The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Christmas is magical. I love it! What a wonderful season it has been! On the 18th we hosted a Dastrup Family BYU sports marathon/Christmas party and enjoyed both sports and music.

I wanted to take the kids to see the lights on Temple Square for FHE one night, and although the experience was a little reminiscent of our Halloween trip to Gardner Village, I think the boys all enjoyed it.

On Christmas Eve the boys and I went to Dastrups for the traditional Holdaway party. Like always, the food was amazing and Santa showed up! Jacob had his turn first and tolerated sitting on Santa's lap for a second and then decided he was done. Mrs. Claus tried, but she had no more success, so Jacob took his gift and ran. Ty was up next, and he wanted NOTHING to do with either Santa or Mrs. Claus, so his was a quick turn as well. I could tell that even Benjamin was nervous about his upcoming turn because he kept looking at his watch and asking if it was time to go home. When the time came, however, he swallowed his fears and took it like a man.

Christmas morning, Benjamin was the first one up-- at 12:30 am. Brigham found him crying because he was too tired to make the Christmas movie work on the little TV we'd moved into his room to keep him occupied while waiting for his brothers to wake up. Brigham finally convinced him that it wasn't morning yet and got him to go back to bed. Then Jacob came and crawled into bed with us at 1:20 am (which he never does in the middle of the night anymore-- he must have been excited too). Benjamin re-awoke at 6:00 on the dot. The Christmas frenzy began about 7:00 when Ty woke up last.

What a fun, fun morning! Benjamin was geeked about all of the BYU stuff that he got, Ty was enchanted by the trains and his basketball hoop, and Jacob fell so deeply in love with his Cars book that he didn't even want to open any more presents (those of you who know of his passion for present-opening will recognize this for the amazing event it was). The kids played happily with their new treasures for a couple of hours, and then we went to visit both sets of grandparents where we picked up many more treasures. The beauty of the day was a little marred by Ty throwing up 5 times after I put him to bed that night, but all-in-all it was wonderful. I found Benjamin crying (between rounds of crib sheet changing) his heart out because "my favorite day of the whole year now is 365 days away!" I have to admit: I'm bummed about it too!

(Sorry-- Blogger won't let me upload any more pictures.)

Par-tey!

The annual Groneman Christmas Party was a balloon-stomping, ping-pong ball blowing, white elephant exchanging, face-stuffing, pinata bashing (YES-- that darling snowman is a pinata that my sister-in-law Katie made!), freeze dancing affair! Highlights of the evening included:

1. My mother getting the belly dancing kit I gave as a white elephant gift (complete with a "Best of Belly Dancing" music CD, instructional book, and castanets).

2. Ty attacking the the pinata with unrestrained joy (a complete contrast to Benjamin's horror about hitting a pinata at the same age. His cousin who is the same age was also scared to hit it. Should I be worried???).

3. Uncle Chad breaking the unbreakable pinata by sitting on it (wish I'd had the camera rolling!).

It was a great time! How fun to be back where we can participate in these holiday traditions again!

Goodbye

I spent most of the day with my dear Grandma Haslem today. It was heart-wrenching to see her like that-- with her body struggling so hard to stay alive. Mom called me a couple of hours ago to tell me that she had finally passed on. I can't get her off my mind, so I'm hoping that by writing about her I can get it out of my system and maybe get some sleep. On the one hand, I'm so glad she's finally free. My true grandma has been gone for awhile now, and the body she left behind was sadly inadequate.

Grandma was a huge shaping force in my life. When I look back on my childhood, 90% of my memories revolve around her-- Sunday dinner at her house, trips to her mountain property, the Fourth parade, the Haslem Christmas party, the sand dunes, Bear Lake, etc., etc. etc. She was always a solid rock of love in my life. I never had any reason to question it. I KNEW she loved me. I KNEW she would always be on my side. With my parents, they sometimes were and sometimes (as good parents are) weren't. But Grandma would have fought them to let me go to the moon if that would have been what I truly wanted. She was constant in her love for all of us. You could feel it bone deep. Her love often leaked out in the form of food. You couldn't ever visit her without her pulling out a full meal for you-- no matter how much you insisted that you had just eaten. And whenever you sat by her she would hold your hand and stroke it affectionately. She loved music, flowers, and birds. She was a teacher and never passed up an opportunity to educate us about some aspect of nature whenever we were together. She was so proud of all of us grandkids, and made sure that we knew it.

