TheHenrichsens.com

When my mom sent me the 24 fertilized eggs in the mail we didn’t know we were about to break the law. It was all very innocent. By the time we got the rest of our chickens we knew we were breaking “code” but just about everyone loved our “girls” and we didn’t think the fact that we were a little short on square footage would ever be an issue. We’re nice people and we’d never do anything to offend anyone. And if we knew we were upsetting anyone, we ‘d bend over backwards to fix things. That’s why the letter from the city telling us we had 30 days to get rid of the chickens because we didn’t have enough land to keep them was such a surprise. Someone had to call the city and make a complaint against us. We’re pretty certain because we’ve been told that’s the only way the city would know about us. And that means we must have been offending somebody, which if they were stinky or noisy I’d understand but they weren’t either of those things which means I don’t understand. Except I think the neighbor who complained is our neighbor next door who has hated us since our very first day here for the mere fact that we have children. And maybe that was enough to make them want to hurt us in any way possible, even if it meant complaining about our perfectly wonderful chicken collection to the city.

Whatever happened and no matter the reason, today we were forced to say farewell to our chickens. My friend Johnette, who has several chickens of her own, offered to take them and promised to supply us with a dozen fresh eggs each Sunday. So we know they have a good home and that we won’t miss out on the yummy eggs. I’ll just miss the female companionship and watching Caleb throw scratch at them and the way they follow me around the yard like I’m their mommy and the daily visits from neighbors and friends who love our chickens as much as we do. And although I’m totally bummed, I’m dealing with the pain just fine by fantasizing about different ways we can annoy our neighbor in other ways. So far I’ve come up with two possibilities: getting a loud barky dog and training it to poop on the neighbor’s lawn or playing a very loud recording of the chickens cackling in the garage and making them think we’re hiding the girls in there. I’m totally open to suggestions if you have any of your own great ideas. Just don’t tell me how I’m supposed to be kind and forgiving and “what would Jesus do” cause I know all that already.

They’re racing. . . on toddler bikes and nobody does it quite as good as Stevie does. I don’t know how she really feels about her bi-weekly visits with my kids and the peanuts that I pay her but I do know that Denver couldn’t live without her and neither could I.

Christmas has come and gone and Mark and I are in a post-holiday slump. There’s no shopping to do, no baking, no parties, nothing fun and exciting to look forward to. We’ve toyed with the idea of visiting Mark’s parents in Ohio but I can’t bear the thought of dealing with six small children in a tight space for eight hours only to turn back around a day or two later and do it all again. There are lots of good movies we could go see but even that seems like more work than either of us are willing to do today. Mostly I think we’ve worn ourselves out with the past week of holiday shenanigans and we’re ready for a lazy, holiday slumpy kind of day.

Anyway, I thought I’d sum up the rest of our Christmas celebrations so we can move onto a new year and all the excitment 2007 has in store for us. Mark worked from home on Friday which enabled me to attend Hunter and Noah’s Holiday Sing-Along up at the school. The boys have a fabulous music teacher and it always gives me goosebumps to hear those kids sing. They did a great job and it was fun to listen to them, even if it was so crowded I couldn’t see either of them. Afterwards we loaded up everyone and ate dinner at Denny’s before we headed out for another drive to see Christmas lights. We hit Lighthouse Park, which was recommended by a friend, and paid the $10 fee to drive around and see the light displays. The boys were thrilled, including Caleb who sat on my lap and learned how to say the word “lights.” Noah declared Friday night the “best night of his entire life” and we considered the evening a success. This house was probably the best decorated home we saw all night.

Saturday our lovely cleaning lady called to inform me that because I didn’t put the laundry out Friday night (in the rain) before we left, she couldn’t come and get it until 2:00pm that day and that she couldn’t clean or return the laundry until Sunday. I told her not to worry about it and set off to wash an entire week’s worth of laundry in the basement. That was all good and happy until we discovered that we were out of propane and the dryer wasn’t working. I’m not sure how we are out of propane, considering I haven’t dried a load of laundry in months, but that’s another puzzle for another day. Mark taught piano lessons, we waited and waited and waited for our groceries to be delivered and then headed out to McDonalds to meet Chris and Melanie and their families for a playdate/Christmas gift exchange. The boys exhausted themselves in the giant playplace and we all had a great time chin-wagging with one another. We exchanged gifts, including my large collection of girl clothes which I finally decided I no longer needed to cling to but that Melanie and Jorge could use, and we headed home. We were going to go caroling but were too exhausted to do so that night. Instead, I dragged the stinkin’ three hampers full of laundry to the laundromat while Mark wrestled all six kids and made them “Mark-a-roni” for dinner. Bitter about the cleaning lady and all her last minute changes and excuses I vowed to fire her on Tuesday, no matter how much more work that made for me or how sorry for her it might make me feel. But that is also another story for another day.

