Looking back on Christmas - food and fun

We saw lots of shows  and ate great food during Christmas break......

When waiting for Ryan and Kirsti to arrive, Steve and I saw Lincoln.  The whole family saw The Hobbit  (how great to visit the Shire again!) on Christmas Eve and, then, on New Year’s Eve, we all got together again to see Les Miserables (I only had one kleenex to carry me through the whole movie!).  Wow, three movies in theaters in less than two weeks.   All three films were fantastic. 

As mentioned in an earlier entry, we saw Wicked on the Fox Theater stage.  Incredible.  And, while at home, we watched on DVD the new Spider Man film, Kate and Leopold, X-Men First Class, and the new Star Trek.  Loved it.  My movie watching has fallen off since the beginning of the school year so I was in heaven.

Good eating (and weight gaining) during the holidays.  It was kicked off with Steve’s and my trip to Golden Corral in Kansas City.  Then, there was the dinner at the Lewis and Clark in St. Charles.   

 

The Kitchen family invited us to their house for Mexican food while Kirsti and Ryan were in town.  

 Here I am with Steve playing Apples to Apples at the Kitchen's...

 As previously noted, we ate at The Smokehouse on New Year’s Day.  And, of course all the candy and goodies and eats here at home.  

 

 

 I am now trying to walk twice a day to shed the pounds I gained in December!

Looking back on Christmas - traveling around Missouri

During the month, we drove to Kansas City three times!  The first time was on Wednesday, the 19^th to drop off a sister in the ward at the airport and to pick up Kirsti and Ryan.  Lizzy needed to be there by 8:00 in the morning so we left pretty darn early.  After depositing her, Steve and I attended a session at the temple since it is only about 15 minutes from the airport.  Weather in Denver was wintery that day so we knew that there was a possibility that Kirsti and Ryan might be delayed and, sure enough, they were.  They missed their connecting flight in Denver and didn’t land until after 8:30 p.m.  So, what to do with a whole afternoon of FREE TIME?????  Wow, what a gift!  We finished our Christmas shopping.  We found a couple of white shirts for Steve.  We went to a movie.  We ate dinner at Golden Corral.  We had a great time.  Driving home from this trip was NOT a great time, though.  TORRENTIAL rain in the KC area that didn’t lighten until we were half-way home.    The second trip to Kansas City was to pick Lizzy up from the airport the Saturday after Christmas.  Only I went that time and discovered a faster route to the airport.  After all these years, we will now go on I-29?  Who knew???  The third trip was to take Ryan and Kirsti to the airport on New Year’s Day afternoon.  We celebrated Kirsti and Steve’s January birthdays a little early by having bar-b-que at a restaurant called the Smokehouse.  Yummmm.

We drove to St. Louis for our traditional St. Charles adventure on December 22^nd.  Many of us attended a morning temple session.  Emily, Julina, Elise, Melanie, Steve, and I went to see Wicked at the Fox Theater that afternoon and then the evening was for dinner and shopping at St. Charles.  It was a LONG day – but gave many nice memories.

 Emily and Joe

 

Kirsti and Ryan

 

Steven and Tamara (thanks for making the dinner reservation, guys)

 

Elise and Sarah 

Smile, Julina!  Melanie is.

 

Noah sporting his raccoon hat he got with his St. Charles money

Oh, Lucy!

 I got to drive to Versailles…….Missouri, that is, on the 21^st.  WHY????  Well, the stake Relief Society budget had $100 allotted for quilt batting for our humanitarian projects and the absolute cheapest place to buy batting in bulk is at a small Mennonite fabric shop out in the middle of nowhere near Versailles.  So, armed with just a basic set of directions, I drove on interstate, I drove on state highways, I drove on dirt roads (and thought I was lost for a bit) to make the purchase of two HUGE rolls of batting swathed in pink plastic which I then bungeed into the back of the truck and now store in my garage until they are needed.  I had to do this before the end of 2012 because we use or lose the money given to us for the year. 

Finally, after I returned from getting Lizzy from the airport the Saturday after Christmas, Steve, Kirsti, Ryan, and I drove up to Clark to visit a couple of Amish stores – a grocery that sells food commodities in bulk and a bakery.  It was fun to show the kids the area and to see horse-drawn carts and folks in traditional Amish clothing.  And, we got some great deals. 

Looking back on Christmas - the music

Well, here I am, folks, trying to catch up on everything that happened in the Lambson family  since way before Christmas.  Sigh....

