Christmas Day

Christmas was pretty quiet again this year, which was nice. I really enjoy just spending the day with our little family.

Santa did manage to find our house.

Santa has to leave the stockings on the couch because our mantel isn't strong enough to support them once they're full.

One of our traditions is that the kids have to get dressed before they cane come out of their room. They were SO excited to show us that they all coordinated and chose red shirts with jeans to wear.

Another tradition is that we all choose our "spot" in the family room and then the kids pass out all the presents to everyone.

Last year I started a tradition of having the kids each make a gift for their siblings. It worked really well and they were all excited to do it again this year. Of course, I had a lot harder time trying to think of ideas for them to make that wouldn't be too expensive or too difficult or too time-consuming. They were a little simpler than last year, and probably not qutie as practical, but it still turned out well and they all seemed to enjoy it.

Courtney was the only one who knew what she wanted to make -- fleece scarves for everyone.

McKay put together a little craft kit for his sisters of pom-pom dogs and cats that can be attached to backpacks.

Hannah chose a little plaster-of-paris figure from the craft aisle for each person and then painted them herself. Courtney is holding the little dog (of course!) Hannah picked for her.

And Hayley decorated craft foam bookmarks (we've got a lot of readers in our house!). I didn't get a picture of just the bookmarks, but if you look closely, you can see Courtney's and Hannah's in their big piles below.

We take turns opening presents -- the kids complain about this at times, too, but I tell them one of my favorite things about Christmas is watching them open their gifts. I also make the kids pose for a picture with all their loot after we're done. As you can see, books seemed to be at the top of the list this year, along with Webkinz and a few Wii games. (And, sadly, Courtney did not get her real live puppy this year, but just about everything she did get had something to do with dogs.)

The girls couldn't wait to name and "adopt" their new Webkinz (you'll notice that Courtney's are all dogs, while Hannah's are cats -- Hayley got a mix of a dog, a unicorn and a seal).

And check out some of the new books.

Since then, the kids have done more reading and have had fun trying out their new Wii games (MarioKart and Mario Party are big hits) and the kids and I have all tested out my new Wii Fit Plus. Now to just keep with it through the new year!

Christmas Eve

We had a fairly quiet Christmas this year. On Christmas Eve, Brian took the kids out shopping for a bit in the morning (and also to pick up a last package for me at the Post Office). He said they had a hard time getting out of our neighborhood with the slick roads and was glad they were in the truck with 4WD. We had a semi-white Christmas with a little bit of snow that didn't melt right away. And then there was some moisture and wind overnight so there was quite a bit of ice and snow drifts. It's been pretty cold!

We finally got our Christmas cookies frosted that morning. McKay decided he would rather just eat them than help frost them this year.

Hannah kept asking me all day long if it was time for dinner yet -- not because she was hungry, but because she knew that dinner meant it was almost bedtime. She was ready to go hop in bed the minute she finished eating! But we did convince her that we had time to hang our stockings first.

And of course set out a couple of cookies (and a couple of notes) for Santa.

I was surprised at how quickly the kids did go to bed (especially McKay, who is turning into a regular night owl these days like his dad), but of course they all didn't fall asleep quickly. Hannah was the last one awake, but she finally did fall asleep as well. And I don't think we heard the kids until shortly before 8:00am the next morning (hooray!).

Christmas Dresses

The girls were excited to get a new Christmas dress this year. I found a pretty good sale, so I decided to get them all a new one (Hannah needed a bigger size and the other two needed a long-sleeved dress for this cold weather).

We took a few pictures last week right after church.

McKay didn't get a new tie this year, but he did pick out his red one to wear. (He's been wanting a suit and we've been telling him when he turns 12, but I don't think these clothes are going to last until next November, so we'll see...)

And the girls were extra excited to find that Santa had left them miniature versions of their dresses! None of them really have dolls, but they do love to dress up their stuffed animals.

Trouble

Two kinds of trouble to mention in this blog post.

1. The "trouble" that comes when kids have too much free time on a Sunday afternoon.

They had quite an elaborate clubhouse set up -- I think it even had separate "rooms" inside.

