Christmas

I cannot believe it has already been over a month since Christmas! We had a wonderful Christmas season with family in Utah. Before leaving California, however, we spent a wonderful evening with Brian and Anita. We had a wonderful dinner, followed by gift giving. Boy, do they love to spoil our children!!! I don't know who had more fun opening gifts- the kids or Brian and Anita watching the kids! Here are some pictures of that:

Look at that face!
He adores his new car!

The girls in their dress-ups and Grant-man with his car.
Here is the playhouse they received from Brian and Anita. They are working on coloring it at our house and as you can see they are in their dress-up clothes as they do so- also from Brian and Anita.
Grant looking quite dapper in his new outfit from Brian and Anita.

We had a great time in Salt Lake City. It was my first time having Christmas with my own Mother since 2002! The trip was nice. The children really do travel well. On the way to Salt Lake we stopped to visit the Lentz family. What fun it was to see them!

My mother lives right across from the Conference Center, down the street from the Temple. In fact, you can see the temple from her living room. View from my mom's balcony!

The kids especially loved the exhibits at the Church History Museum.
Look at that Nativity quilt- isn't it amazing!

Looking up to Moroni- if you look carefully, you can see the temple out the window.

They had all kinds of fun exhibits for the kids- hands-on stuff like this. As I write this I am realizing I didn't get any good pictures of them in the new Children's Book of Mormon exhibit, which was super fun. If you go to Salt Lake and have kids, you should definitely check it out!

My mom and all of us in front of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building Christmas Tree.

Chirstmas Eve, we made a visit to Kenneth's brother and sister-in-law in Lehi and a good friend in Provo. We drove around BYU's Campus- boy has a lot changed since I was there!
Gracie,our niece, was happy with the Elmo doll we brought her.

Visit to Cabella's with Jason, Rachel, Gracie, Katelyn and us.

Visit to good ol' Provo. The 'Y' on the Mountain.

Heidi and Andrea in Provo

The kids did NOT like the cold! We certainly are spoiled here in California. (The past couple weeks we have been going to the park without jackets- it has been beautiful!) We took them out to see the Christmas lights on Temple Square in the evening , and after a few minutes, they just wanted to go home! So, Kenneth and I went back again by ourselves after we put them to bed on Christmas Eve. We sure did enjoy ourselves! Some pictures of The Lights at Temple Square:

Christmas lights around the Conference Center- across from my mom's apartment building.

Salt Lake Temple- Nativity on the reflecting pool.

Gorgeous lights!

More gorgeous lights!

I'm cold! I want to go home!!!!

My Mom made us a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner with all the trimmings and a yummy breakfast the next morning. The girls were delighted with the candlelit Christmas Eve dinner.

Christmas Eve Pajamas- big hug!

I love this picture of Grant- want a funny guy! I can't even remember what we told them to do- make a funny pose or something.

Opening gifts Christmas morning.

Christmas morning with Grandma Pilz

After church, we had lunch and headed up to Logan to be with Kenneth's brother and sister. We also had a wonderful Christmas dinner there. The kids were so happy to be with their cousins. Kenneth's brother and his family who live in Lehi also joined us in Logan. We had a blast all together! We were able to stay with them for 5 days. The big project was tiling the bathroom floor. (Larchars always need a project. Work is what they do best!) And what put it all over the top was a surprise visit from Kenneth's parents, who live in New York State. The kids were in heaven!
Christmas Evening at the Dawes'. You can see Grant's gift from Santa- Thomas the Train set. He loves it!

Buddies! Tyler and Grant.

Emma, Ashley and Alyssa. So happy to be together again!

Look at all those little cousins lined up. Aren't they adorable? They had so much fun together!

Gingerbread house- making at Karen's house.

These two were the smart ones- why go to all that work when you are just going to eat it anyway? They just skipped the making part and ate!

The kids loving time with Grandma Louise.

Grant helping Daddy with the floor project.

