A Tale of Two Christmas Parties

'Tis the season for Christmas parties!

The Woodhouses hosted our Family Home Evening Christmas Dinner last night and it was the perfect combination of beautiful, spiritual, and belly-laugh-inducing funny.
The side splitting laughs came courtesy of the white elephant gift exchange and, while the gifts themselves were pretty funny, the truly hilarious part was the accompanying poetry.

Everyone wrote a poem that correlated with the gift they were contributing, and the poems were sooooooooo stinkin' funny. Almost as funny as President Jones being so entertained by the boa-wearing gift that Kristy ended up with.

The pajamas that Brother Woodhouse ended up with were pretty fun too. I wonder how many other Potato Council honchos wear Micky Mouse jammies?

Then tonight I went to my ward Christmas party. Now, I have been to a lot of ward parties and many of them have been pretty unique. I can honestly say, however, that this was the only ward party that I have ever attended that started off with a "happy hour" wherein the bishopric served drinks. Seriously, they walked around with trays of ginger ale and cranberry soda and offered people drinks as they mingled.

One of my two fabulous home teachers, who is also the ward executive secretary, was one of the bar tenders.

His lovely wife is our wonderful Relief Society President, and had the assignment to help with the party decorations. After listening to some good natured teasing from the High Priests about the Relief Society's propensity for going above and beyond the call of decorating duty, she decided to view the whole situation as a challenge. The resulting cranberry ice sculptures were the stuff ward legends are made of.
And speaking of legendary party moments, word had been going around for about a week that there would be a special surprise guest performance during the program. Sue was helping with a lot of the music, but she wouldn't spill the beans on who the Very Special Guest would be.

There were plenty of guesses: Members of the Mo-Tab? David Archuleta? Donny and Marie?

But as cool as it might have been to have those famous LDS performers show up, our real Very Special Guests ended up being even more well known and beloved... at least around these parts.

The Stake Presidency playing Christmas songs by smacking their skulls with the head whacking pipes was a big "hit" (Pun whole-heartedly intended).

Between their performance and the ice sculptures, the 11th ward is going to have a hard time topping this next year, but I am really looking forward to watching them try.

A Few Things...

I have been a bit busy the last few weeks, so I thought that, in the interest of record keeping, I should post a couple of photos.

What kinds of photos?

Well, let's start with the newest occupant of my bulletin board: Tyrone Turkey. The kidlets spent most of November working on grammar exercises about the plight of poor, doomed Tyrone. Even learning the ancient poultry self defense art of turk-jit-su and offering the kidlets Taco Bandito coupons couldn't save Tyrone from the Thanksgiving turkey platter. In other pretend-animals-in-school-news, I went to our junior high science fair last week and fell madly in love with this giant, remote-control flying shark. It was awesome. So awesome that I seriously considered driving to the store in Twin where they are sold.

Seriously. I must have one.

Also on my "must have" list, is a fiftieth wedding anniversary celebration like the one my dear friend Diane and her husband had the week before Thanksgiving.

It was a great party and, since Diane has helped with so many of our Stake dinners/conferences/trainings/more dinners/meetings/etc., Jolene, Sue, and I were more than happy to help out on Diane's special day.

Sue and Joleen were the live entertainment, playing beautiful music all evening.

And I was the bouncer.

I guess that, technically, I was the guest book person, but that title just doesn't do the job justice. "Bouncer" is much cooler and far more impressive.

It was actually a pretty tricky job, thanks to the special silver guest book pen. The special silver guestbook pen was tricky becuase the end that people thought should be the writing end wasn't. I tried to warn the signers, but they didn't believe me. They just kept trying to write with the wrong end. I must not have a very honest face.

And speaking of people who don't believe a word that comes out of my mouth, my sister and her stalwart husband brought their kids up for a quick 24-hour Thanksgiving visit. It just

so happened that the apartment above my parent's garage was tenant-less, making it the perfect venue for a little after dark ghost hunting.
Before the kids came upstairs, I kid my ipod in a closet, playing ghostly sounds on a loop. They were pretty terrified for about 12 seconds.