Christmas Eve we had all three hours of church and spent the entire morning getting ready for it. It will be nice when we switch times in another two weeks and have church over and done with by lunchtime. Of course there are no guarantees we will ever be there on time. Afterwards we rushed home and had some baked potatoes for dinner and then hurried out to do the caroling and treat-dropping-off through the neighborhood that we didn’t have time for the night before. Mostly, there was no one home. But we did manage to catch a few of our neighbors and all of them seemed thrilled to have actual carolers knock on their doors. It’s too bad more people don’t carol thesedays. It was so much fun. We got home just in time to let the boys open a few presents (a.k.a. the traditional matching pajamas present and one other from a cousin or a brother). The boys seemed content with that and hurried off to bed so Santa would come.

And boy did Santa come. For real. The boys have been plotting for years now to catch Santa Claus in the act of filling their stockings with care. So this year we managed to convince Santa to come earlier than usual and get caught. It was the most fun of all. Hunter and Noah were the only ones who managed to stay awake waiting for the Big Man’s arrival. They were passing time chit-chatting about this and that when the downstairs door swung open and Hunter immediately shooshed Noah and told him to go to sleep, quick! They went dead silent and Santa very slowly crept up our stairs and into their bedroom. Those boys have never been quieter and I’d pay my left arm to know what exactly they were thinking at that moment. Santa filled their stockings and unloaded his sack and said something about what good boys they had been. Then in his jolly way, Santa shouted, “Hunter, Noah, Denver, Caleb. . . Merry Christmas!” and made his exit back to his sleigh, laughing and “Ho-Ho-Ho-ing” all the way. The boys didn’t make a peep for another several minutes and then the excited whispering began. I have no idea what they were saying, if only they were so quiet during Sacrament meeting, but after a few minutes they showed up in our bedroom, both of them with a look of disbelief on their faces that I’ve never quite seen before on either of them. Hunter said, “We caught Santa” and Mark and I in our best groggy voices acted baffled and surprised as we pulled ourselves out of our supposed deep sleep. The boys could hardly contain their excitement and can’t wait to tell the kids at school their amazing feat of catching Santa in the act. Noah said, “No one’s gonna believe us” and I have a feeling he’s right, but isn’t that just the way it works with Santa Claus? But I’m certain we have a couple more years of believing in our boys and I’m glad about that.

We spent Christmas morning opening presents and cooking up our share of dinner for Christmas dinner at Chris and Cliff’s house. Then we spent the rest of the day enjoying the Rodriquez family’s company and eating ourselves sick. And that brings us back to today and the slumpiness of it all. The cleaning lady has been fired, the propane tank is filled and maybe tomorrow we’ll do something worthwhile. But for now I think I’ll go take a nap.

I have a huge burn blister on the palm of my hand which I received from the melted sugar I was using to assemble the village. Hunter’s blood sugar has yet to recover from the night’s events. But we all had fun and we sure do have a cute little town to show for it, and it’s yummy to boot.

Yesterday I had the priviledge of helping Hunter create his very own graham cracker house up at the school (thanks to my friend, Johnette.) All of the kids brought their own frosting and graham crackers and milk boxes (for structural support) and then each of them brought a couple of bags of candy for the entire class to share. It was fabulous. All of the kids had their own unique ideas and every house they made turned out wonderful. Several parents came to help with the activity and we all had fun. Mrs. O was great with the kids and every so often would shout out to the kids, “2-O! Everybody freeze. Now eat a piece of candy!” The kids would all squeal in delight and immediately pop a piece of candy into their mouths. It was the best school Christmas Party I think I’ve ever been to, including my own when I was a kid. Anyway, Hunter and I had fun coming up with ideas for his house, my favorite being the snowman and the car for the half open garage. Afterwards I ate lunch with Noah, which is always a blast, especially when his friend Steffano is there. Those two are hilarious.

Now I’m off to whip up a batch of gingerbread myself. Tonight we’re making our family gingerbread house and I think I’ll skip the Pampered Chef mold and try designing my own. We’ll see how it turns out.

On December 13th, Mark was awarded the 2006 Global Star Performer Award at work. His boss sent this note to all of Mark’s coworkers and I thought I’d share it with you. I think it’s pretty impressive and it sure makes me proud:

“Not sure if you all noticed, but our very own Mark Henrichsen was one of the recipients of this award. Mark won this for his continuing efforts in GERE’s SOX initiative. In Hank’s own words: “Mark’s leadership of SOx review & attestation processes continue to be recognized ComFin-wide as a best practice. Thanks to his efforts, we’ve been able to meet the complex SOx reporting requirements for the past 8 quarters.”

