"Best Christmas Ever!" Quote from Savannah

It wasn't just that most of us got to go up skiing. (Next year Nathan, next year!)

 It wasn't the Thomas the Train set for Nathan (Grandma's gift of a Bobcat stole the show.)

 It wasn't this amazing afghan I crocheted for my brother and his girlfriend. (Although I am pretty darn proud of myself.)

 It wasn't the spy kit or the Harry Potter kit that Savannah and Abbie got. (Although they were both thrilled.)

 It was the sledding! That pushed this Christmas to the top. We had so much fun, despite the little snow.

Weekly Review

This week the girls had their Christmas concerts at school Abbie is in the school choir and did a fantastic job singing all their holiday songs.

 The school also has each grade sing two holiday songs. Savannah is behind the boy picking his nose. Yes, this was the best picture I could get. It is insane at that school during the holidays. Savannah sang All I want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth. She did a great job. The truth is though I think she really just wants to loose a tooth more than anything.

Russ's birthday was this week We had a fun time at a white elephant party on his birthday, but we went out on Saturday and had a blast. We went hiking in the afternoon and then out to an amazing dinner and a movie that night. It was great to spend time together.

My next project!!

Christmasing

When I was a kid my mom and a flanal tree advent calender. Everyday we pulled out a little ornament and hung it up on the tree that hung on the pantry door. I loved the calender. It made the Christmas season fun throughout. It was something to look forward to every day, and not just waiting until the big 2-5. So a few years ago I made a calender for our family. It consists of 24 baby socks hanging on our wall. Every day the girls pick out a sock and inside is either an ornament to hang on a small tree, or a Christmas activity we do together. This helps force encourage me to do the Christmas activities I want to do anyway but also allows the flexibility for days when we just can't do anything.

Some of the activities are things we would do anyway, some are special but pulling them out of a stocking makes them all magical.


Nathan helped decorate the tree. In fact, he helps decorate the tree every day. Ornaments get rearranged, the lights are switched around, presents get moved. Thankfully, so far, only one ornament has broken.

Abbie had her Christmas recital. She is such a talented kid. She played In the Hall of the Mountain King, Pat a Pan, and Maple Leaf Rag. She plays by ear, and is forced to read music for the rest of us. She LOVES it. She gets into the complicated melodies and rythoms. This morning when she was practicing she got mad at me because, we were "just playing songs and not really practicing." I love watching her love of music.

Savannah and Abbie decorated gingerbread houses. This is an annual tradition that I think is their favorite.

 A friend and I took our older kids to the Symphony Childrens' Christmas Concert. I had a vision that we could ride the train down, arrive at the symphony enjoy the show and eat out at a fancyish restaurant downtown.

 Unfortunately,  we missed the stop we were supposed to take, had had to race around downtown in the pouring, pouring rain. Poor Savannah was wearing sandles and her toes were freezing. But she had the most amazing attitude.

 Thankfully we still made the symphony. Santa conducted, there was a sing-along and a great deal of Christmas joy was experienced by all.

 Temple Square Holiday Lights....wherein I broke out my evil eyes for photoes.

Mommy's Little Helper

Today Nathan helped me by putting every.single.thing into the shopping cart at the grocery store.

He helped me by grabbing the groceries and bagging them. I was allowed to bag some of the groceries. If I got to them first.

He helped carry the yarn to the check out at Micheal's.

He helped carry the bag from Micheal's to the car.

He tried to help unload the groceries.

He helped with every spoonful in the dinner preparation.

He is my little helper.

Transpose

(Blatant parental bragging to follow.)

Abbie loves to play the piano. She will sit down and just mess around for awhile. She will make up songs and she will goof off with the songs she is learning, alternating ddynamics speed or mood. She just gets so caught up in the music. She also has an amazing little gift that she got from her father called, "Playing by Ear." She is much better at hearing something and picking it out than sight-reading it blind. When she hears a song, and is reading the notes she does her best.

She has been learning the song Pat-A-Pan for her Christmas recital. It wasn't difficult but she didn't have a lot of time to learn it. One Sunday I heard her playing the song, over and over while I was fixing dinner in the kitchen. Then Russ came up stairs.