The spookiest part was hunting for ghosts in the dark, scary storage room under the apartment.
At least, that was the spookiest part for me. I have seen the spiders that live down there and, let me tell you, I would rather come face to face with a ghost.

With Thanksgiving break in the rear view mirror, the kidlets and I are focusing on getting our End of Course Assessment study guides filled out, "A Christmas Carol" read, the first yearbook deadline met, and my favorite narrative poem "The Highwayman" thoroughly enjoyed.

And we will be focusing on those things until next week, when the focus will shift to anticipating the trappings of Christmas vacation, including sleeping in, eating good food, opening gifts, and not doing a bit of school work. By the time school dismisses on the 16th, Christmas vacation will be an all-consuming obsession.

And the kidlets might spend some time thinking about the break too.

The Saga of the Yearbook Staff T-Shirts, 2011-2012 Edition

When a new school year begins, the first order of business for any seriously journalistic, impressively professional, junior high yearbook staff is designing their staff t-shirts. And our seriously journalistic, impressively professional, junior high yearbook staff is no exception. We started designing our t-shirts in August.

By September, we had three possible designs.

We chose a design the first week in October, and then we "discussed" the color of t-shirt on which the design should be printed.

We "discussed" it for three weeks.

There were t-shirt color PowerPoint presentations, pro and con lists, secret ballots, public ballots, unbinding votes, binding votes, and arm wrestling tournaments.

And then we gave up on reaching a consensus and decided to have the t-shirts made in two colors.

Like I said, yearbook staff t-shirts are a serious business.

My first two years as yearbook advisor, we kept things simple and put our theme on the front of the shirts and nicknames on the back. Those were the years when I called the staffers my "Yearbook Jedi".


Last year, the staffers were "Yearbook Ninja"and, because ninja are so darn stealthy, the kidlets decided to live up to their title and keep the yearbook theme a secret.

So our staff shirts focused on their awesome ninja skills instead.


This year's staff didn't want to be Jedi or Ninja. They wanted to be minions.

Yearbook Minions.

I had never seen Despicable Me, the movie from whence the minions sprouted, so one of the staffers brought it in for us to watch while we tallied the yearbook favorites ballots.

Seeing the minions in action convinced me that it would be a good fit.



The movie minions are smart, hard-working, enthusiastic, spastic, and cute... in an awkward sort of way. Much like the yearbook minions, who are also smart, hard-working, enthusiastic, spastic, and cute... in an awkward sort of way.


Our next hurdle was coming up with the text to accompany the design. After several brainstorming sessions and many heads-down-on-the-desks-eyes-closed-secret-hand-raising-votes, they decided they wanted the camera holding minion shirt to read, "Don't Make Me Shoot You."


Gun references in school are almost always a bad idea, even if they are camera-related puns. So I asked the kids to come up with a non-violent alternative.


They put their heads together and came up with, "Don't make me shoot you... with my camera."
That didn't quite pass muster either, so they thought long and hard about it and came up with this...

Can you guess what it says?

"Don't make me shoot you with my camera", but in Swahili.
Turns out, Google Translate is a yearbook minion's best friend.

Minions Assemble! Now that our T-shirts have arrived, we have much work to do.

You know, like, take staff photos and then, maybe, make a yearbook?

Yesterday at School...

... the kidlets dyed my hair red.
Don't panic.

It's not like they ambushed me in the hallway as I came out of the faculty bathroom or anything. I knew it was coming.

And I wasn't alone.

Every year, our school participates in a very cool Christmas for the Troops thingy called Project Rudolph. The kids make ornaments, write letters, and decorate bags to send to service members who might not have anything else to open on Christmas morning.