I know I complain a lot about how hard it is being a stay-at-home mom and how miserable my job is but I have to admit I’m not envious of his position and I’m very glad he does what he does and not me. I guess sometimes I forget that Mark does a lot more than sit behind a desk all day and that his job is just as demanding as mine. He’s working hard right alongside me for all of the same reasons and for that I’m forever grateful. Congratulations Mark and I love you.

Tonight after church we took the boys for a little car ride to see some Christmas lights, something my family used to do a lot during the holiday season. We’ve been told there’s a great place to see Christmas lights about half an hour away from here but since we’d just left church and were pretty hungry we promised the boys we’d go there tomorrow and get Denny’s for dinner afterwards. But tonight we were just going to stay close to home. So we set off and as best I could in the dark and in the car, I jotted down our conversation as we went. Noah started us off and the rest is history.

Noah, as we exited the highway onto a little sideroad, searching for a festive neighborhood to explore, said: “Uh-oh. This is the way Grandpa got lost. I have a bad feeling about this.”

A few minutes later Noah said, “I think I just saw a ghost fly through here.” To which Denver responded, “Noah, you silly. You can’t see ghosts.”

We drove for awhile without seeing much. Then Mark, trying to lift our spirits pointed out a measley display of white lights. Noah, who had been critiquing every display we passed by said, “Just white lights. Not very much details.” Later Noah observed that “rich people just have wreaths and white lights,” obviously disappointed in the wealthy neighborhood we were certain we’d find some great displays in.

Mark headed left up an enormous hill still searching for some lights worth seeing. Hunter was sitting shotgun and was very concerned with Daddy and whether or not he was keeping the speed limit. He immediately chimed in, “Daddy, the speed limit is 20. Daddy. . . you’re over the speed limit.” Denver, who was not concerned with Daddy’s rate of speed but rather the enormous hill we were climbing said, even before Hunter had finished warning Mark about the speed limit, “Daddy, can we come down this hill really fast when we turn around?” So we sped down the hill until Hunter reminded us all about the speed limit and we educated Hunter about being a “backseat driver” and how that’s exactly where he’d end up if he kept on worrying about how fast Daddy was driving.

After we’d been driving for awhile Noah randomly said, “You should never race trains. You might get run over.” And we all agreed that was very good advice and I wondered where he’d seen a train and if he hadn’t seen one, why he was thinking about them all of the sudden.

Everyone started getting hungry so I divided up a mini loaf of banana bread that someone had given us at church into six pieces. I also handed out some yogurt raisins from the diaper bag. Noah, who was obviously a little paranoid then asked, “What if we get lost forever?” And Hunter, not the least bit concerned said, “We’ll just eat yogurt raisins.” As if yogurt raisins are the staple of every man’s diet and the one food that would save anyone that might be on the brink of starvation.

Finally in a new neighborhood Noah pointed out a house with lights on it, set back in a wooded area. He then said, “That house might be a little scary to live in.” When questioned why he replied, “Cause a wolf might jump out and scrape off all the stuff (meaning the shingles on the roof).” Then Hunter added, “And not a good place to have chickens.” “Yeah,” Noah agreed. “Who knows what might be in there?” Daddy, finding an opportunity to freak everyone out said, in a sing-songy sort of way, “We’re going into the woods.” And Noah whimpered, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

We really weren’t having much luck finding anything to look at. Mark pointed out a bush in front of someone’s yard and said, “Look. . . a bush with six lights on it.” Hunter immediately caught on and added, “There’s someone putting up lights. We haven’t seen that before.”

Then all of the sudden we found an amazing house and Denver asked me if I would like to live in that house. I nodded yes and Noah said, “I wouldn’t just like it. I would LOVE it!”

After an hour of driving in and out of a million neighborhoods we discovered that the best neighborhood of all for lights was our own and at that we called it a night and returned home for dinner and a game of “Pounce,” the white elephant gift Daddy came home with last night. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll have better luck finding some Christmas lights worth driving for hours in the car for.

Monday we started our Christmas shopping and just about wrapped it up. During dinner we insisted the boys give us their final wish lists. After dinner I insisted Mark sit with me and we both opened up our computers, each with a baby in the other arm, and started browsing the internet for the boys’ most wanted items. After seeing the total cost of shipping at ToysRUs.com Mark decided to do a little “real” Christmas shopping and see if we couldn’t lower that amount by at least a little. So, while he did some real shopping, I did some fake shopping on the internet and tried to purchase the small random things we needed here and there, like satin crib sheets for Caleb. . . is there a “real” store that sells those? I didn’t think so. Mark returned with several large bags and returned to the internet for the things he couldn’t get. Much to our surprise, several of the things we had previously put in our cart were now no longer available. That put a little fire under our pants and a determiniation to hurry it up before we were giving our kids bologna and protein powder for Christmas instead of the things they really wanted.