Unfortunately, there were some lows to the visit, too. Kenneth started coughing and really started to feel ill. It came to the point that it hurt to breathe, and there was blood in his sputum, so we took him to the ER there in Logan. After some blood work and a CT Scan, the doctor diagnosed him with Bronchitis and sent us to pick up an antibiotic. We were, feeling grateful that he would soon be feeling better and went on our way. The next day, however, Kenneth's fever spiked to 104.5 and we knew something was wrong. We was already on the antibiotic and should be feeling better. We got the fever under control and he was stable. But, over the next couple of days the pain in his lungs continued to worsen and it was really hurting to breathe. ER visit #2. This time, they did an X-ray and looked at the scan from the 3 days before and found out he had an aggressive pneumonia. They were especially concerned with his history of cancer and decided he needed to have a Broncoscopy done to make sure there wasn't cancer in the lungs that could be causing all this. The problem is, they don't do Broncoscopies in Logan. So, they took him in an ambulance all the way to Salt Lake (about 1 1/2 hours away). Lucky for us, my mother lives right there, so the kids and I were able to come down and my mom could watch the kids while I went to be with Kenneth. They did not find cancer in the bronchial tubes (thank goodness!) and gave him some strong IV Antibiotics that really helped him to feel better. He ended up staying in the hospital for 3 days! At least he had a great view from his room! He could see the Salt Lake temple, Utah Capitol building and the gorgeous Oquirrh Mountains. So, it was there that Kenneth spent New Year's Eve!

After he was released from the hospital, we stuck around in Salt Lake for five days for Kenneth to recover before we made the long drive home. How thankful I am for my mother and her hospitality! While Kenneth was recovering, we did venture out to see a couple of things close to my mom's house.
Grant in the Conference Center

Kids looking out the windows in the top of the Jospeh Smith Memorial Building.

We also had one last visit from Dennis, Karen and Jason and family:
Tea party with Uncle Dennis

One last visit with Uncle Jason.

So, that was it, in a nutshell. It was great. There were also some downright scary parts, but I guess that's life.

Dancing Queen

I couldn't believe it was my baby up there when I sat watching Emma's first dance recital. She is so big. I was so proud of her for dancing in front of the whole room of people. This is a little girl who wanted to, but was not able to, say her part in the Primary Program in Church a couple of months ago. She was so nervous.

She did great tonight; once she gets more used to it, maybe she will crack a smile! Enjoy the video!

Suction

It's kind of been the theme for the last couple of weeks- funny, I know. I have been having major suction problems for a few months now. Our vacuum cleaner was completely not working. I would vacuum to feel like I was trying to get our house clean, but it wasn't doing much of anything. (For those of you who are problem solvers, yes, I checked the bag and yes, I cleaned the hair off the roller) The machine just wasn't working properly. If it were up to me I would have just gone out and bought a silly vacuum cleaner. But, that's not how my sweet Kenneth functions. He has been searching Craig's list for the past 2 months for a vacuum cleaner, researching online, talking to people, you name it. All the while, I've been going crazy with all the hairballs all over my house! I guess it's good that we temper each other. . .
Anyway, we finally decided on a Dyson. Since this all happened at Black Friday time we found a good sale and I joined all the crazies in line at 10 pm for the store's midnight opening. It was interesting and I must say I have no desire to ever do that again, but, I got my vacuum cleaner!!! And I love it!
The first time we used it I had to empty the canister 8 times and cut the hair off the roller 4 times just going over the house once! Nasty! I'm so glad to finally have suction!
We also got rid of some suction in another area of our lives. Arianna has been telling us for the last month that she was going to stop sucking her thumb on Kenneth's Birthday (November 30th). I'm not sure where she came up with that idea, but we were going to run with it!!! She'll be four in January and we really wanted her to stop, but I doubted she would actually do it. She sucks ALL DAY LONG! As the big day came closer, we would talk about it and she never said she had changed her mind, but I still didn't believe she would do it. To pump her up even more, Kenneth told her that if she didn't suck all day long for his Birthday and the next day he would take her to the store to pick out whatever she wanted. Boy, was she excited. And it did the trick. We are so proud of her!! She certainly is a strong-willed little girl. She can do anything she sets her mind to. She hasn't sucked since except at nighttime. (She knows we'll take away the horse if she does!)

Here she is with her new toy:
Look at that happy face!!!

She named the horse 'White Beauty'. We just started to read Black Beauty.