Here's Hannah peeking out of one:

And what Courtney was doing in her "room":

Actually, I don't mind this kind of trouble -- as long as the kids are willing to put in a hand and clean it all up at the end. It's good to see them all playing together and cooperating (for the most part) and even working through disagreements over who gets which room.

2. Santa's Trouble

Courtney has been doing a Writer's Workshop in her 1st grade class where they work on a story, revise and edit it and "publish" a final copy. Her published story was called "Santa's Truble". Her teacher was extremely impressed with it and told me that when the kids took their published stories around to the other 1st grade classes to share them that several of the other teachers would make comments like "A first grader wrote this story?"

Anyway, I am very impressed with her too! I wish there was an easy way to show the illustrations that go with her story, but I do want to give you the text (spelling just as she has it). I will make one note that I've "fixed" all her apostrophes -- she has them written as commas in the story. :-)

Santa's Truble

by Courtney

One snowy Christmas eve Santa was working vary vary hard because it was almost time to deliver the presants. One elf came in and said "Santa Mr. Frost has taken all the reindeers power to fly."

"Christmas must be canceled" said the elf Santa said "Oh no" it must not." think abot all the childeren. No presant's it will be the sadist Christmas ever! Well... Well Ill get the power's back.

"But Santa" said the elf we have a lot of work to do. Santa was areready gone... Santa walkd out on the silver gleming white snow. Many many miles he travled. Finiley Santa came to Mr. Frost's castle. Iceicles hung all over it. And thair was a lot of snow. When Santa walkd in there stood a HUGE! throne Mr. Frost was in it. Santa snuk behind Mr. Frost's throne. He peeked behind it. On Mr. Frost's hand was a ring with the flying powers in it. Santa knew he had to get the power's. But how? then an idea poped in Santa mind. He thoght he could slid the ring off. Santa c rept arond and gentley slid the ring off. Santa went back to the work shop and gave the reindeer thair power's back just in time for Christmas.

I don't mind this kind of "trouble" either!

Live Nativity

For the second year now, our ward put on a live nativity the weekend before Christmas. It is held at a ward member's home in a neighborhood that is well-known for its Christmas lights and a favorite spot for the locals to come and drive through.



Last year was the first year we did this and it was such a success that they (the neighborhood council) asked us to come and do it again. We ordered 3,000 of the "Joy to the World" pass-along cards and spent lots of time at various ward functions (Relief Society Book Club, Cub Scouts) putting together little bags of Hershey's Kisses with the pass-along cards. The missionaries handed out the bags/cards as the cars drove past the nativity.

Brian and McKay were able to be shepherds again one night this year. It gets cold, so they rotate throughout the evening with another group in about half-hour shifts. It is a great experience to be part of!

School Celebrations

We've had lots of celebrations at the school recently!

A while ago, the first graders got to wear their pajamas to school to sing a special Christmas song ("Jammin' in our Jammies") at the Friday morning assembly. Courtney was especially excited that Grandpa was here visiting and was able to come and see her sing.

Then the girls all had class Christmas parties the last week of school before Christmas break. I didn't make it to Hayley's Pre-K party (which was on Wednesday, her last day), but I did stop by both Courtney's and Hannah's classes. (Actually, I was kind-of in charge of Hannah's class party, being one of the room moms.)

Courtney's 1st grade class (and her fabulous teacher).

Hannah's 3rd grade class (we love her teacher too!).

The teachers tried to have more brunch foods since it was early in the day, but I think the kids still managed to get plenty of sugar and sweets in them! But what's a class party without lots of sugar? 'And lucky Hayley (who got to tag along with me that morning), got a double dose!

McKay's Medal

On Friday, Brian and I went to the middle school to see McKay get presented with his 2nd place medal for the UIL Social Studies - Maps, Charts & Graphs competition he was in.

In the picture is his Social Studies teacher (who is dressed in school colors of black & gold because the high school football team was playing in the 2A State Championship game the following day -- they lost) and also the principal.

UIL stands for University Interscholastic League and they have compeitions in all kinds of academic categories and athletics starting in 5th grade all the way up to high school. McKay decided he wanted to try for the Social Studies maps category (there is also a general Social Studies category). He scored well enough on the practice test to be one of the 3 kids chosen from his school to go to the competition. It's basically a timed written test all about reading different maps and charts. The kids had an atlas they could mark up and was used to answer several of the questions.

