I booked our flights for the first part of December thinking it would be the perfect mix of post-Thankgiving/pre-Christmas activities.  One of the activities at the top of my “Things To Do While In Utah” list was to take the kids to see the lights at Temple Square. The King mentioned to me that the Christmas Devotional for The Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints (you know, the Mormons) was scheduled  for the weekend we would be in Utah.  According to the church’s website:

This devotional will include Christmas messages from the First Presidency and music by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square.

This means that not only would those in attendance get to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir but they’d get to see and hear the prophet IN REAL LIFE!

As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints (you know, the Mormons) I believe that we are led by a living prophet. The prophet has always lived out of Salt Lake City, Utah (for obvious reasons).  I spent the majority of my growing up years less then 100 miles from Salt Lake City, and yet, I never ever had seen a prophet in person.  Sure, I watched the prophet on TV during our twice yearly General Conferences and other televised events.  But never in person.  (I would say this is very atypical for a Utah Mormon.  The King grew up here in Seattle and he’s seen more then one of the prophets during his life!)

I knew this was a ticket-only event and while the tickets are free, they are still hard to come by.  I called Temple Square and asked how I could get my hands on some tickets and the sweet old lady on the phone pretty much laughed at me when she said; “Those tickets have been gone since October.  The Conference Center holds 21,000 people and we get requests for tickets from over 500,000!”

Oh man, how I wanted to attend the Christmas Devotional.

I thought about who I knew that could get me tickets.  Instantly Heidikins came to mind.  She gave a coworker and myself a private tour of Temple Square a few years back and I knew she had some connections.  (I’m not sure I can blog about what her connections are. But they are very impressive connections!)

I e-mailed Heidikins to see if she could do anything for me.  She replied by saying: “IF (and this is probably a big “if”) I happen to get some tix I’ll be sure to pass them along, but I’ll probably only get 2, and the chances are pretty slim in the first place.”

I thanked her for tying and then sort of gave up my dream to attend.

(I’m sure you can guess how this ends, right?)

A week or so later I heard back from Heidikins; “Ok, so I for sure have 2 tickets for you!” (emphasis added)

OMH (Oh My Heck), The King and were going to the Christmas Devotional.  (Only 8 and older can attend.  For obvious reasons.  My Sweet Babboo would have to wait to see the prophet some other time.)

Heidikins sweetened the pot by saying she got another set of tickets and she and her new fiance would be attending with us.

We met up with them on Sunday night and headed in.  Our seats weren’t by each other, but Heidikins was pretty confident that she could pull some strings and get one of us moved.

(Isn’t Heidikins so pretty?!  You can’t see it but she was wearing fuchsia leggings and a gorgeous new diamond ring.  Both were awesome.)

Just look at this picture.  That’s the famous organ in the background and the MoTab (as we in the know refer to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir as) warming up before it started.

When the Prophet and his counselors walked out on the stage the entire conference center (which holds TWENTY ONE THOUSAND PEOPLE) became dead silent and we all stood up to show our love and respect to these three great men.

The MoTab sang some beautiful Christmas songs and all three of them spoke and shared uplifting stories and counsel for this Christmas season.  The Prophet said:

The spirit of Christmas is the spirit of love and of generosity and of goodness. It illuminates the picture window of the soul, and we look out upon the world’s busy life and become more interested in people than in things.

They announced a new website devoted to videos about Bible stories.  They showed the videos of the story of Jesus’ birth taken from Luke.  AMAZING. (Go and watch it now.)

The service ended with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing “Silent Night”. The congregation was asked to join in and sing the fourth verse WITH THE CHOIR.  When the fourth verse rolled around I sat there and sang, with tears in my eyes, and consciously acknowledged that this was a very special moment in my life and one that would never be forgotten.

My parents watched the devotional live on TV at their house with the kids.  My mom said Babboo looked for us in the crowd.  But with 21,000 people there he never saw us.

Thanks again Heidikins for working your magic to allow The King and I to participate in such a wonderful event.

(You can go HERE to listen to me singing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir!!)

(You can go HERE to watch or listen to the entire Christmas Devotional.)

I never took any art classes in college and as an adult I really never had the need to come up with any type of creative idea.

And then I met The King, who has a degree in art and is one of the most creative and talented people out there.  In the time it would take me to come up with an idea of how to decorate a baby’s room The King would have designed and built a house from scratch.  The King’s brain is always working on some type of new idea.  His brain isn’t limited to the traditional arts like painting, drawing, or sculpting.  He designs furniture, house wares, bedding, graffiti, landscapes, decks and as we all know, houses.

