The White family showcase

Part 1: singing in church
Part 2: the gallery wall

Part 1: Our family sang in church today. I was dreading it alllll morning (and last night) for a few reasons, the main one being that I really don't like getting up in front of people. It makes me so nervous! This morning Jeff consoled me by saying "at least you don't have to give a talk! Our song will be over in less than 3 minutes." My brain knew that was true, but it did nothing to dispel my clenched stomach. I tried to decide which I'd rather do up in front of our ward: give a 15 minute talk or sing a hymn with my family. I went back and forth before finally deciding that they are both equally terrifying. Then as we were sitting in the pew before sacrament meeting started today and I was trying to soothe my anxiety, who should walk up to me but Brother Flory, our beloved executive secretary. He asked me to give a talk in May. While I may not be able to decide whether I'd rather sing or speak, having to do both within a few weeks of each other definitely was not what I had in mind either! I like my comfort zone, thank you very much. No matter how many times I give a talk in church, it will always be scary. So I may as well give less talks, right? Ha, I know, I know. 

Anyways, the special musical number (us!) was after the second speaker, so I had to keep my nerves at bay for 45 minutes before we went up. Sometime in there, I felt Jay's face and noticed that he felt exceptionally warm. A second opinion from Jeff confirmed my suspicion: Jay had a fever! Poor guy. So I let him lay on my lap until it was time to get up and sing. His hot little head heated me right up, so I was already rosy-cheeked when we went up front to sing. And of course, being stared at by 100 people did nothing to cool my face down! Ugh, blushing is the worst. Sister Cook played the piano for us and we clustered around the microphone. Jay and Rose both stepped up onto a stool so they could see over the podium, and we positioned the microphone kind of at their forehead level so it would hopefully pick up a relatively even mixture of our voices. Jeff was holding a sleeping baby Amber. We were quite the cluster. 

We have been practicing singing Families Can Be Together Forever for a solid 6 weeks now, so Jay and Rose knew the words just fine. It was more a matter of focusing them on singing. The first verse went fine. I mean, we were all singing and standing still together at the same time. During the second verse, Jay and Rose decided that they wanted to enjoy the microphone, so they kept grabbing it. Every time it was pulled down, it went right in front of one of their mouths, blaring their off-key singing for a few seconds before I grabbed the microphone. After a couple of those moves, I simply put the microphone way up high so they couldn't reach it, but they took it as a challenge and both grabbed for it and had a brief tussle before Jeff and I each held their hands for the remainder of the chorus [cue ripples of congregational laughter]. I confess to actually laughing a little myself because it really was a funny situation. But I'm a quiet singer at best, so taking a break to laugh did not help our musical number at all. Jeff was the only one who valiantly sang the whole song through in spite of the many distractions. Amber woke up in time for the eventful second verse, but thankfully she did not add her voice to the ruckus. Dear Sister Cook said it was perfect as we were heading back to our seats. It was a relief to be done.

I took Amber and feverish Jay home after sacrament meeting. They are both sleeping now. 

Part 2: After nearly three years in this house, I finally arranged a staircase photo gallery in our entryway this week.

 
Two weeks ago, I made this fun little project: baby pictures from our first year of life, newborn to twelve months. From top to bottom: baby Jeff, Shaina, Jay, Rose, and Amber. I searched through all of our old family scans to find approximate monthly pictures of Jeff and me as babies. I ordered the prints and stuck them to a piece of foam board with my tape roller. Then I had my first real experience with modge podge: I painted over all of the pictures with the white gluey stuff. It was scary because while it was wet, the pictures were covered in white. But when it magically dried, the pictures had a nice slightly textured matte finish, as promised on the modge podge bottle. It was a leap of faith that paid off.

It looked very lonely pinned up on the wall all by itself, so I dug out every old mismatched frame I could find and cut paper shapes for each one to create the stairway gallery of my dreams.

I used pages from an old giant coloring book. Once the arrangement was to my liking, I started hammering nails into the wall and hanging frames.

Next I ordered the pictures I wanted to go in the frames and picked them up at Costco a few days later.

It turned out better than I thought it would! The main reason I have been putting off this project for nearly three years is because I thought we didn’t have enough coordinating picture frames for a good gallery. Most of our frames are secondhand from various sources over the years—I only ever bought two or three picture frames in all that time. In spite of my qualms I thought they ended up looking artistically eclectic in the end. Use what you’ve got I say—the main reason our house looks the way it does. Just the way we like it!

I went with a “places we’ve been” theme for the wall and chose pictures from as many different sites, cities, and countries we’ve visited together as would fit in the frames. If we come into any more frames, I’ll have to do the “places we’ve been” gallery, part two on the next flight of stairs down because I left plenty of good ones out!

Jeff got a mission shadow frame. Wasn’t he cute and scrawny? And “tracting” at castles. Only in the Loire Valley.

Our other shadow frame is devoted to our Europe adventure, with pictures of us at Versailles, the leaning tower of Pisa, the Parthenon, the Eiffel Tower, Buckingham Palace, and El Alcazar de Segovia, Spain. I fit some of the funny little trinkets we picked up along the bottom of the frame: a thimble from Usse Chateau in France, a seashell from the D-Day beaches in Normandy, a classic British phone booth, a gargoyle from Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, a mini leaning tower of Pisa, a basalt rock from the beautiful Vikos Gorge in Greece, a Greek owl—symbol of wisdom, and a piece of pumice stone from Le Puy du Dome in France. So many rich, wonderful memories all in one frame! I adore it.

Here are other features of The Gallery, in no kind of order:

Carcassone, France—2008. It looks fake, but I promise, this is the original, unedited picture. Yet another reason to go back to France.

Salzburg, Austria, dancing at the famed Sound of Music Rolf and Liesl gazebo, in 2008.

Good ole Mt. Rushmore, in 2008.

Jeff running in the beautiful Appalachians in Virginia, circa 2007. Oh Blue Ridge, how we love you.

The St. Louis Arch, 2008.

The cuties, 2015

The Halloween 5k race kilts, 2011.

Elder White junior, January 2010

Smooching, November 2013

Nauvoo, Illinois: December 20, 2006

March 2011

annnnd, March 2015

Pictures are a joy of life.

Normally I run up and down the stairs but now I find myself pausing, gazing, and reminiscing.