Friday, December 21st

School has been over for a week, and what joyous week it has been. I managed to get straight A’s this semester, but I barely squeezed by with 90.4 % in chemistry. I just didn’t ever have enough study time. But it’s an A. And now I can be a mom again. But not this week because I’ve been refinishing the cabinets. It’s a perfect time to refinish the cabinets before Christmas, right? I’ve been busy with pictures for the last couple months. I’ve spent lots of Saturdays shooting family pictures and lots of late nights editing. Late nights and I are well acquainted as I type this at 2:23 am.

It was Easton’s last day of school today, and that makes all of us happy. He has been such a late sleeper lately, so it is hard to pry him from his bed each morning. He will most certainly enjoy his Christmas break, and I will love having him home. Jacob is also off until next Thursday, and I am counting my blessings. I’m sure we will do something fun or maybe we will do nothing at all, and that will also be a wonderful thing. Not being in school is so liberating.

Joe and Laura had a wonderful wedding on November 30th. It was also his birthday. Is it sad that I didn’t take any pictures? Jeanna, Laura’s sister did them, and it was wonderful to be a guest at one of my sibling’s weddings. I got to dance like I wanted to. It was so much fun and the food was good.

Wednesday night I sang at my ward Relief Society Christmas dinner with my friends Brittany and Laura. I had a few solo parts, and that it the first time I’ve ever sung a solo, but it was one of my New Year’s resolutions for 2012. It only took me until the end of the year to complete it, but that’s ok. My family sings. My sister had an amazing voice, my brothers play the guitar and sing, my dad’s family can all sing very well, but my siblings and I lack the confidence to sing solos in front of people. I’ve always wanted to but I’ve never been able to. I was really nervous, and my voice was kind of shaky and weird when it came time for me to sing alone, but I managed to do it without dying. I wish I hadn’t been so nervous because I didn’t sing my best at all, but it is what it is. My bishop came up to me later that evening and said, “Rachel, I had no idea you sang – that was amazing.” Bishops don’t lie, right?

Tonight we spent a couple hours at Becca’s decorating ginger bread houses. I love to watch the kiddos have so much fun doing little things like that. Heck, I love decorating houses too. Last night we did our yearly trip to the Magical Forest with Jacob’s family. It was quite freezing, but the children loved it. Logan was fine, but I think he got cold and antsy. Christmas is in 4 days, and I feel like it has crept up on me this year faster than it has any other year. I think it’s because school just barely got over, so I didn’t have time to bake goodies like I wanted to. And I got my Christmas décor up late. So I feel so taken by surprise that Christmas is just about over, and it has barely begun for us.

Logan began army crawling/scooting a few weeks ago. He doesn’t sit up, and he used to be much better at it, but he seems to hate it now. He likes to be on his belly so that he can scoot to whatever he wants. He also loves his walker, and I am thankful for that. His constipation problems have gotten so much better, and he has been such a happy baby since about 6 months. He is a delight, and this is the age when I smile and say to myself, “Ah, children are worth it after all.” I don’t want him to grow. He is perfect just as he is. Easton and Teagan haven’t had any major developments lately, just the usual.

Last week at a school in Newtown, CT, 20 children and 5 adults were shot and killed at an elementary school. It was a horrific tragedy, and I have looked at my sweet Easton’s face so often this week and felt such sadness for the little faces just like his that had to witness and be a part of such evil. Sometimes it’s hard not to become cynical and wonder if there is anything good in this world, anything that my children have to live for. It is hard not to worry. For their safety, for their innocence, for their souls. It’s hard to raise them in the world while teaching them not to be of the world. I just ache when I think of that shooting. I ache for the children, their families, the teachers, and for my own children that don’t even know what happened. But we can’t live in fear. We can’t become lost in hopelessness and cynicism. Easton went with the primary children after school to sing to the elderly people at a local elderly care facility. This is the 2nd year he has gone. He gets to ride on a big tour bus, and he and all the other children absolutely love it. Tonight as he prayed, he asked for the little old lady to have her finger back. And for the old sick people to feel better. And for one lady not to have her hand wrapped in bandages anymore. He prayed for all of them, so sincerely, with such intuition. Easton is very intuitive. If there is anything that I can say about him, it’s that he GETS things. He gets things that I don’t explain to him and many children don’t wonder about.  I still remember him, barely 3, asking me, “Mom, what happened to you? A long time ago, you used to live with dad, and now you don’t and he has a new girl. What happened to you?” He just notices things that I think most children would pay no attention to. He has a gift for sensitivity and compassion and the ability to ponder and understand deep things , and I’m sure one day his wife will love it. I love it. I love that this makes him always aware of his mother’s need to feel appreciated. He never ceases to tell me how beautiful I am, or how I sing like an angel, or how he’ll never love another woman like me he loves me, not even his own wife. He’s very loyal. Full of goodness.

So when I start to wonder where the good is, I remind myself that the good is living in my house, calling me mom, leaving dirty handprints on the refrigerator, making toys out of weird things, telling me how much I am loved, asking me to sing all three verses to Away in a Manger, kissing me goodnight a few times, smiling at me with two little bottom teeth, asking me for milk, and praying the Logan will “survive the badness of the world” and that the sick old people will get better. The good is in my sweet little children and all that they are and all that they want to be.

“Those eyes are a window to where God is,

Two lights telling that

All is not dark, all is not empty.

For there is purity

and promise

in the eyes of my child.”