It’s like The King took all of the collective creativity genes from a twenty mile radius and  kept them for himself.  This would include any that I may have had hidden in the back of my brain.

The King lets me help him create and distribute his creations.  But yeah, the ideas don’t belong to me.

Somewhere along the way I met my BFF, May.  The King and May met back when they were in college together, both working on degrees in art.  While The King can visualize and build a house you can say to May, “Can you draw something to represent the state of Minnesota?”, she’ll be able to whip something AMAZING up.

May, she’s good.  (Want more proof?  Here you go.)

One of my favorite stories about May is the time I taught her how to crochet in the back of the car on the way home from a weekend in Canada.  My grandma had taught me when I was really young and I’d been crocheting all sorts of things since then.  Things like blankets and hats and anything else that only required crocheting a square.  May was so excited about her new skill and told me “I’m going to make baby sweaters and shoes and all sorts of things.”  I patted her knee, rolled my eyes, and wished her luck.  As if someone who had just learned how to crochet a straight line could create anything besides a blanket or a hat.

Maybe a week later May showed me the baby sweater and slippers (complete with a suede bottom) she had crocheted.  No pattern.  No book to teach her actual stitches. Nothing but her own brain and creativity.

(For the record I continue to be limited to crocheting squares.)

I quickly figured out that May had the best ideas about creating all sorts of things.  And she was good about sharing her ideas.  For years May came up with the ideas for all sorts of awesome gifts and projects and crafts that she and I could do together.  Creating the actual product wasn’t that hard to do.  I could do them all.  I just would have never come up with the idea to do them.  Off the top of my head here are a few of the things I’ve made with May:

Spice garden pots

Cut metal pin-up girl Christmas ornament

Shrinky Dink jewelry and cards

Every type of greeting card imaginable

Iron-on onesies

Earrings

Necklaces

Felt pouches

Picture magnets

Too many Christmas ornaments to count

(May made this baby Babboo ornament for his first Christmas)

And so many others I can’t remember.  (May, help me out. What else have we made?)

You would think that after all these years of crafting I would have picked up some creativity along the way.

Not so much.

I’m still just as uncreative as I was back in high school.

Last month I was asked to be in charge of one of our week nights activities for the teenage girls at church.  I instantly decided I’d teach the girls how to make their own greeting cards.  As always, this was May’s idea.  I e-mailed her and asked her what I would need to make the activity a hit.

“Remind the girls that in regards to glitter ‘less IS more”.  You would think they would know that. But they won’t.

“Precut and fold all of the cards.”

“Don’t expect too much from them.  Trust me.”

I’ll be honest here, I didn’t trust her on that last one.  All the girls had to do was cut out May’s designs and glue them to the front of a precut and folded card.  How hard could that be?  I figured the girls would go a step beyond this and maybe jazz up the cards a little with some gel pens or pretty paper.

On Wednesday night I showed up with 6 precut and folded cards for each girl, along with matching envelopes and a print out of May’s designs.  I was using my own supplies and was feeling guilty that I was being stingy and only giving each girl enough for six cards.  We had an hour an a half for the activity.  Six cards would take 10 minutes.

Boy howdy was I wrong.

And May was so right.

Out of the seven or so girls (and other adults) only a few of them completed two cards.  The rest only got one done.

One card.

In over an hour.

And all they had to do was cut and paste.

I had expected too much from them.

I made six of my own cards while teaching the girls, chatting with the girls and watching Rerun in the same amount of time.

For most of my life I’ve been feeling bad for myself because I’m not very creative.  Turns out I might be more creative then I thought.

So tell me, how creative are you?

Rerun’s life started out totally different from Baboo’s because he wasn’t a c-section.  And at 9 pounds and 3 ounces he was an entire 8 ounces smaller then his big brother.  During the past 4 weeks I’ve realized that Rerun isn’t like Babboo at all.

Apparently they ARE right when they say every baby is different.

Who knew?