With our britches burning, Tuesday turned into a major Christmas preparation day as well as my very first day solo with all six kids. How was it? Well, if you’ve ever watched the movie Superstar (Kathy’s and my favorite movie to watch together) and you know the part at the end when she finally gets to kiss Mr. Popularity and the part afterwards when he asks her how it was and she says “It was okay” and then she turns to her friends and making a throat-cutting action with her hand she mouths, “It was bad” then you’ll know exactly how the day went. I managed just fine, actually quite well on my own. I wrapped the caramels, made more chocolate pretzels and Funnyums to replace the ones we ate, as well as kept the house clean and everyone fed and happy. But Mark went Home Teaching before he came home from work as well as did a little Christmas shopping which meant I had to do dinner and bedtime all by myself and that was a little more than I had bargained for. So I was more than just a little exhausted by the time he rolled into town and was a little wary about the following day, which I was determined I’d do alone, again. We did, however, still manage to get several presents wrapped that night and under the tree which was a great relief to us and to the boys the following morning.

Wednesday my dear friend, Cleo came to help me out and I was very excited for her visit. She’s the easiest person to talk to and makes me laugh so hard my belly aches. She stayed for about three hours and held the babies as well as helped Denver and I solve several of these puzzles which we discovered Monday night during our online shopping spree. Mark was late again that night due to a work Christmas Party so somehow I muddled through dinner and bedtime once again, the biggest catastrophe being a meltdown by Hunter. My friend Neeraja had asked if she could stop by and see the twins earlier that day. Her son Arjun happens to be good friends with Hunter and told him at lunchtime that day that he was planning on coming with his mother. Hunter, who unbeknownst to me is dying for a friend to come play, was ecstatic and started asking me every thirty minutes if it was time for Arjun to come. When his mother showed up without Arjun you can imagine the disaster that took place. That about did me in. I don’t remember Mark coming home although I think it was around 10:00pm–I was totally whooped.

Thursday my other dear friend, Johnette, came to help me and I gladly let her in. She played with Denver the entire time and when it was time for her to go, he had complete meltdown himself, I think knowing that after she left he’d get absolutely no attention whatsoever. So, she took him with her to pick up her kids and take them to a doctor’s appointment. Then my mother’s helper, Stevie, showed up and took Hunter and Noah to the park. With three gone, I managed to put up our safety gate on the back porch where we keep a tiny sandbox for Caleb and did a little more Christmas candy making while Caleb happily dug in the dirt and practiced stepping up and down the tiny step between the house and the porch. I also managed to finish the best Christmas story I’ve read in a long time, Christmas Jars. It was wonderful and I’m totally going to start a Christmas Jar of our own starting December 26th–I can’t wait. Mark managed to sneak away early and I took off for a baby shower my third dear friend, Darlene, was throwing for me. We didn’t play any silly games and we didn’t even talk much about babies, diapers or breastmilk. But we did have fun chatting and eating caprese and meatballs and chocolate fondue and chocolate cake. I got some very nice presents and had a delightful evening away with just the twins.

Yesterday I did more work than I should have and totally neglected the kids (See Caleb sleeping on the floor above–he fell asleep there all on his own because I was too busy feeding the twins to rock him to sleep. Ah, the guilt of having so many kids and so little you.) I’m going to have to work again on finding that balance between spending time with the kids and the insurmountable workload of such a large family. The cleaning lady didn’t show up so I started the laundry and cleaned the bathrooms and changed the sheets. I paid the bills and cleaned the chicken coop. I hit the post office, the bank and the gas station with four kids in tow. And somehow I managed to make myself presentable for another of Mark’s work Christmas Parties–this one being very important because we were going to meet some of the top dogs of the company and we had to make ourselves known. Darlene and her son Parker came to babysit and when we left, the boys were bouncing off the walls in excitement and Darlene was happily (or so it seemed) snuggling the three babies while Parker wrestled the big boys. Everything went well–we stunned everyone at the party with our big family (Mark had pictures) and the boys didn’t eat Darlene or Parker alive.

Tonight we have one last party to attend, again involving my friend Darlene. Every year she throws one of the funnest parties I’ve ever been to–a dinner and a white elephant gift exchange. It always involves good food, good fun and best of all, good company. I look forward to it every year. Her oldest two kids are coming to babysit and Mark and I get one last date before the end of the year. We have a little Christmas baking and shopping to finish up today, some laundry to put away and some Christmas cards to address and I think we’ll be just about done with our Christmas to-do list this year. What a relief, especially since last week I thought we’d never get to this point. Next week I’m going to try and just enjoy the season and the real reason we celebrate it–our Savior’s birth and the blessings of family and friends and lots of good food to eat.