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The parties continued today ... we started the day with a brunch in Brinley's class. They had the works - scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, bagels with cream cheese, fruit, muffins, juice, and donuts. I looked like a circus act walking in with Easton in a front pack, Cougar in a stroller, and Kendyl trying her best to push Cougar (not because I needed her to but because she WANTED to)! Since Easton's mom teaches up there we were an "extra special attraction." The principal even made a special trip to see him! I made some "First Christmas" ornaments to give to his family when they picked him up today ... didn't realize how blurry the photo was but figured I'd share anyway. I took his picture with the Santa hat on and thought it turned out so cute!!
The afternoon was spent getting the girls to do their Saturday morning jobs so they can go out shopping for each other tomorrow morning. After dinner we dropped them off at babysitters group and headed off to a holiday party! It was fun to be invited to a non-work holiday party with no kids ... can't remember the last time we've been to something like this! Most were people we'd only met once if ever (except the hostess and a few others) but we had a great time - the food was fabulous and the laughs were side-splitting!!! I took my camera so we could get a shot for my picture of the day. Not the best photo since we were using the timer and for some reason I look a bit more "deformed" than usual, but fun to remember the people we got to share such a fun night with!!
We're partying away here ... 3 today, to be exact! We kicked off the day with an "always fabulous" party with Ms. Beckie in Kendyl's preschool class. Lots of gluing, frosting, eating, stories, songs, games, and fun to be had by all. She left with a goody bag bigger than any 5 year old should aquire at school - and claimed a puppy in the gift exchange! Lucky for me it sings "We Woof You a Merry Christmas" - and Cougar loves to make it sing and dance. The mouth even moves and he loves the feeling of having the puppy nibble his fingers ;) The best part is I don't have to potty train it and I can now check "PUPPY" off of their Christmas lists again this year with no guilt!
After a quick trip to Costco to pick up last minute teacher gifts - which was VERY difficult for me to do since I would much rather make them something fun on my own but had absolutely no time this year due to our vacation - Kendyl and I enjoyed lunch in the food court (so fun just the two of us) and headed off to party number 2 in Ashton's classroom. Another hour filled with cookie decorating, stories, painting, birthday celebrations, and congrats for her teacher who is graduating with her Master's Degree tomorrow!!
We came home to regroup, check in with Steve and Cougar who had been off shopping all day (and spending money they shouldn't have been), and finish homework. A few hours later it was back up to the school for Ashton's "Publishing Party" where they got to show off their writing from the first part of the year. How fun to see all of her hard work! She has been telling me all about the stories she has been writing and publishing in Writer's Workshop so it was great to see her creativity in print!
Now I'm off to work on some more projects that are already overdue ... who needs to sleep anyway?!
Today I got to finish up all of the treats from yesterday so they were ready to go for the young men tonight. They came over, frosted the sugar cookies, assembled the plates, and made deliveries to many families and individuals in our ward. I think they had a good time and I even had a few raving about my baking abilities and asking for recipes ... they are already learning how to charm their future wives ;) The kitchen was left a disaster but it cleaned up pretty quickly - totally worth getting to watch the boys show off their decorated cookies and plate assembling ablilities.
While the boys were destroying my kitchen I was at the girls' school basking in the sounds of their choirs. Brinley and Ashton are both in choir this year and they love it. They missed auditions last year since we changed schools about 2 weeks into the school year so they were thrilled to have the chance to try out this year. They each have practice twice a week after school and have been preparing for this concert for months. Although it was a little on the long side (well over an hour) they did a fabulous job and had a wonderful time. I was playing videographer AND photographer tonight so my pictures are less than stellar but at least I have them :) I'm sure the video footage is 10 times worse since the boy sitting by me kept knocking my tripod. I made the pic of Brinley the "official" picture of the day since Ashton had a choir picture from the military base, but I had to include a photo of Ashton, too ... you can practically see where her tonsils used to be!!!