Christmas music activities

As I journey through my first year of teaching at Rock Bridge high school, I am continually reminded of the similarities as well as the distinct differences between Hickman and Rock Bridge music programs.  A tradition with both the high schools is to record the choirs, orchestras, and bands playing holiday-themed music early in December to be broadcasted over the local television stations throughout the month.  This has gone on as far back as when Julina and Emily were in high school in the early nineties and I am sure it had been going on way before that.  This music is again performed in the Rock Bridge combined choir/orchestra holiday concert later in December.  I selected three numbers for the orchestra to perform:  Ralph Vaughan William’s Fantasia on Greensleeves, Mother Ginger from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, and a string orchestra arrangement of Chip Davis’s (Mannheim Steamroller) The Holly and the Ivy.  The choir director also asked if we could accompany the choir in a Hodie and in Leroy Anderson’s Sleighride.  So, we had five numbers to work up, three by early in the month to be video-recorded for television – NO PRESSURE!  As for the result of the taping, I confess I have yet to watch.  No time when it was on TV and no courage to look at the DVD.  And, it is not about how the kids sounded – it is how I looked when conducting!  Isn’t that vain?  I think we did OK.  I know we did fantastic on the concert on the 18^th.  I was extremely proud of all the performances that night. 

I played cello twice at Candlelight – one time with Tamara Kitchen and Dustin and Briana Frieda for an afternoon program of carols 

 

 

and the other time for the annual Christmas program which is held much closer to Christmas.  Kirsti was home by then so I roped her into playing second violin with Tamara on first.  I enlisted Grant Bradshaw to play viola and we four not only played carols but we also sang.   

 

 It was fun. That is Ryan sitting in the back ground.  Hi Ryan!

Speaking of singing, I rounded up willing family members (Steven, Sarah, Kirsti, Ryan, Steve, Melanie) and ward members (Erica Sheheta, Ronald Davis, and Ryan Quade) to ring and sing for the Salvation Army outside HyVee on the Friday before Christmas.  They asked for a 2-hour commitment and we managed all right the first hour but it was SOOO COLD that by the second hour, we were popsicles.  Some kind soul paid the folks that run the coffee bar just inside HyVee to give us hot chocolate and it was heavenly.  Too bad the warmth didn’t get down to our toes.  Aside from the temperature, it was great fun.  Our four-part harmony sounded pretty good and I loved the responses we got.  This will be a tradition.

 

The Bear Creek choir director enlisted me and Tamara and Savanna Kitchen and a flute player to do a quartet accompaniment for the ward choir on the second Sunday of December and I thought my involvement in ward music was over for the month.  Nope.  The musical number for December 23^rd cancelled so I was asked to play Still Still Still on my cello.  At least it was not the whole family in the “Lambson show” like other years, right?

Finally, a more somber request was made for Prairie Strings to play for a funeral the day after New Years.  It was for a woman who was very involved in classical music here in Columbia so the congregation was filled with her colleagues – a who’s who, so to speak.  Thankfully, I did not have to find substitutes because our part was more like a concert than background music.  Whew!  The pressure was on and we sounded good. 

Quinn is Born!

From Facebook photos Mom posted the other day:

Lucy, Steve, and Noah outside the hospital

 

Noah at the hospital

Southerland family on the day of Quinn's birth

Quinn Atticus Southerland

 

Lucy with Emily

 

Lucy and Noah with Emily and Quinn at the hospital

Noah holds Quinn

 

p.s.

Here is a photo of the tree in our front yard, as promised….

I can’t believe I did not tell about the little visit last Tuesday and Wednesday by Emily, Noah, and Lucy.  I guess because I didn’t take any photos is why I didn’t remember.  Lucy LOVED the Peanuts characters nativity that we keep on the cedar chest in our bedroom.  She carted the Snoopy-sheep all around the house.  She also loved the big container of beanie babies.  Two days after they left I was still finding stuffed critters around the house.  Noah is getting so grown up.  He loved helping me with my chocolate advent calendar that I bought from the German club students at Rock Bridge and he and I explored the on-line advent calendar we both got from Joe and Vickie Southerland this year.  I still had teaching obligations both days so I did not get to spend as much time as I would have liked with everyone.  But, we will see them again on the 22^nd and again on Christmas day. 

Finally, some movie and book reports.  My most recent book-on-CD was Red Badge of Courage.  I am not sure why the long, flowery descriptive phrases caused so many eye-rolls as I listened and The Scarlet Letter , which had similar language, did not.  I just found the whole book tedious and the main character was bothersome.  Good thing it was short.  I FINALLY watched my Netflix (after three weeks wait).  It was the original Last Holiday made in 1950 with Alec Guinness in the lead role.  I love the re-make with Queen Latifah so I thought I would enjoy the earlier one.  Well, it was quite similar but I think Queen Latifah acted the roll waaaay better than Alec Guinness.  Who would guess THAT???  And, (spoiler alert) his character, on his way from learning that he really is NOT going to die, ends up dying anyway in a car accident!!!!  How is that for a depressing ending?  I would not recommend the movie. 

