From Us to You

Ballet Culmination

By the time we got back from SC the recital/concert/party season, otherwise known as December, was in full swing.  Cat's ballet dress rehearsal and concert were that week, and it was so exciting!

Dress Rehearsal:

Watching the "Dance I" class rehearse.  This is the class we wanted to get Cat into, but it was full by the time we registered.  Cat was very envious that they got to dance to "This Christmas" and do fun, upbeat choreography.  

Jack enjoyed watching the rehearsal.

Eliza tried to sneak onto the stage with Cat's class.

Pre-Concert Shots:

No, I didn't tell Jack to get in the picture, or to pose.  Monkey see, monkey do.

Same goes for Eliza.

I love Jack in this one.

Finally, a picture of the ballerina all by herself!  :-)

Performance:

Cat with her fellow ballerinas in their holding area.

1st Piece - "Gum Drops and Sugar Plums"
(Waltz)

2nd Piece - "Dance of the Reed Flutes"
(from The Nutcracker)

Watching the other classes perform.

With her teacher, Kathryn, whom we loved!

We sat on the aisle, and Jack decided to use that open space to bring the dancing into the audience.  He actually did a lot of dancing throughout the concert, mostly mimicking the performers, but I didn't get much of it on video.

Sometimes he just can't help himself.


I tried to upload the videos of Cat's dances onto YouTube but it was taking FOREVER, so I stopped.
If you would really like to see the videos, though, I'll try again.
Leave me a comment and let me know.  


If your name is Joyce, Cleo, or Susannah, the videos are coming your way.  ;-)

Back East

The weekend after Thanksgiving I got to go South Carolina to see my family!  Disclaimer: I didn't bring my good camera with me, so the following pictures were all taken with my phone.  I'm grateful for it, but the quality definitely isn't close to what it would have been with my real camera.  So, just bear with me.

The official reason for the trip was that my sister Megan blessed her triplets.  And I was happy to have an excuse to make the trip!  At first I thought I would just go alone, but after some thought I realized it would be too cruel to make a trip back to SC without Cat.  She's old enough to know exactly what she would be missing, and she loves seeing our extended family there.  So I decided to take her with me.  And to make the burden on Ben (and those who were helping with babysitting in UT) a little lighter, I brought Eliza too.  Plus, she flew for free.  :-)  Ben was nearing the end of the semester so he stayed home so that he wouldn't have to miss classes, and Jack hung out with him as much as possible, and spent some time with friends when Ben was in class.

We were nice and early for our flight out of SLC so we had time to stop and play in the little kid area they have set up at the end of the terminal.  After a few minutes of playing, Cat told me that she was bored.  Translation: I'm dying to see an airplane!

She got a kick out of being in an airplane.

And she thought the moving walkways in the Chicago Midway airport were really fun too.

Love that airport.  They had these Kids Korners set up at many of the gates.  Each one had a kid-sized set of table and chairs and the Cartoon Network playing.

Eliza was so funny on this trip.  She hasn't spent a ton of time around babies, and I didn't realize how much she enjoyed all-things-baby... including the babies themselves.  She was really upset whenever we found her trying to pick a baby up by its head.  I think she wanted to yell at us, "why in the world won't you let me play with this living breathing baby doll?  They are the funnest toys EVER!"

Big kids + babies at Krispy Kreme.  You're never too young to appreciate a good doughnut!

Cat hanging out with my Opa at Krispy Kreme.

Opa's wearing costume glasses my nephews brought to KK with them, but I'm pretty sure he had some a lot like that about 50 or so years ago...

We took the big kids and Eliza to EdVenture and had a great time as always.  This is the farm area.

The grocery store.

The human body / medical area.  Eliza played dentist for a long time.  Is dental school in her future?

All of the big kids liked the veterinarian clinic the best.

I know my Mom and Megan appreciated having so many adults around to feed all of the babies.  And rock them.  And change their diapers.  And dress them.  And calm them.  Oh my goodness.  

The big kids spent as much time outside as we would allow.

Here are Cat and Colin running down the road.

Cat loves it when she gets to have a "Cousin Sleepover."  This weekend was no exception!  Play time, snacks, movies, and sleeping on a pallet on the floor.  Good times!

We missed our early morning flight on Monday morning.  (It's a long, sad story.)  I was devastated, but Mom saved the day by hanging out with us and taking us out to breakfast and to do a little shopping before she headed back to Oma and Opa and the other family who were still visiting.  The girls did great, though.  One thing that helped is that the Greenville/Spartanburg airport had this great courtyard area (perhaps just a glorified smoking area, but still).  The girls had fun running around and playing outside for a little while before we parked ourselves on the terminal for Eliza's nap.

Eliza's nap.

Cat was so great.  She worked in a workbook, read, and did other things during E's nap.

When E woke up, it was snack time.  Do you see the remnants of a white powdered doughnut on her hoodie?

We flew Southwest, so every time Cat saw a Southwest plane, she was sure it was ours.

"Mom!  That's our plane!  Can we go now?"

We finally got on the next available flight and made our way back to Midway, where we saw this familiar face on the wall.  I don't know him, but my sister Suz traveled around the world doing a Semester at Sea when she was in college.  Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, was on the ship with them and Suz met him several times.  Very cool!