I was reminded again tonight that there are too many parents that aren't teaching their children respect, manners, or discipline either. It was unreal the number of kids that were being completely disrespectful while the choirs were performing ... and their parents did nothing (or weren't even there). I stopped more than one group of rowdies to let them know they were being rude and that parents had come to hear their children sing - not to hear the rowdies beating each other with their shoes, climb on chairs, or chase each other and talk to their friends. I had more than one parent thank me for stepping in, too. It is always a fine line to correct other children's actions, I know, but sometimes the former teacher in me takes over and I have no tolerance for that type of behavior. Tonight was one of those nights. Perhaps it was my sleep deprivation ....
Also wanted to let you know that Cougar had a follow-up chest x-ray yesterday - still has pneumonia in his lungs so we are onto another antibiotic and 5 breathing treatments a day. He will go back in on Christmas Eve and I'm sure they will order another follow-up x-ray ... praying for pneumonia-free lungs for Christmas! On the plus side, the doctor heard NO heart murmur at his last appointment so it looks to have taken care of itself - which is what she anticipated!! HOORAY :)
No, that's not the amount of weight I gained on our trip ... I feel no need to disclose that information ;) It IS the amount of butter that I went through today while baking up goodies and making candy. I made several dozen nut clusters, a quadruple batch of toffee, 2 pans of mint brownies, a quadruple batch of sugar cookies (including rolling out, cutting, and baking), and made the dough for a triple batch of peanut butter cup cookies that will be baked tomorrow along with some Addiction.
I love to make treats during the holidays :) This sudden burst of kitchen fury was brought on by my husband ... gotta love him being the Young Men's president!! He asked - on Sunday night - what my plans were for Wednesday. I told him I had the girls' choir concert that night while he would be at YM. He gave me "that look" and said "Oh, cuz I was wanting the YM to come over to put together plates of goodies to deliver to the widows and some single moms in the ward." I have a soft spot for projects like this because my dad did the very same project with the YM in our ward growing up for more years than I can even remember. How do you not completely rearrange your life to make sure you have everything baked and ready for goodie plate assembly on Wednesday night?!?! Nevermind the 2 hours at the doctor's office on Monday (LATE well child checks for Cougar and Kendyl ... my poor 3rd and 4th children), madly trying to get the big girls caught up on homework after being out of school for a week, finishing the laundry catch up - DONE! - and making sure I got Cougar in for his follow-up chest x-ray. Add to that having Easton here 3 days this week and needing to finish up creative team projects, teacher Christmas gifts, a Secret Santa gift for my SM creative team, and getting gifts packaged and mailed off. I'm tired just thinking about it!! At least most of the baking is done so I can move my attention back to my other projects - and give my back a rest from standing all day ;)
Every year we spend our Monday nights playing Secret Santa for Family Home Evening. The kids love the "thrill of the chase" hoping that they don't get caught as they leave little surprises for unsuspecting friends and neighbors. I love the opportunity that it gives us as a family to talk about those we know and love, those who might need a little "extra", those who might be new to the area, or those who may have just come to our minds as one we should visit. Our usual plans to start on the first Monday of the month had to be put on hold with that being the day we spent at the doctor with Cougar and, of course, the next Monday we were at Disneyland, so tonight was the first time we had a chance to go out. It was a cold and rainy (shocker for our parts) night but the girls were still excited to make their deliveries. We have lots more to drop off later this week and next - to make up for our missed weeks - and I am so excited for the joy that it brings! It draws us nearer together as a family as we focus on others at this special time of year!
P.S. If you are wanting to create a quick and *FAB* Christmas LO look no further than this amazing template from Denise! Once I saw her LO I wished and hoped she'd produce a template ... and she did! Go snatch it up ;)
Several years back, Steve's mom made us a nutcracker for Christmas. She has actually made us two ... a golfer and a toymaker. Ever since then we have added to our nutcracker collection every year. I even found a "vintage" BYU football player nutcracker on eBay one year that I surprised Steve with on Christmas morning!! It is always such a treat to pull them out with the rest of our decorations and figure out how we will arrange them making room for the yearly addition. We still have to buy one this year - perhaps I need to start browsing the web for a Mickey Mouse nutcracker to commemorate our trip!