The competition was held just before Thanksgiving up at a small college about 45 minutes away. I think there were 5-6 schools in the area that participated. McKay was excited to take home a silver medal for second place!

His good friend at school ended up winning first place so all that studying together must have helped. Way to go, McKay!

Spelling Bee

This past week, Hannah participated in the school 3rd-4th grade spelling bee. It is part of the Scripps National Spelling Bee program and was the first time our school had participated. She got a list of words to study and first had her class spelling bee. The top few kids from the class went on to the 3rd grade spelling bee (which they did in a little different format) and she made the top 10 there, so she went on to the school 3rd-4th grade bee.

We studied the words and made flash cards and she knew most of them on the list pretty good -- but unfortunately we didn't start studying early enough to really nail the more difficult words (although she did have down words like "photosynthesis" and "psychoanalysis"). The morning of the bee she was pretty nervous and told me she had lots of butterflies in her tummy. I told her she would do fine and we would be proud of her no matter what -- even if she got out on her very first word. I told her the story of my most memorable spelling bee from 7th grade where I got a little careless and spelled too quickly and got out on my first word (which I still remember -- gauge).

Brian and I were both there to watch her. There were 25 kids and she drew number 9 in the rotation. And she did great! Especially for her first spelling bee. She made it down to 8 kids left (the majority of them 4th graders). She got out on the word fallacy -- she left out the second "a" which she told me later she thought she said because she knew how to spell that word. But she also told me she was glad she wasn't in it at the end because they started going into harder words that hadn't been on the list given to the kids to study and she for sure would have been out then.

Here are the video clips of each of her turns (at the beginning, they had the kids practice by coming up to the microphone and spelling their name).

In case you couldn't hear well -- her words were: exact, solemn, dynamite, competitive, indelible and fallacy.

I took a picture of her on stage after it was over -- she looks like she's trying a bit too hard to be happy, but really she was fine! (I did see several kids in tears, but she wasn't one of them.)

We're so proud of her!

Trombone Music

This past summer, I wrote about how McKay decided to play the trombone in the 6th grade band, and started practicing with his grandpa's old trombone.

Well, I'm happy to report that McKay has made a lot of progress since those first lessons with the follow-along CD! His grandpa was here last week visiting for a few days and it worked out that grandpa got to come and see McKay in his first band concert. McKay is even currently 1st chair in a band with about 9 trombone players!

First, he played a bit for Grandpa at home:

Then we went to the concert. 6th grade is the first time kids can take band, and they are in different classes based on their instrument. So the concert was actually the first time the whole band has played together. (They did meet about a half hour before the concert started to run through the songs once.) For a beginner band, I thought they did quite well! (With the exception of one little song where the trumpets got off...) Here is "Jingle Bells":

I love all the foot tapping with these beginning musicians! (There were a couple of songs where the foot tapping right before they started playing was quite loud!)

Later, Grandpa pulled out his old trombone and the two of them played a trombone duet from McKay's band music. What an awesome thing for an 11-year-old to share with his grandpa!

Angels We Have Heard

Courtney started taking piano lessons this fall when school started. She has been doing okay, but already I'm struggling with getting her motivated to practice. (She seems to have picked up quite well on her older brother and sister's dislike for piano practice.)

Recently, our stake had a Nativity Display at the Stake Center. Our piano teacher was given a time in the afternoon for her students to perform Christmas pieces. Hannah refused to go (she claimed she didn't know her song well enough), but Courtney was willing to play. I think this was her first "recital" in front of other people. (And McKay even played a couple of songs on his trombone.)

Courtney played "Angels We Have Heard on High." I had her play it for me at home to record it. She made a few mistakes here (I just love the sigh in the middle!), but she did great at the nativity!

One Evening

I took a few random shots of how my girls were spending their evening a little while ago...

Courtney was typing one of her stories on the kitchen laptop (I think this was her "Christmas Puppy" story that I already posted):

Hayley was "drawing" pictures on the kid's computer (so glad we have enough computers to go around!):


and Hannah was engrossed in a book (Harry Potter-- not sure which one this is, but she's now into #4!)

I love it when I "catch" them spending their time like this without any prodding from me.