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.

Beautiful Rose

Rose is such a little beauty, with her halo of blonde fluffy-fine hair, long dark lashes, piercing ice blue eyes, long lean legs, and ruby red lips. The best part is that she believes in her own beauty. There are no doubts or declamations when she is complimented. She just accepts compliments in a completely unaffected way. Often she doesn’t even say thank you to compliments. She just looks at you and silently listens with big eyes and full confidence. She knows she’s pretty, and it’s pretty cute to see a pure little girl be so confident. Confidence without pride—no wonder we’re supposed to be like little children.

 

Monday while I was doing ab work after my run, Rose wanted to do my hair. She didn’t care that it was all tangled and sweaty; she yanked out those tangles ruthlessly. Somehow I still have a few hairs attached to my head. Don’t you love her outfit? She’s been experimenting with her wardrobe, and I’ve been doing my best to let her explore. She pulls off mismatched and crazy waaay better than I ever could.

Once or twice a week in the afternoon this month, Rose and I have been watching Disney movies together. You can’t beat the classics. We have a $2 thrift store VCR player and a stack of 25 cent thrift store video tapes. They get the job done, and feel more homey to me because that’s how I watched these movies when I was little.

Ah, the magic is even sparklier with my daughter.

She was “resting” in the dump truck for nearly an hour yesterday.

I find myself wondering where Rose will sit next…

 

…or where she will sleep next! Hahaha, yesterday she was all dressed up laying on the floor by me while I was on the computer, and the next thing I knew she was asleep.

Just now, while I’ve been typing this post, Rose has made a bed on the kitchen floor and fallen asleep on it. I’m cracking up!

Now for the main reason I sat down to do this post:

Today I took Rose in to get her first ever salon haircut—if Walmart counts as a salon, that is. In the past I have always snipped an inch or two off her hair myself once a year. But it was getting harder for my untrained hands and unprofessional scissors to cut her fine hair evenly, so this year I vowed to take her in. I was not interested in paying a million dollars for a little girl’s trim, though, so I swallowed my anti-Walmart sentiments and we went to the hair salon there. It was perfectly adequate, although the children’s rate still seemed a bit steep to me. I reminded myself that for Rose, this was more than a haircut. It was an experience. She has watched me get my hair cut at least twice, and I could tell that she reveled in experiencing it for herself. The lady washed her hair, combed it out, trimmed the ends nice and even, and blow dried it all silky smooth. Rose sat there just emanating this pleased “I feel pretty” vibe the whole time. It was really cute.

 

The before picture: Rose’s brushed-out bedhead hair. See how it’s STILL a little uneven on the ends nearly a year after I tried my hand at hair cutting? It was time for professional help.

 

Washing

 

Combing

Trimming

Drying

Little sister patiently waiting for the day she has hair.

All done! When I said “say cheese!” Rose said “beautiful hair” instead.

Easter

Easter was ten days ago, and I just realized I never wrote about it. We started the day off with the cutest Easter basket you ever saw:

Since it was General Conference, we stayed home and watched/listened to four hours of inspirational messages on Easter Sunday. Mixed in with all that, there was a whole lot of block-building and playing going on too. Sometime in the morning, Jay asked to get out the plastic eggs, so I got them out for he and Rose to play with. We had Easter lunch at Grampa Dan and Grama Leslie’s house. The day was waning. We allllmost made it through all of Easter without an Easter egg hunt…any time the topic came up, I spoke noncommittal half-sentences and changed the subject.

By the evening, however, Jay and Rose were getting better at dodging my deflections, so I finally agreed to do an egg hunt after they cleaned up the giant mess of blocks in the family room. While they cleaned, I filled our plastic eggs with goldfish crackers, stale marshmallows, and some M&M candies I found on the shelf. I wasn’t trying to be rude or anti-festive or anything; I just don’t really get in to the plastic, fluffy, commercial side of Easter. I agree 100% that hunting for eggs is FUN for kids. I love pretty pastel spring dresses too. I do not agree that plastic eggs and candy should be related to the resurrection. I prefer to keep eggs separate from Easter. That’s why I was dragging my feet about the egg hunt, especially since I “forgot” to do it on Saturday. But, after reviewing the Easter story with the kids and making sure that they knew that eggs have nothing to do with Jesus’ resurrection, I conceded to an egg hunt.

Wow, that whole explanation made me sound like a springtime version of Scrooge! I don’t judge people who go all out with Easter. It’s just not my style. I do squirm when people try to tell my kids that eggs MEAN something on Easter. My blog, my opinions. ANYWAYS, on to the pictures! It turned out to be very fun and cute and fast. I hid about 30 eggs and the hunt took 10 minutes, tops.

Amber watched the action from afar. [side note: isn’t our grass nice? It’s hard to believe that we only planted it one year ago.]

I re-learned for the zillionth time that taking action pictures of kids on the move is not easy.

Hiding eggs was such a simple thing for me to do, and it made Jay and Rose SO happy! Such a huge return for such miniscule effort made me feel like I should not have dragged my feet so much, ha ha.

The hunt turned into quite the competition between Jay and Rose.

Time to count them up. Amber enjoyed seeing things up close. Final score: Jay—19, Rose—12.

Goldfish and stiff marshmallows taste much better when eaten out of an aged plastic egg.

Since Amber couldn’t participate in the egg hunt, I put her in a festive yellow dress and did a little sister comparison picture to give her some sort of non-Easter Easter experience:

Rose at 4 months and Amber at 5 months old. Sisters in springtime.

Happy Easter!

Family pictures

While we were gathered for Kyle and Alivia’s wedding at the end of March, my sister Em took a few quick family photos for us. It’s amazing how much easier it is to have someone else take a family picture FOR us. Not a tripod in sight! I thought they turned out quite well for the 15 minutes we spent on them. Our clothes even coordinated for the first time ever!

 

Amber got hungry.

Rose was in a daze. 

 

  

[Rose had strawberry juice on her chin--oops]

 

And my two favorites:

Love.