Now, of course, Emma is incredibly jealous and wants the same toy. So, I told her that if she finishes her entire workbook (which is pretty fat) that she could go to the store and pick something out. I think it's good for her to have something to work towards.
When Dad found out I told her that, his eyes widened. He is a little worried that this will become an expensive trend. =)

Happy Thanksgiving!

The kids and I made these today. We found the idea on Disney's Family Fun website. In case you are wondering, no, the pilgrims are not sick- those are the girls' attempt at freckles!

Happy Thanksgiving!

By the by- I FINALLY posted all about October- we had some pretty swell adventures, so go one post back from this one and check it out!!! Here's one teaser- your get to see all my kids dressed up in full cowboy/girl garb!

October Re-cap

We have indeed slowed down in November and it has been lovely. In fact a couple of weekends ago, Kenneth had Friday off in addition to Saturday and Sunday and we mostly just stayed home and played with the kids and did normal stuff here. It was really nice. Tomorrow, Thanksgiving, we are spending a quiet day with a co-worker of Kenneth's and his wife. But, we had a BLAST in October and I need to record it all and, of course, share all our good times with you all (finally)!! Here goes:

October 1st we went on a lovely outing to the temple. We have been taking the kids lately and switching off. There is a great park right up the road and we bring a picnic to enjoy on the temple grounds. The kids love it. We love it. It's a win-win.

October 2nd and 3rd were General Conference. What a lovely time!! What is really fantastic is that being on the West Coast, the timing is such that Grant naps during the entire afternoon session and we can actually hear the speakers! How thankful I am to be a member of a 'living' church; one in which there is a prophet who communicates with Jesus Christ and then gives us guidance.

October 8th, we went to Gilroy Gardens, a family theme park about 45 minutes away from us, with Miss Anita and Mr. Brian (the kids' adopted Grandparents out here) We all had a great time- especially the kids. The highlight of their time was riding a real horse!!! It sure was fun to see them dressed up as little cow girls and boy! Thanks Brian and Anita for treating them!
Arianna could have ridden the carousel all day long. Notice the purple beaded necklace around the horses neck. Arianna brought it with her and insisted on putting it on each horse she rode on the carousel.
Is she loving this or what?

Happy little man

Of course, the beautiful things about kids is they can have just as much fun waiting for the rides!

The highlight of the day was dressing up in full cowboy/girl garb and getting ride a horse!

Handsome little man


Emma, the cowgirl

Grant on the horse
Emma on the horse

Once again


Arianna is really into horses lately. She was so excited about this experience!!

Emma 'lassoing'

The evening of October 8th I had the privilege of hearing Sister Julie Beck, The Relief Society (the Womens' Organization in our Church) General President, speak right here in my neck of the woods. She was indeed inspiring. One of the concepts she taught was that the Lord is organizing things in our life- even if it may look like a mess to us. He is creating experiences for us. These experiences are not payback for something we have or haven't done; they are to teach us. She also encouraged us by saying that the Lord strengthens us to carry the burdens he gives us. She ended by inviting us to be long-term optimists. Yes, we may have hard times in our lives, but long-term, it will all work out!

October 9th all 5 of us went up to the Auditorium on the Temple grounds to hear Jenny Oaks Baker and the Orchestra at Temple Hill in her Wish Upon a Star concert. She is an incredible violinist! Her Wish Upon a Star album combines her skill with the magic of Disney. All arranged by Kurt Bestor, the pieces were simply incredible. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and was actually amazed at how well the kids did sitting through an Orchestra Concert!

October 14th and 15th we spent in Fresno, CA with two very special people in our lives: The Klands. Brother and Sister Kland served a mission in Ithaca, New York from 2002 to 2004. Sister Kland actually introduced Kenneth and myself at a Young Single Adult Conference. The last time we saw them had been in 2004 when they left New York. It was so great to spend some time in their home with them. While in Fresno, we went to see the animals at Fresno State University and went to see the temple. It was a lovely visit. Here are some pictures of that weekend:
Helping Brother Kland feed the birds.

Wagon rides in their backyard

My three little cuties!

We went to see the Ag School area at Frenso State University. The kids loved seeing the pigs, horses, and cows.

Grant and me at the Fresno Temple.

Our family with the Klands.

Grant and Daddy at the temple

The kids with the Klands in front of their house.

