Happy Holidays!

We are in the midst of the Holiday season and loving it.  We've been pretty busy around here, as I am sure you all have been too.

Cal practicing some flips...he's excited for the holidays!


It snowed last week much to our kids' delight!  As the snow started we actually headed out to a church in Crocker that does a "Journey to Bethlehem".  We went last year and loved it.  Sorry...no pictures this year.  You start in the church and see the King Herod scene.  Then you get a type of passport for the census and head off to find baby Jesus.  We stopped and saw "family" along the way, ran into Roman soldiers and even had one of our family members taken by soldiers because of insufficient papers.  We then stopped at different inns and finally ended up by the manger where the baby lay. I hope that we can find some sort of live nativity to go to next year!

On Monday the girls wanted to venture out into the snow.  I have been surprised at how much they want to go outside.  It's cold!




A week ago we also went to the Nutcracker.  If I would have known what it really was, I would have enjoyed the performance more (or not gone).  During the scene where the Sugar Plum Queen is entertaining Clara, there was a dance recital.  In place of Tchaikovsky songs, the students danced to songs with words like candy and sweets and sugar in them (I guess keeping with the Sugar Plum Fairy theme).  Anyway, after the "recital" the Nutcracker resumed. It was fun though seeing my little neighbor friend perform!

On Wednesday Elden had another follow-up appointment in Columbia.  The girls and I went with Lee and Elden.  Lee took Elden to the appointment while I went shopping with the girls.  My friend Kathryn picked up the boys from school and watched them till we got back. Thanks Kathryn!!! Overall Elden is doing pretty well! He should be caught up by his next visit this coming June. That night we went to the ward Christmas party.  The theme was a pioneer Christmas.  We missed the first part--some activities--and got there in time for dinner and then the program.  We all sat on blankets for dinner and the program. 


Elden was being quite calm around Tanner.




Elden loved having Haley's scarf on!










Last night we went to Rolla and saw the light display at the Loin's Park.  I surprised everyone with the little outing, and we stopped at Little Caesar's and got pizzas for dinner.  It was very fun.  We stopped at a couple of stores too. While we were waiting in line to go into the park I had quite the time waking up Cal, Shanna and Haley.  They were sound asleep. I dumped water on Cal's head and was patting the kids on the cheeks and moving them around...they eventually woke up. It was a fun outing.

We've been up to other things too.  The boys are done with school for two weeks (YAY!).  They enjoyed their school parties, which included book exchanges--which I think is a great idea! Both have been playing with friends after school and on the weekends.

On the 18th our friend came over around 10pm to drop off their kids.  His wife was in labor and they needed to get to the hospital.  It was cute because when their little girl Ana laid down for bed, Shanna went up and stroked her hair and spoke comforting words to her.  It was very sweet.

About a week and a half ago I went and volunteered at the school. I have never done this before and I should go more while it's still fun to see mom at school.  I helped out during lunch hour with opening milk, wiping up spills, mediating tattling, etc.  I was slightly shocked to see everyone dressed up in their coats--immediately after they eat they go outside.  Now I know why Clark gets his jacket dirty sometimes!  So anyway, while I was walking around helping kindergartners, some of the kids were wondering who I was. I told them I was Cal's mom.  They were wondering who Cal was (they are in the other kindergarten class). One kid said, "He's that black kid."  Too funny!  Nope, not my kid!

And since I am on the lines of randomness I finished making our yearly matching pajama pants yesterday.  I messed up on cutting mine, so I had to do some tricky resewing.  At least I thought it through enough to do the weird sewing stuff on the back pant leg. To back up a little more we had our friends the Stockhoffs and the Tribes over to play games--which was really fun!--and this past Thursday went to a little bit of the band concert on base.  It would have been great to stay longer but taking a 21 month old to a concert isn't the best idea, so we didn't stay long.

On Friday Lee and I got to go on LONG date!  THANKS KRISTI!!!  We went to Lee's work party first.  They do a gift swap every year.  At first Lee picked out a big box which ended up to be a crock-pot.  It was funny because I just bought a 2nd one on Black Friday and although a 3rd crock-pot would be nice, it would be slightly un-necessary.  Someone took our crock-pot so we got to pick out something else.  Lee got a Scentsy plug-in thing (for me)!  I am enjoying it!  After the party we stopped at Wal-mart really quick, and then did our big holiday grocery shopping at the commissary.  It was so fun buying lots food!  We spent well over a month's worth of money on groceries for just this one holiday week. IT WAS SO FUN! I did buy some extra things, like cereal, because it was a pretty good deal.

Happy Holidays everyone!  We are excited for Daniel's family to arrive and for the Christmas festivities.  Hopefully my older kids haven't spoiled anybody's Christmas.  I am a grinch and am quite frank with my kids that Santa is not real (or emphasize that Santa is their Dad).  But now we are faced with the problem of teaching our kids to not tell other kids about it--it's not going so well. So if you are wondering why your kid suddenly doesn't believe in Santa, my kids probably told them at the playground at school.