"Did you know she can transpose that song into the key of A, and the key of G?"

Nope. Didn't know that. I've never transposed anything ever. And my daughter was doing it in her free time.

When I talked to her teacher about it I learned it is very common for kids who learn by ear to do this, because they are identifying patterns rather than notes.

Lucky kid. Didn't get that from me.

Thankful, Not Thankful

Savannah was responsible for the Family Home Evening lesson this week. I suggested she do the lesson on gratitude. She told the story of Jesus healing the ten lepers, drew a maze of thankfulness, and invented this game.

There were three jars. One was full of strips of paper with words on them, the second jar said, "Thankful, " and the third said, "Not Thankful." We were each to pull a strip, read what was on it, then put it in the appropriate jar.  This is how things stood at the end of the game. (Spelling has been modified.)

Thankful Jar

Clothes
Church
Home
Family
People
School (This was a debated point.)

Not Thankful Jar

Coffee
Robbers
Sickness
Smoking
Bad Guys

No, no I am NOT thankful for bad guys.

Novemeber Updates

Things have been more than a little crazy this month. Starting with the day after Halloween. Abbie had a cold the week of Halloween but by the time she dragged herself around the block and forced herself through a soccor game the next day, she was done. She developed a really high fever and crashed it hard. Within 24 hours we had three sick kids. 

Thankfully, with the help of lots of rest, plenty of fluids, and Netflicks Abbie and Nathan recovered quickly. Savannah unfortunately had a fever that just wouldn't go away, so after four days we took her into the doctor to discover....pneumonia.  Thanks to antibiotics she bounced back rather quickly and we just needed to recover from the TV binge that had been happening in our house.

Abbie recovered in time to go to temple square with me and they both managed to be well enough to climb on grandma and grandpa's trees.

 ...and Savannah made it to her class's drama performance of the Lost Little Witch, wherein she played a mouse and did a fantastic job.

This week, for five full days everyone was healthy enough to play and wrestle to their hearts content.

Until yesterday when Savannah woke up with a fever that by the afternoon had climbed to 105. I have never had a kid with a fever that high but it scared me. Thankfully, after a trip the instacare, we learned it was strep throat and another round of antibiotics later, we are on the mend. Again.

** PS - Savannah's pneumonia was diagnosed on my birthday, which was, as you can imagine, fun, thankfully Russ and I went out on the weekend and had a wonderful time at the symphony.

Halloween Prep

I had no idea what to do for Nathan's costume this year. Thankfully, my neighbor has three boys and a fetish for costumes and thrift shops, so she loaned us Nathan's costume.

 The girls will both be witches for this year's Halloween festivities. Savannah is a nice witch and Abbie is Hermione Granger. Both are pretty darn excited this year.

Monday night was pumpkin carving Family Home Evening. We grew our pumpkins this year to increase our fun. Unfortunately, home grown pumpkins haven't been genetically modified to be good for carving. The biggest, Abbie's, broke our bread knife. The new ("Now with stronger blades!") pumpkin carving knifes we bought were bent within seconds. Needless to say the project took a little longer and more patience than expected. 

Last week Russ and I were invited to a Halloween party at our friends' house. While I do have sandy blonde hair, the race issue made me avoid LaFawnduh and instead I went as Deb. Russ was the life of the party as Kip. (Your mom goes to college!)

Fall Break

This fall break we made our semi-annual pilgrimage down south. We had a great time with friends, played in sand and water and relaxed. We had hoped to go to Vegas to visit Russ's sister but the prospect of driving there and then all the way home in one day was a little daunting. ( Sorry Jen, we really wanted to go, we just need to make it during a longer trip.)

The neighborhood is building after many recession years of stagnation. This means backhoes all around, much to Nathan's delight.

We went to the "Red Rock Park" climbed and ran and played hide and go seek. The kids had a blast showing their favorite places to their friends.

Then we went to the White Sand Dune Amphitheater and climbed and hiked and played in sand some more. The truth is, we pretty much do the same thing every time we go south, but we love it all the same.