My monkey

October 18th we met with Kenneth's Oncologist, who had only good news to report. Kenneth's body is still recovering from the Chemotherapy, as is to be expected, but everything in the liver turned out to be nothing to worry about. It was a very happy appointment!

October 19th was my 33rd Birthday!! I chose to have a sandwich for my Birthday dinner. I mean all the fixin's: the high quality roll, the nice lunch meat, Havarti cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, Grey Poupon, a little mayo. I was in heaven! And the best part? I didn't have to cook! I should have thought of doing that long ago!

October 20th Kenneth's brother, Dennis, his sister, Karen, and her family arrived from Utah. They stayed through Saturday afternoon, the 22nd and we had a blast!!! We went to the beach one day, to San Francisco the next and then chilled at home on Saturday while the men folk barbequed the traditional Larchar Chicken BBQ. It was like we were on the farm. . .well, almost.

Emma, Ashley and Alyssa having a blast at the beach!

Tyler, Grant and Kaylynn with the clan in the background.

Believe it or not, this is the best picture we got of the family in front of the bridge this day. Too sunny, too windy, non- cooperative children!

Kenneth, Karen and Dennis (Kenneth's siblings)

Walking back to the car. Grant really took right to Dennis- he loves to spend time with him!

This is what it looks like driving down the steepest street in San Fransisco!

The crookedest street- Lombard Street

We drove home from San Fransisco by way of the Oakland Temple. Here is the whole gang out front.

Buddies!

Also on October 20th, Kenneth took me to see the BYU Ballroom dancers perform. They are incredible!!!!! Emma came along, too. What a great Birthday gift!

October 23rd was the Primary Program at church. As the Primary Music Leader, it is the day the kids and I work towards all year long. The kids did great and it went pretty smoothly. They even have a set of handbells in this Primary that the kids played for one of the numbers. It was fantastic!

On October 28th, we discovered that the girls had lice!!!! To make a long story short, it involved hours of treatments and picking through hair, thorough vacuuming and about 10 loads of laundry. Boy were we glad when that was over! And cutting the girls hair off- forgot to mention that!

The next day, October 29th, we were supposed to go to San Francisco to meet my sister and brother-in-law for a tour of Alcatraz. With the lice issues, we could no longer take them to anyone's house to be cared for, so we just brought them all with us. Arianna threw up on the boat ride, but other than that it was very enjoyable having them with us. They, of course, LOVED spending time with Aunt Wendy and Uncle John!
Alcatraz from the boat

Kenneth in prison

Golden Gate Bridge at Sunset from Alcatraz

Finally, October 31st, we went to a Birthday Party for one of the kids' preschool friends. It was fun to have someplace to go all dressed up. Emma was Snow White for the party and Arianna was the queen (the costume Emma was wearing a few posts ago). Grant would have none of the dressing up. In fact, I don't think I even took a picture of them. Oh well.

Here are a few extra pictures of the activities in the month:
Working in the garden with Daddy. We are enjoying the peas that are on! You gotta love California!
Arianna LOVES swiss chard from the garden!

Homeschooling at our house looks like this!!! On this particular day, Emma decided to make a bookstore and sorted most of the books on the shelf into piles- ABC books, Arctic/Antarctic animals, Noah's Arc books, books about horses, books about dancing. She was busy as a bee and having so much fun.

Daddy has been teaching his girls to play baseball. Good times!

Phew!!! So, there you have it- the rundown of our busy month of October!

Thy gold to refine. . .

In church today, we sang How Firm a Foundation in Sacrament Meeting. We actually sang all 7 verses, which I don't think I've done in years. Verses 4 and 5 were particularly inspiring and comforting to me today. We had a hard last year, it's true. But, I know so many other people, both friends and family, who are going through many difficult trials. In many ways, far more difficult than anything I have experienced. As we sang these verses today, a prayer went up to my Father for all of them that they may feel the comfort and encouragement in these verses:

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not thee o'erflow,
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee, and sanctify to thee,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply.
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, thy dross to consume,
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.

I have succeeded in some small way. . .

My five-year-old asked for more kale at dinner tonight. I couldn't believe it! In fact, I didn't even give her any on her plate to begin with- just carrots. She asked for firsts and seconds.

Too bad I still haven't succeeded in blogging about October! One of these days. . .