We were originally supposed to land in SLC around 2pm, but after missing our flight, we didn't land until 9:30.  It was a long day, but the girls were wonderful.  I was surprised and impressed at how well it all went.  We were so grateful to have been able to travel to SC to spend time with family and meet those sweet little babies!  It was such a blessing for us.  Ben and Jack did just fine without us, but we were all happy to be reunited and to try to get back into a normal routine after a big cross-country trip.

PS> Since I didn't have my good camera, I didn't try to take a lot of just family pictures.  But Suz did.  So when I get those from her, I'll share more pics of the babies and me with my family.  :-)

A Special Day

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we drove up to Salt Lake City to see my cousin's oldest son's baptism.  It was held in an old Church building across the street from the Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake and several people at the baptism told us that we needed to check out the stained glass, organ, and vaulted ceilings in the chapel.  The baptism was sweet and lovely and we were so happy to be there to support Xavier and his family.  Afterward, Cat asked me to take her to the chapel.  Ben already had Jack and Eliza in the car, all ready to go, so Cat and I just walked in and had the chapel to ourselves.  She immediately started telling me how beautiful it was and how much she loved it.  We talked about the stained glass for a minute and I explained a little bit about how it was made, then we walked up to the front so that she could get a closer look.  

I found this image online.  I don't know if this is from the actual chapel we were in, but as far as I remember, this is what it looked like:

The First Vision was depicted in the stained glass, and when we were close to it, I asked Cat what it was of.  She answered that it was Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.  Joseph Smith - and his clothes - were much darker than the other two personages, so I had to point him out.  Cat recognized him by name, then told me that this was a picture of the time when "they were telling Joseph Smith which churches to join and which not to join." We talked about that, and how Joseph Smith was told that he wasn't to join any of the churches on the earth at that time.  Then Cat said, "Mom, I feel the Spirit."  I asked her how she felt and she said, "just really happy."  I explained to her that we feel the Spirit when we make good choices, or when something is true or important.  I asked her if she thought the story of Joseph Smith's First Vision was true, and she said yes.  What a special experience!


Soon after that, Cat and I joined Ben, Jack, and Eliza in the car and we drove up to the Salt Lake City Cemetery.

This is the cemetery where President Gordon B. Hinckley's body is buried.  I've been really eager to visit this sacred place.  President Hinckley will always have a special place in my heart.  I still clearly remember sitting in the Columbia SC Stake Center during the Youth Fireside when he first shared the 6 Be's.  And I remember seeing him and his adorable wife at a huge area conference in Atlanta when I was in High School.  My family always quotes something Sis. Hinckley said during that conference.  "Every day I get up.  I look in the mirror.  And I say to myself, 'How did a nice girl like me get into a mess like this?'"  Sometimes I still get emotional when I hear recordings of Pres. Hinckley's voice.  What an extraordinary man.  And he had an amazing wife.  


The office was closed, so we just wandered around for a few minutes before we found Pres. Hinckley's gravesite.  Other prominent Church members are buried at this cemetery, so it was neat as we were driving to spot many names we recognized, particularly a large grave marker for Hyrum Smith.  We finally saw Pres. Hinckley's grave up on a hill and pulled over on the side of the road so that we could get out and pay our respects.  Eliza was asleep at this point, so we let her sleep in the car while the 4 of us walked around.  It was a special experience for me to stand at the grave of Pres. Hinckley and his sweetheart, Marjorie.

We noticed that there was a large pile of pennies on the big marker, but didn't know the significance of the pennies.  Cat counted about 50.

I guessed that Pres. Hinckley had told a story about a penny at some point, and I didn't want to miss out on the chance to join in a traditional way of honoring someone who has been such a significant influence in my life.  So Cat looked in the car and found a few pennies we could leave.

It turns out, there doesn't seem to be anything specific to Pres. Hinckley about pennies, but it is simply a tradition that people leave pennies on graves.  There are a few different reasons, ranging from ancient mythology to Benjamin Franklin's "a penny saved is a penny earned," to the Jewish tradition of leaving stones at graves.


But I'm going to tell myself that it is a way for us to show Pres. Hinckley how much we support the work of the temple.  When I Googled "Gordon Hinckley pennies," I found a story in The Church News and one from The Friend about Primary children saving pennies for the Nauvoo Temple.  That's something that resonates with me, considering I have ancestors who lived in Nauvoo at the time of Joseph Smith and received their endowments there.  I was also in Nauvoo listening to General Conference when Pres. Hinckley announced that the temple there would be rebuilt in 1999.  And I sat with my family in the Celestial Room of the Nauvoo temple during one of the dedicatory sessions in 2002.  


Just down the hill from Pres. Hinckley's grave was another LDS Prophet's grave.  Jack seemed to grasp the sacredness of the place, and walked with his arms folded.

David O. McKay died long before I was born, but he is special to my Mom and many other Church members who were alive during his tenure as President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

It was neat to see the way the children reacted to all of the grave stones.  I was surprised at how respectful they were.  I made sure to tell Cat that I felt the spirit while I was there.


And to top off an already spiritual day, Ben and I got to go on a date and attend the temple that night.  Yep, living in Utah definitely has its perks.  What a lovely day.