Talents

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