off as we thought. We will be better prepared for the next time, although, I'm sure there are still many things we need to do to be in a better position. If we were still without power, or if it had kept raining, or if we hadn't found a generator, we would not have been in such good shape. I will say though, the next time the power goes out, I will head to the basement IMMEDIATELY!

I called my mom to tell her how lucky she was that she came to visit LAST weekend!

weekend with 'Mo

Grandma Debbie, fondly referred to as Mo-Deb around here, came to stay for the weekend. She has made a tradition of coming to Boston to see us around the holidays and do some Christmas shopping with me since it is so difficult and expensive to travel for the actual holiday weeks. We have never gone back to Utah for Christmas since moving here, so we're extremely grateful for those who come here to spend some time with us when the Christmas tree is lit.

We usually have a dance recital or something major to attend to, but this past first December weekend was pretty wide-open. My mom and I went to see Twilight at the little local main-street theater here. We were both really excited to see the movie after finishing all of the books. Believe it or not, it was my mom who read Twilight first and gave it to me to read. We've been hooked since the first page. It's been a great little diversion. We saw the movie on Friday night with almost literally the whole population of local jr. high kids. I'm pretty sure we were the only ones there with drivers licenses. The girls sitting in front of us swooned dramatically at every chance and quoted the whole movie line by line. We think they were seeing it for about the 16th time! Still, it was really fun to get out with my mom and we actually really liked the movie too. You never know how well the movie will live up to your expectations after reading a book, but this one was pretty good. I thought the casting was great except for Edward. Apparently I am alone in my opinion that he didn't fit the bill, but the Edward in my head is a little more dashing with a more velvet voice than the kid who played the part. (voice of the lead singer of Muse is what I had in mind...) The girls in front of us obviously thought he was just right, so they probably chose the right guy for the majority of the audience...

Anyway, I digress... Saturday was filled with SANTA SIGHTINGS!!! We first went to our town breakfast with Santa. We saw lots of friends and Grace had a really good chat with the big man. Our picture was taken by the local papers and she's really looking forward to getting the paper this week. We also went to our ward party Saturday night where Santa appeared again. Harriet has yet to sit on Santa's lap, but she adores him from a distance.
Sunday, well, is always taken up by church. But, when we finally did get home and settled, we made a good dinner together and had a little early birthday party for me. The birthday part of it got a little lost when Grandma let Hattie and Grace open their Christmas presents from her (and Grandpa.) We decided it would be much more exciting for Grandma to get to see them open the presents and on Christmas morning, there is always so much from so many they would probably appreciate it more on it's own anyway. Boy, did they ever appreciate it! Hattie held up her new horsey jammies and said "cute!" a bunch of times. They also got some new Playmobile (playmo as the girls say) sets. This is their new "thing" that they LOVE to play with. Hattie is finally old enough to have her own set. The pieces in them are so tiny, I've always worried about her choking, but she has finally given up putting EVERYTHING in her mouth... Anyway, they did let me open my cool birthday present too and helped me blow out my candles. 33. (years, not candles.)Mom always seems to hit one of the coldest weekends here. It has been in the 20's with wind-chills in the teens. Christmas shopping is barely bearable as you run to the car through the wind. We had planned to go to the Concord tree lighting ceremony last night, but decided we didn't want to brave the weather.

Today, we finished up our shopping while Grace was in school and then the 3 of us dropped Grandma off for the plane. Poor Grandma. She actually takes the train into Boston and then grabs a cab at the station to get to the airport. She does all of this so I don't have to drive 2 hours in the car with screaming Hattie. What a good Grandma we have! I actually did offer to drive her all the way in, but on both ends of the trip, we only had to go to the train station that is 10 minutes away. The girls both love going to the train station.

Dropping her off was really sad. Hattie desperately wanted to go back to Salt Lake with Grandma. Grace even ran up to my mom as she was boarding and gave her a hug. She NEVER does things like that. She's a Grandpa's girl and you can never coerce her into showing affection for a Grandma. I guess she had a weak moment and her true love for mo-deb spilled out. I always tell her Grandma's that she really does love and like them, but she does make it hard to believe sometimes. Today, my mom got the hard evidence I know she's been wishing for. Hattie, on the other hand, ADORES her Grandma. She runs up to her, jumps in her lap, and plays with her endlessly. She was so sad when she saw the bed all folded up today and realized that Grandma wasn't sleeping here tonight.Well, we are all very thankful that we have such wonderful Grandmas and Grandpas. We are especially grateful for mo-deb this weekend that she took time off work, spent her money on a plane ticket, and came to see us.

You know you watch too much football when...

1. Your 5 year old daughter has a favorite team from a place you never have lived (Philadelphia Eagles, at least it isn't the Patriots)
2. She knows enough about their road/home jerseys to correct her dad about where they are playing (green jerseys for home, white jerseys for the road)
3. She wants to eat lunch in front of the tv to watch the game
4. She vehemently screams no way when the Giants block a FG and return for a touchdown ("Dad, that isn't legal is it?")
5. She gives high fives after good plays
6. Even after falling asleep in the second half, as soon as she wakes up she immediately asks for the final score

Big smile after the Eagles scored.

Miscellaneous Musings

We all slept in today until about 20 minutes before the bus comes to our house. Lucky we woke up at all. In times like these it is nice that my kids hate to do anything with their hair and their clothes are simple. I rolled Grace out of bed, she downed an instant breakfast, brushed her teeth, threw on her favorite tie-dye t-shirt and coat and went out the door. My favorite part of the morning was her one complete sentence: "I can't decide if I'm tired or not... (long pause) I'm going with tired." It reminded me of my high school days when I used to roll out of bed at 7:05, shower, throw on some garb with Doc Martens, pull a hat over my wet hair, leave at 7:22 and somehow arrive to my first class on time at 7:30. Sometimes I even picked up a friend on the way. I was never late. Grace has yet to miss the bus, but I know the day will come when I have to drive her to school in my jammies because we've pushed the clock further than it can stretch.

Also, the countdown to Christmas has begun - faster than I can imagine. We have a beautiful hand stitched advent calendar that David's mom made for us. The kids take turns putting the little squares on it. They also have those chocolate calendars and they eat their chocolate every day after lunch. Hattie is having a really hard time understanding why we only eat one chocolate and leave the rest. She usually asks for another one later in the day and has a fit when we tell her no.

Red has returned. Red is our elf. Not a Harry Potter house elf, but an employee of Santa. He checks in on us periodically during the whole year - maybe once every other month or so. But, in December, he arrives on the 1st, and leaves at night to report to Santa and returns every morning perched in a new place. The girls have the most fun looking for him every day. Hattie is totally dazzled by him. She really wants to hold him and play with him, but he does not like to be touched. We let her touch him once in a while though and she's kissed him too. She is so excited about Santa this year. Christmas morning is going to be so neat. (neat, I know David doesn't like using that word.)(Red chose the top of the tree this morning for his vantage point.)

We're also pretty pumped up about our Christmas tree this year. Again, sticking with the fresh cut New England Christmas tree tradition. It is by far the nicest looking tree we've ever had. We had the Charlie Brown tree last year (not that it was dead, but it had a huge hole in it and it was so gigantic we had to hedge trim it in the living room.) This one is perfectly proportioned, exactly the right size, and we bought some new cool LED lights for it that make these circles on the walls and the ceiling when it starts getting dark. The term "far out" comes to mind.