Our school has been the top contributor to Project Rudolph for the last four or five years and, to make sure we stay that way, the faculty member in charge talked a bunch of staff members into providing some...motivation.

For ever 500 letters/ornaments/bags completed, a teacher got sprayed. The kidlets would have had to do something like 6,000 items to color me, so I wasn't too worried. I guess I shouldn't have underestimated the student body's desire to see their teachers in embarrassing situations.

Several staff members had their heads colored over the last two weeks. Then came the big, final push which resulted in six of us, including our wonderful principal, getting our hair colored in an assembly.

And our necks.

And our foreheads.

And our ears.

And, in my case, my earrings.

Our kidlets are great at patriotic do-gooding, but at aiming...not so much.

The kids were happy with the color choice, but red turned out to be a little less than fun for me.

I made the mistake of breathing during the 4 minute spray-a-thon, which meant that every time I have blown my nose in the last 36 hours, the resulting tissues looked like my brain was hemorrhaging something fierce.

And did I mention that, right after school with no time to clean up first, I had to go to a technology class at the high school with a bunch of other teachers from all over my district? It would have been pretty embarrassing if not for the lingering effects of the hair color spray fumes.

And at the end of the day, my bathtub looked like it could have been the stand-in for the one in the shower scene in Psycho.

Next year, I think I will request green.

Conferences and Concerts

At this time last week, I was busy stressing over parent/teacher conferences.

And a bunch of other things.

But mostly parent/teacher conferences.
Parent/teacher conferences freak me out, mostly due to the "parent" aspect. Parents scare me.

Parents scare me A LOT.

I know that it is a totally irrational fear. I can count the number of negative interactions that I have had with parents on one hand.

In fact, I could even lose a finger in a tragic paper-cutter accident and still have enough fingers left on which to count my actual negative parent interactions.

But I have heard stories.
Scary stories.
Terrifying stories.
Stories that involve yelling and screaming and threatening and pushing and throwing and lawyering and all sorts of other horrid things.

Veteran teachers tell angry-parent-stories the way that grizzled old one-legged Alaskan miners with eye patches tell stories about their encounters with grizzlies that resulted in the losses of their legs and eyes.

It shouldn't come as much of a surprise then that the tellings and retellings of these stories have left me, a relatively new and impressionable teacher, with deep emotional scars.

Thankfully this round of conferences turned out the same way that the majority of my other conferences have: 134 positive interactions with polite and/or kind parents/stepparents/grandparents/etc.

I was prepared, however for any outcome thanks to my carefully thought-out parent/teacher preparation pack.



And, of course, my pre-conference and post-conference secret weapon.

In other news, our junior high band concert was two days ago. The bands only have one real concert before our yearbook deadline, so we really needed to get photos. The fact that most of the yearbook staffers are in the bands made it kind of difficult for them to do photo duties though, so I ended up playing paparazzo that night.

I also had a hair cut scheduled for that afternoon, so I ended up going to the concert sporting a newly trimed fauxhawk. That made for a whole lot of fun kidlet interactions as I wandered around taking candids backstage. One of my favorite kidlet comments was, "Miss Haws! You wore your after school hair!"

And in case you were wondering...

School hair

After school hair

My other favorite kidlet comment came after one little musician eyeballed my taller and pointer than normal hair: Umm, Miss Haws? You know it's not that kind of concert, right?

But I didn't mind that it wasn't that kind of concert. I was just happy to be attending a school-related event that didn't necessitate the preemptive consumption of anti-nausea treatments.

I Know Aunts Aren't Suposed to Have Favorites...

...and I can honestly say that I love all eight of my wild and crazy niblets equally. But...

Every now and then, one (or two) of them makes a comment or pulls a stunt that makes me want to change my will to make that one nibet (or two niblets) the sole beneficiary of all my riches. Of course, before I can actually change my will (or write one for that matter) , another one of the little darlings will do or say something that I think is incredibly brilliant/sweet/hilarious.