I lived with Grandma for a semester after I came home from my mission, and she cooked my meals and did my laundry like it was the greatest joy in her life to do so. I was dating Brigham at the time, and she scolded him and chased him out when he stayed too late. All of the seven years that we were gone for Brigham's medical training she wanted to know when we were coming home. She delighted in children and chased my kids around her house and tickled them just a couple of months ago. How grateful I am that we moved back in time for me to see her and have her recognize me and love me for awhile. I know my kids most likely won't remember, but I'm glad that they got to see a glimpse of the fun and loving woman that she was.

Brigham likes to tease me sometimes and attribute certain characteristics (such as stubbornness)to us "Haslem women", but I couldn't be more proud to fall into that category. Grandma was a strong, loving, supportive, and fun woman and the epitome of grandmotherly perfection. I hope to be a lot like her one day.

The world just isn't the same without you, Grandma. A huge part of my cheering section is now missing. I miss you so much already. Yours will be one of the first hugs that I want when it is my turn to go home. Thank you for loving me and for always being there. I love you!

Halloween 2010

It was definitely my favorite Halloween ever! Benjamin had his last soccer game that morning, and he scored the very last goal of the season about twenty seconds before the end of the game. (No, they didn't win any of their games. In fact, their total number of goals for the season was 4, and Benjamin scored 3 of them. But he had fun and got a trophy so it's all good.)

In the afternoon we carved our pumpkins (Benjamin did about 98% of his own carving this year and 100% of the design) and then had "bones and blood" (breadsticks and tomato soup) for dinner. Then we got costumes on and headed out the door. Somebody must be living right because it had been raining pretty hard the entire time we were carving pumpkins and eating dinner, but stopped about a minute after we walked out the door and didn't come back. Whew!

Trick-or-treating was the best this year. Jacob was upset at first, but after the first few houses he seemed to realize that there was a purpose to all of our walking around and strange people: CANDY. After that, he was willing (if not excited) to go with us. He lasted as long as I did! Ty was so much fun! After the first two homes we went to, he totally got it, and after that we couldn't stop him. He ran to each house, knocked on the door, and then said, "Uh, oh!" over and over and tried to peek under the door if it wasn't answered right away. When the door finally opened, he held out his little hand for a treat. He didn't want people to put treats in his bag-- he wanted to see what he got and put it in himself. And there was NO WAY that he was going to let me or Brigham help him carry his bag. He guarded his loot very carefully. It was absolutely hilarious! After 40 minutes or so, he finally crashed. His tired little legs couldn't run anymore, so Brigham took him home while I finished the rounds with the bigger boys. It was a great time!

The night before Halloween Benjamin went to his first BYU game ever. It was a preseason basketball game, but you'd have thought he was going to the Superbowl or something he was so excited! He went with his Dad and met up with his Dastrup grandparents and a couple of cousins and just had the time of his life. Brigham said he was cheering so exuberantly that he was even getting looks from devoted BYU fans! Just another perk of living in Utah!

Blogging: Take Two

I am still in a state of shock. I thought that my gmail account and I were in a long term relationship-- that we would grow old together. You know--together forever. Then, without warning, Google spurned me and took not only my email account but my blog, too. There was no good-bye, no discussion-- just a cold message to Brigham's account saying that my account was "disabled". Had I only only had some hint that this was coming, I would have taken better care of my Google account-- printing out blog entries that I was using as a journal, printing important emails. But no-- here I am, trying to pick up the pieces of my shattered internet life. I only hope that my sad experience will encourage some of you who may be taking your Google account for granted to mend your ways before you find yourself dumped-- like me.