Ways that Rerun is different then Baboo:

1. Every diaper contains poop
2. He loves to be swaddled
3. Wants to eat wherever and whenever
4. He has lighter skin and hair
5. He has less hair
6. Doesn’t sleep through the night
7. LOVES to be held
8. Really loves to be held
9. Doesn’t have the longest and most beautiful eyelashes in the history of the world
10. Doesn’t really have any eyelashes
11. Or eyebrows

While most of the differences aren’t really that big of a deal, the constant need to be held has been a hard adjustment for me.  I don’t have the type of personality that is okay to sit and snuggle and hold my newborn.  Mostly because I have a list of things I need to do.  It’s really hard to clean a toilet while holding a baby.  Babboo had always been totally content to just chill out in his bouncy chair.  It’s been an adjustment, but thanks to my awesome baby wrap (thanks Britt!).  I’ve been able to hold Rerun and actually get things done.  We’ve even been able to go to the zoo and the fair and I’ve been able to go walking every morning.

Rerun is now a month old.  We haven’t gotten anywhere near any type of schedule or routine.  I’m pretty sure Babboo was on a sleep schedule when he was a month old (although I’m not motivated enough to check my archives to verify).  Most everyone I talk to asks me if I’m getting any sleep.  I never know what to say to this.  I have a newborn baby, of course I’m NOT getting the kind of sleep I got before he was born.  I also keep getting asked if Rerun is sleeping through the night.  Again, I don’t know what to say.  I guess just “I wish”.

Honestly, I’m not sleep deprived by any means.  Rerun typically wakes up after midnight and then again at about 6.  I can handle that.  I try to feed him and help the King get Babboo dressed and ready for school and then take a shower.  I’m typically ready for the day by 9.  I’m feeling pretty good about that, even though I’m typically AT work by 7.

Yesterday we blessed our sweet little guy at church.  He wore the same little white outfit that Babboo wore when The King blessed him.  He wore some little white shoes my parents sent up. They couldn’t be here for the blessing, so that was their way of being involved.  The blessing was lovely, although Rerun did cry through the whole thing and peed through his outfit (and being a loser mom, I didn’t have a spare outfit).

This weekend we also got together with The King’s sister and her family and took turns taking each others pictures.  We’ve never ever had family pictures taken, so this was a big deal to me (but not really to anyone else).

I can’t show you any of the pictures, yet.  We’re hoping to go through them and find some good ones to use for Rerun’s baby announcement and maybe for our Christmas cards.  All you get, for now, is a non-official picture of me and Rerun.  You can tell it’s “unofficial” because there is a garbage can in the background.

There will be no trash in our official pictures.

It says in John 13 verse 35: By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

If you’re a Mormon or if you know someone that is then you know that we are always helping to either move someone, watching someone’s kids, making a quilt for a new baby, putting together kits of school supplies to donate, or taking dinner to someone who is sick.  While I love to do service, it’s the last one that’s hard for me.  Since I’m a working mother I’m not usually able to prepare dinner for my own family AND another family.  I’d say that I’ve probably only taken dinner to someone a couple of times.  And I fully admit that it’s been known to be a frozen pizza, some soda, and a bag of salad.  (I’m not to0 proud to admit that.)

Since we believe that we have been commanded to serve others, that means that we also have to be the recipients of service.  I mean, someone has to be the one who receives the donated school supplies and all the dinners, right?

Again, it’s that last one that’s hard for me.  It’s hard for me to accept dinner from someone else.  And when you have a baby, those Mormons are just clamoring to bring you dinners every night.  It’s been three weeks since I pushed Rerun out of my body and I’ve had more phone calls then I can count asking me if someone can bring us dinner.

It’s hard for me to accept this service.  I find it hard to open the door to receive a beautiful and delicious dinner, showered and dressed and fully capable of making dinner for my family.  It truly makes me feel embarrassed.  I know it shouldn’t.  I know I should allow others the chance to serve.  And yet, it’s just so darn hard for me to do it.

The woman in our ward who is in charge of coordinating the dinner, commonly referred to as the Compassionate Service Leader, cornered The King last Sunday at church and forced him to agree to three nights of dinner this week . I had Rerun over three weeks ago so I’m really embarrassed by accepting dinners at this point.  There is talk of the congregations members bringing us dinners next week too.

I appreciate the dinners.  And they do honestly make things a ton easier for all of us.  Plus, they usually include ice cream and other goodies.  I like that.  But still, it’s hard.

I need to keep reminding myself that these wonderful people want to serve and I need to be willing to let them serve and gain blessings for their service.  Maybe I should open the door in my pajamas with unwashed hair and my newborn on my b00bies.  Then they’ll feel sorry for me and not be confused as to why I’m even accepting service.

But let’s be honest, I’m pretty sure they just want to stop by my house to meet this adorable little guy.