It is a vicious cycle of brilliance, sweetness, and hilarity. Which is just as well because, not counting all of my books and my five pairs of Crocs, I don't have any riches to bequeath to anyone.

For example, two of my sister's boy jumped to the top of the most-favored-niblet list when they had their school pictures a few weeks ago. Their mother, bless her heart, takes pictures very seriously.

Deathly seriously.

She spent time and money to arrange stylish, photogenic, and somewhat coordinated outfits for all three older boys' school photos. She had everything in place for the photos she wanted.

And then Maxwell and Jonah decided that they didn't want to wear the stylish, photogenic, and somewhat coordinated outfits that their mama had planned.

Instead, they wanted to wear...
...their Burley T-shirts.

Now, I'm not sure if their insistence on wearing the shirts was the result of their love for me/my town, or their love of tormenting their mama.

Sure, I would like to think that they wore the shirts in honor of me/my town/my county fair. That is an awfully sweet thought.

But, as the person who invented the concept of tormenting their mama and then spent the first 16 years of my life turning it into an art form, I am equally happy with the idea that they chose those shirts to make her squawk.

But squawking or not, good mama that she is, she let the boys wear their t-shirts for the photos. So maybe she should get a mention in my eventually-to-be-written will.

I think I will leave her all of my Burley shirts. That way, she can coordinate with her boys.

Love ya Jenny!

The Light of the World Can Not Be Hid, But the World's Lights Have No Such Promise

Chapter One
1. And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from President Jones that all the auxiliaries should be trained.
2. And all auxiliary presidencies went to be trained, each into their own corner of the stake center.
3. But on the day before the training, the stake Relief Society Presidency arose and went up from their homes unto the stake center to prepare for the training which was to come.

4. And they did bring with them their lap tops, and their LCD projectors, and their CD players and their lighthouse nightlights.
5. Yea, many corded things did they bring that did require much electricity.
6. And after the many corded things were set up and plugged in, the Relief Society presidency did look around and behold their preparations and did declare them to be good.
7. And the presidency did leave the stake center, and all of their preparations, and did return unto their own homes.
8. And they did sleep well, firm in the knowledge that their preparations would be found acceptable on the morrow.
Chapter Two
1. Then, when the time of the training meeting was soon to be accomplished, did Mindy prepare to return to the stake center to help Sister Woodhouse with the final training preparations.
2. Yea, the previous evening’s preparations not-with-standing, there was still much to prepare.
3. But as Mindy was yet preparing to depart unto the stake center, her lights did cease to light, and flat iron did cease to iron. Even every electronic device did cease to function within Mindy’s house.
4. But Mindy did not panic. Instead, Mindy did leave her apartment and did travel to the stake center.
5. And as she drove, Mindy did say unto herself, “I will go and make my preparations for the meeting, for I know that the stake center shall have power, it being nearly six blocks hence.”
6. But when she did arrive at the stake center, she did see that it was dark. And she did exclaim unto herself, “Uh oh.”
7. Then did Mindy venture into the darkened stake center. And great was the darkness thereof.
8. And she did hear Sister Woodhouse calling out, for behold Sister Woodhouse had been in the gym when the darkness had descended. And it did take much time, yea even a great many minutes, for Sister Woodhouse to find her way out of the darkened gym and into the darkened hallways.
9. And Mindy and Sister Woodhouse did enter the almost-prepared Relief Society room. And they did sit near the window in the waning evening light and they did ponder the meaning of these things.

