Christmas Eve, Part 1

We celebrated Christmas Eve at my parents house.  We had a scrumptious Turkey dinner.  I love my mom's gravy.  It was/is divine.  (It helps that one of my favorite foods in mashed potatoes and gravy.)

 

After dinner Trista's family was in charge of the activities/program.  She had some fun Minute to Win it challenges.  This one you had to move an oreo from your forward into your mouth using only your facial muscles.  It was a lot harder than it looked.

My mom was the first one to succeed. 

 

I got it all the way to my mouth but actually getting it INTO my mouth was the tricky part.  I never succeeded. (Lovely picture don't you think)

 

These three did it at the same time and they ALL succeeded.  By the end of the night there were quite a few who had it down.

 

 

The next challenge was to keep three balloons in the air using only one hand.  That proved to be VERY difficult so we changed it to two balloons using only one hand.  I think by the end it was pretty much anything goes.

Some sticker activities for the kid who's attention spans are about 4 minutes.

We also had a nice spiritual thought by Trista that we all helped with by telling our favorite story from Christ's life.  Misti also put together an awesome video of pictures of Christ put to song. 
 

Then of course, there was the acting out of the nativity.  Post to follow....

Sugar cookies

I L-O-V-E sugar cookies.  But making them takes forever and makes a mess.  My kitchen is not big enough to be able to make them and still take care of my kids and get them fed so we spent the day at my mom and dad's baking.  Trina and Cameo had the day off work so they joined us, too.

Teddy Bear Breads

Growing up Ben's mom would make teddy bear breads to take to some of their friends and neighbors.  Since Ben' mom doesn't live too far from us - two doors down - we decided it would be fun to have her help our kids make them.  We only made four but it took us the whole night so it was plenty.  The kids had sooo much fun - especially since they got to stay up until 10pm to help us deliver them.

 I didn't get a picture of the finished product all golden brown.  We did let them raise a little too much, but they were still cute and oh, so yummy.  We kept one for ourselves.  It was cooked and I hope the three we delivered were cooked through, too.  I always have a hard time with bread telling if it's done or not.

Looks like Kamri had some fun

Our up-and-coming hairstylists...

Trina's and Cameo's work moved close to us so we have the privilege of having them come over during their lunch breaks sometimes.  They're good sports and let my kids "entertain" them while they're here.  Trina (who is now a brunette) got her hair pulled and yanked.  My hair is too curly to let Sara and Kamri comb through it often so they take any chance they can get.

Such a sweetie

I walked into the living room one day and this is what I found...

Primary Christmas gift

This is what I made for the primary kids and leaders for Christmas.  

 (the picture rotated in the upload process and I can't figure out how to change it)

(I got the idea from this post)

It's a little ornament. One side has the Simon Dewey picture of a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes.  The other side I painted with chalkboard paint and with a paint pen wrote "What will I give the babe in the manger?" For part of the lesson I had them answer the question and write it on the back with a piece of chalk.  Now they have a nice little ornament for their tree. 

(I added my own kids' names to theirs when I got home)

I had the kids and Ben help me make them.  I was sooooo glad and relieved when all 68 of them were finished.

Silly girls

Last Saturday I took Sara to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert w/ David Archuleta. We went with my SIL Cassie and her daughter Leona. Afterward we were a bit hungry so we stopped at Little Caesar's to grab a pizza then brought it back and had a little late-night picnic on the floor. The girls were G-I-G-G-L-Y. You could tell they were super tired. It was a lot of fun and I'm glad Sara and the rest of my kids have cousins who are also their friends.

basketball

Evan has started his third year of Junior Jazz.  He has a good time and Ben is his assistant coach.

This was his first game.  He scored a basket and was pretty excited (some how Ben missed it and wouldn't believe us for a little while.)  He's got a cool number - 24.  That was my number in high school.

Sara's Christmas recital

Sara had her Christmas recital on Friday.  She played a jazz version of "Jolly Old St. Nicholas".  She did great and looked beautiful!!

 This is a kid on our ward who takes from the same teacher.  His dad is Sara's primary teacher and his mom is her Activity Days leader.

 She bowed too fast I couldn't get a picture so I made her re-bow.

 Afterward we went to Frogurt to use her gift card she got back in the summer for winning her piano summer olympics.

Jam session

It's hard finding different things to keep Kamri and Miles entertained while Sara and Evan are at school.  One day I turned on our stereo, went downstairs to get our play microphones, and we jammed out to some music.  Miles and Kamri both were having a great time.  And I must admit I thought it was a little fun, too.

Apples

Look at those eyes!  Beautiful!

Miles used to not like apples.  But Evan comes home from school every day and runs to the fridge to grab an apple.  Miles started taking notice and started following him around begging for a bite and then wouldn't stop at a bite.  So, I just handed him an apple - whole.  Before I knew it, he was half way through the apple.  It took over an hour for him to eat it but he did - ALL of it - core and all.  Now he loves apples but he won't touch them if I've cut them for him.  He got it all over his shirt, but he was happy and content and perfect for over an hour.  I'll take it. (He's been a bit ornery for a couple weeks so I was happy to have something to keep him happy.)

Sara's second spelling bee

Sara had her second spelling bee last Tuesday.  She did great and worked really hard.  We had a lot of fun working on the spelling words.

When I was growing up I did a lot of spelling bees and I have memories of laying on my mom's bed while she played with my hair and worked on the words with me.  I was laying on the couch playing with Sara's hair and the memories came rushing back and I thought, "How fun!  This is what I did with my mom."

 Sara's number was 422.  She was like the 17th or so out of about 20 kids. 

 

Sara got 3rd place in the 1st through 3rd grade bee.  Way to go Sara!

 I am very proud of her for doing so well and working so hard to learn all the words on the list.  She got a gift card to Barnes and Noble.  Last year it took us a few months to actually get to Barnes and Noble to use hers.  Hopefully this year we'll make it there a little sooner.

Just for my future information - They went through a few rounds and progressively bumped up the grade level with each new round.  Not the way spelling bees are supposed to be. It was a bit unfair the way they were doing it and I could tell a bunch of the kids were a little stressed about it.  I was feeling pretty bad for them.  I'm over it so I won't go into detail, but I talked to Sara's teacher about it hoping that in future years they would "fix" it.  Her teacher and the lady in charge of the spelling bee agreed with me and said they would do it the right way for the older grades spelling bee the next day and in the next years'. I was nervous about expressing my concerns because I didn't want to come off as a "poor sport", but I really thought they should understand why it wasn't done fairly.  I'm glad I spoke up!