Until the next post…….

December update

 Wow! What a month it has been already and it is not even half over!  After coming back from New York, I feel like I have hardly been able to sit down and take a breath.  I will try to catch you up on what has been happening the last three weeks ….( not necessarily in chronological order)

Coco the rabbit has died.  Kirsti got him when he was a tiny bunny back in 2000.  Yep – he lived twelve years.    I attribute his long life to the carrot peels he got every day on top of his regular rabbit food.  How ironic then that for the last few years, he has been blind in both eyes from cataracts, even with all the good-for-your-sight carrots.   I noticed Monday night that his back legs could not support him.  Tuesday morning he was the same – laying on his side breathing shallowly.  I knew it was time.  First thing I did was call Kirsti to tell her the news and I had a hard time keeping it together.  I took him to All Creatures Animal Hospital because that is where Sarah works and I wanted someone from the family to be with him as he was put to sleep.  After dropping him off, I went to the car and just bawled and bawled.   He was just a rabbit that, aside from feeding every day, I hardly had any interaction with him.  Maybe the stress of my life right now caused me to be overly emotional?  I don’t know.  When Kirsti and Ryan are here, we will have a little burial for him.  Farewell, Coco.

 

Speaking of pets, we could have had a Sadie crisis earlier in the month.  I noticed she was chewing something while teaching a cello lesson (she has a little bed right by my chair and keeps me company during lessons) and my student thought it might be a leaf that was attached to her little doggie beard.  Well, a few minutes later, she was still working on something so I had to pry her jaws apart (good thing she is used to me messing with her mouth because I brush her teeth several times a week.  Yes, I brush my dogs teeth.  Isn’t that ridiculous?) and guess what I found????? An open safety pin!!!!!!!!!!!  If she had swallowed it, imagine the damage it would have done.  Perforations all throughout her little body.   

 

Oh, Sadie, your metal-licking fetish is going to do you in someday.  She is so obsessive about metal that when she goes up the stairs, she has to lick the metal strip that covers where the carpet meets the tile on the landing and again to the next level where it meets the wood floor. 

Christmas music, of course, has filled my month.  I saw a small poster outside the office of the choir director at Central Methodist that read “Yay, it’s December!  No, wait, I’m a musician”.  Well said.  However, Christmas music is one of my favorite parts about the season.  If only the performances could be more evenly spaced (which never happens).  My CIS Orchestra concert was in the first week of the month.  I had four ensembles (beginning, intermediate, advanced, and quartet) perform along with the 4^th and 5^th grade honor choir.  It was just the right amount of music and it only lasted an hour.  We held it in a lovely Catholic church and it lent the perfect ambiance.  My six CMU students who took private lessons this semester had their juries this past week.  They each played a short Bach piece with me as accompanist.  Now I am done in Fayette until mid-January.  My Rock Bridge orchestra has their concert this coming Tuesday but, since we had to play our pieces for video-recording  on the 7^th, this upcoming performance is slightly anti-climactic.  I would truly prefer a live performance to being video recorded.  Eeee.  I opted not to play the holiday concert with the civic orchestra and, boy, am I glad about that decision.   I have played my cello in a couple of groups – for church and for Candlelight Lodge – but rehearsal time was negligible for these.  Oh, Steve and I were invited to be part of a Christmas program in the Linn Branch on the 7^th.  I played “O Holy Night” on cello and he spoke for a few minutes.  We got lost trying to find the house of my accompanist and it caused us to arrive with literally one minute to spare.  High blood pressure moment. 

We made goodies last Saturday.  Here is Melanie and Sarah decorating sugar cookies.   

 

Steve, as usual, has been a baking maniac….cookies of all kinds for the people at work, cinnamon rolls for his home teaching families,  fudge. 

House decorating for the holidays gets more exhausting each year.  Or, maybe I am just getting older and tireder.  We didn’t put up as much this time.  Might even downsize even more next year.  We have started decorating our blue spruce tree in front with the large, shatterless ornaments and it looks really nice.  I will take a photo and post it tomorrow.  Steve got a new multi-position ladder recently and last Saturday, it was very helpful in hanging these ornaments – until he tried to close it on his hand.  You should see his finger.  Well, maybe you shouldn’t. I can barely stand to look at it.  In hindsight, he probably should have gotten some stitches. And, he is most certainly going to lose the fingernail.  Yuck.  

OK, I think that is it.  In spite of all the craziness of the season, I DO love the reason for Christmas.  I love our Savior and all he did for us.  I love celebrating His birth.