Chapter 3
1. And then Jolene and Sue did arrive, yea and the other stake auxiliary presidencies also came forth to attend the training.
2. And some of the presidencies were wise, and some were foolish.
3. They that were wise brought with them lanterns and flashlights and handouts... none of which required power.
4. But they that were not so wise took no flashlights with them, but instead they did bring powerpoints and LCD projectors. Yea, even CD players did they bring.
5. And at 6:30 p.m. there was a cry made, Behold, the Stake President cometh!
6. Then all those auxiliary presidencies rose to come out to meet him and to hear his counsel regarding the darkness and general lack of power that had befallen them.
7. And the wise presidencies turned on their lanterns and their flashlights. And Mindy said unto them, "Give me one of your flashlights, for I have none."
8. But the other presidencies answered saying, “Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you.”

9. And Mindy did ponder these things in her heart.

Chapter 4
1. And so all of the stake auxiliary presidencies, those with flashlights and those without, did rush out to meet the Stake President.
2. And they did cry unto him, “Behold the darkness!” And the Stake President did behold the darkness, but the darkness troubled him not.
3. For thus sayeth the Stake President, “Fear not, for the power shall return in due time, and if it doth not return the training will continue. For behold, did Moses need power to train the Israelite Relief Society? Did Alma, yea even Alma the Younger, require power to train the Nephite Young Women’s leaders? Did the pioneers need power to train the Primary Presidencies?
4. “I say unto you nay, nay, and nay. They did not need the power of man to accomplish the work of the Church. So shall we go forth as those stake leaders, for behold, the Power of the Spirit shall be with us.”
5. And so the Young Women presidency and the Primary presidency, and even the stake presidency did all prepare to teach by flashlight light.
6. But the Stake Relief Society sisters did remain troubled. For behold, their entire training presentation did hinge upon the use of power.

7. And so the minutes to the meeting did steadily depart and the ward auxiliary presidencies did steadily arrive.
8. And among those arriving was Sister Rasmussen, even the 1st Ward Relief Society president, and she did proclaim to Jolene, and to Sue, and to Mindy that Brother Rasmussen’s funeral home did yet have power.
9. Yeah, and she did invite the Relief Society to move their training into the funeral home.
10. But President Jones heard these things and shook his head. And he did say again, “Have I not told thee to cease from worry? Have faith. For behold, the power shall return again at 6:55, and even if it should not, ye shall train here, for the refreshments ye have prepared are here. And neither I nor the refreshments shall move.Therefore, take three deep breaths and prepare to train whether in darkness or in light.”
11. And the Relief Society Sisters did take deep breaths, and they did exercise their faith, yea, even to the procuring and plugging in of additional extension cords. But this is not all.
12. For they did also begin to arrange for a generator to be brought to the front of the stake center, that power cords might be brought through the window and into the Relief Society room.
13. For behold, there is power in faith, but there is also power in generators.
14. And then did the Relief Society Presidency, even Jolene and Sue, and Mindy, and their beloved Sister Woodhouse, they did enter into the darkened chapel.
15. And as President Jones did rise to adjust various flash lights upon the pulpit, the battery operated chapel clock did strike 6:55. And as the clock did strike 6:55, the power did return unto the stake center.
16. And as the power did return, the Stake President, even President Jones did turn to the auxiliary presidencies who were seated behind him on the stand. And he did smile at them as if to say, “Did I not tell you that it would be thus?” Chapter 5
1. And so the training of the auxiliary presidencies did commence, and there was much rejoicing. And after the Stake Presidents opening words, the Relief Society presidencies did gather together and did surround themselves with lights and with lap tops and with every kind of electric presentation technology available.

2. And as Mindy did sit at the lap top, surrounded by power cords that were indeed full of power, she did gaze upon the many light houses that adored the displays and the handouts and the invitations and the powerpoints. And she did think upon the theme that Sister Hobson had chosen for the meeting, “Let the Lower Lights be Burning.”
3. And Mindy did take a moment to enjoy the irony of the darkened training that had been centered upon lighting way for others, for great was the irony therein.
4. And Mindy did say unto herself, “Behold, there needs must be an important lesson to be learned from this, even a metaphor or analogy that will be of worth to us in days and years to come.
5. “And if not, at least it shall make for an entertaining blog post.”