We're still digging out from our vacation. Laundry is almost all washed and ready to be folded and put away (so I can get back on schedule). The girls will be catching up on extra homework this week and will have their choir concert on Wednesday. I have too many creative team projects to think about along with gifts for the office and a Secret Santa gift to make. Just a few last gifts to buy and get mailed off to family and we should REALLY be done ... now to get Steve started on the wrapping!! Yes, he wraps ALL of our gifts - except those that are for him ;) I'm thinking Valentine cards may be the way to go this year. Oh, and I need to get started on a Disney album from our trip ....
I'm up to my eyeballs in laundry!!! Ah, the joys of coming home from vacation. It is a painful reminder of how much laundry 6 people can go through in a week. It is also a reminder of why I have a laundry "schedule."
I'm actually writing from home ... so nice to be back to my desktop computer rather than using the laptop from atop a hotel bed (especially one that is as old and SLOW as our laptop - uploading pics was taking forever)!! We've been in the car for WAY too many hours - many of which we were stuck in traffic. The girls have a piano recital in 8 1/2 hours and Steve has to be to work in 7 hours. I've got mounds of laundry to tackle tomorrow. My house looks like a hurricane just hit after unloading the car and 4 sleeping kids at midnight. I am terribly sad that our trip is over and yet there is such joy in coming home. I will have to fill in so many details but for now I'll leave you with one of our final pics from the Happiest Place on Earth ....
P.S. Remember you can click on the pictures to enlarge them ... some of the photo actions I am using make them a bit more difficult to see the "detail" when the photos are smaller - we really aren't as blurry as we may look ;)
After another extremely long day (over 12 hours at the parks) we found the trams back to the parking garage couldn't keep up with the crowd so we ended up walking ... half a mile ... with kiddos and strollers in tow. These kids are such troopers! We have had such an amazingly fun time and are sad to see our trip come to an end :( We may hit the park for a few more rides tomorrow before heading out for the drive home. Then it's back to a piano recital, work party, homework to catch up on, and LIFE!!! At least I was able to keep up my photo a day with all of the fun we've been having ....
You know me and my camera ... inseperable. This morning I decided that instead of lugging my entire camera bag with extra lenses, backup battery, etc. I would leave it at the hotel today and bring it tomorrow when I knew we'd be doing the Christmas parade, fireworks, etc. Nevermind the fact we were having a character dinner at Goofy's Kitchen tonight to celebrate 5 birthdays ... Kristin's' today, Kalli's on Friday, Russell's on the 22nd, mine on the 25th, and Brinley's on Jan. 11th. Well, the battery lasted until about 20 minutes before we headed to dinner. I was cameraless for one of the most memorable experiences of the trip so far!!!!!! I don't know that I'll ever be able to forgive myself and I know that I will NEVER leave my backup battery behind again. It is always charged and ready to go so if I had taken my bag I would have been covered. I probably would have taken at least 100 photos in our 90 minute dinnertime! It was our first time at Goofy's Kitchen and it was *FABULOUS*!! We will definitely go back again ... with a full camera battery :)
The afternoon was spent getting the girls to do their Saturday morning jobs so they can go out shopping for each other tomorrow morning. After dinner we dropped them off at babysitters group and headed off to a holiday party! It was fun to be invited to a non-work holiday party with no kids ... can't remember the last time we've been to something like this! Most were people we'd only met once if ever (except the hostess and a few others) but we had a great time - the food was fabulous and the laughs were side-splitting!!! I took my camera so we could get a shot for my picture of the day. Not the best photo since we were using the timer and for some reason I look a bit more "deformed" than usual, but fun to remember the people we got to share such a fun night with!!
