Good morning Mom!
This could be the last Christmas season I spend
away from the states! I was recording myself sing Mary Did You Know? For
your Christmas Eve talent show and it's kind of difficult how I'm going
to get it to you. Videos are too big to send through email and it takes
a while through the postal delivery. The thing is that my whole family
is practicing It Came Upon A Midnight Clear to sing for your talent
show! The boys know the words already and love singing it.
But we
want to practice it until Christmas week. If we were ready now we'd
record it and send a disc with both performances, hoping it would get to
you in time. But we need more time to practice.
Anyway, I was
thinking it would be so much easier if we were able to even skype
sing...if we were in America and our time difference wasn't so drastic. I
dont' know how my little boys would do if I made them get up and do it
early in the morning. If your talent show were at 7pm then it would be
4am here.
If we don't get to move back to the states next summer I
am NOT going to do any overseas travel. All that money will go to going
back to the states EVERY YEAR.
Back to singing...last night our
relief society did a "Women who knew Jesus" night. Filled with scripts
read by women and musical numbers all by women from the military ward
and from the Italian ward! It was combined wards event and was so
awesome!
I sang Mary Did You Know at the end of the event. And the
reason my family is learning It Came Upon A Midnight Clear is because I
was planning for us to sing in Sacrament as a family. I'm not going to
do that now.
I offer a lot to the members of the ward;
photography & cake services, my musical numbers at church. And after
my most recent photo shoot the sister I was photographing said that she
was talking to some other women in the ward and they agreed I make them
feel like they don't do enough to develop their talents when they look
at all I do. I then realized that I do too much. Not too much for me but
too much for the other women to handle. That's why I decided not to
have my family perform in sacrament.
Another example of how I do
too much...For December's visiting teaching I have put together a gift
for each sister. I have three Christmas tins and have filled them with
Swiss chocolate we bought we went to Switzerland to the temple last
month. I also made Christmas ornaments to put in the tins. I made an
owl, a snowman, an angel and a gingerbread boy out of modeling clay that
I cooked, painted and covered with clear nail polish to make it shine.
They look awesome!
And last night for the event, I had to take my
little boys with me (they supplied child care) but managed to make 20
mini (homemade)cherry cheese cakes. it was my first time making cheese
cake and they turned out delicious! I made fun individual servings for
the event and they were a hit.
With all the stuff I do to keep
busy and enjoy myself I don't usually let those take time away from
Sterling. When I do a photo shoot Ster has to watch the kids for me but
that's good for everyone and I'm usually gone from the house only 1.5
hours or busy at the house for up to that long. And when I do a cake it
might take a little time of me in the kitchen when he is home.
But mostly I do it all while he is at work.
Yes,
that means my kids get less time with me. But I still do something with
them every day and I govern them so they don't kill each other. I
supply them with things to do.
I have not been teaching Luke to read
since the summer but he is so ready! He is starting to sound out words
by himself. So I'm going to start making time to teach him to read and
teach Ty some things too.
In the summer when I was homeschooling
I tried to teach Ty colors but he was NOT getting it. Now he knows
them! My boys are really smart.
Currently we are all healthy and
happy. Our biggest problem is Ty's habit of screaming when he is
frustrated. That started before he turned a year old...only back then he
did it because he thought it was fun.
7 screams a day is a problem.
Anyway, I hope the holiday season is wonderful for you and the whole family!
Love, Tiffany
