Friends

I have some cute pics I took in December with different friends.

Above: Natalie and Heidi - Natalie's violin teacher. I don't think Natalie could love or look up to anyone more than she does Heidi. I'm glad she has good taste in friends and role models. (o: Heidi is pretty great! Sometimes during lessons Natalie can't help but spontaneously hug attack Heidi.
Tyler is one of Angela's bestest friends. They are in primary together and preschool too! We had Tyler over for a playdate in December and they were so cute singing and pretending together. I love this picture. I wish they could just stay this young - such a cute age.

Cute little Brett and his siblings came over one day. He got the royal treatment. Craisons while being serenaded by Natalie. (o:

Natalie and Jayda being creative.

A Quirky Christmas Carol

When I was a teenager, my mom started the tradition of getting tickets to see A Christmas Carol at the Hale Center Theater every December. I love the inspired story by Charles Dickens and never get tired of it's wonderful message. It really brought the Christmas spirit every time I watched it and there's something extra special about seeing it live on stage. This summer, as I visited a new local venue - The Venetian (see link to the title) - I discovered that A Christmas Carol would be performed during December. I decided the girls were now old enough to see a play and the week before Christmas we all attended our first performance together.

We had front row seats, which at first were very intimidating to the girls. Plus, ahead of time, I gave the girls a quick rundown of the storyline. These two factors together proved to be terrifying to Natalie and Angela. A story with ghosts? Right on the front row? It didn't matter how fun I tried to make it sound, they would have nothing to do with it. They hid under their coats on my lap and Kris Kringle's* lap as we waited for the play to begin. I wondered what I had gotten myself into. It was similar to the feeling I had as we got on our first Disneyland ride, Finding Nemo, and Angela screamed bloody murder when they shut the door to the submarine.

But then the play began. And in less than 5 minutes the girls were mesmerized. We all were. This was going to be fun!

I have seen this story performed in play/movie/television formats at least a dozen different ways. It's a simple enough storyline, that everyone can make their own twist on it. The 101 Dalmations, the Muppets, Mickey Mouse, Hale Center Theater, etc. However, I have to say that the Bag and Baggage Company's version (they are the ones who use the Venetian as their venue) has got to be the most clever and most hilarious version I have ever seen. It was phenomenal! The really cool thing about this company is that there are only 3 men and 3 women. You'd think that would make for a dull performance, but the was the artistic director wrote this version of the play, it made it even more charming and entertaining.

His twist on the traditional tale brought Charles Dickens himself in as one of the main characters in the play. Apparently, when Dickens had the inspiration to write A Christmas Carol, he would seclude himself for days, stay up all night and walk the streets of London all hours of the night. Aquaintances said he talked to himself and the characters in his head as the story developed, he was so obsessed. So through much of the play, Dickens plays a narrator of sorts. The other actors/actresses play the characters in his head and have long elaborate conversations and arguments about how the story should be written. It was hilarious and so clever. I laughed so hard I cried more times than I can say and the best part was that the girls understood quite a bit of the humor and were laughing their heads off as well. And because we were sitting in the front row, there were a few fun moments where the actors interacted with us.

The play had just the right balance of hilarity and still retained the powerful and moving parts of the play that are so endearing. When Scrooge realizes what he let go when he chose money and practicality over love. When he finally understand's Bob Crachit's circumstances. When he makes the decision to change his ways. All of these were still powerful and moving performances. The writer knew just when to pull back the reins on the comedy and let the magic of the original story take over. Our entire family had such a wonderful time laughing our heads off and still recite parts from the play that we remember. Like when Bob Crachit is trying to get Scrooge to lighten up and pokes his belly with his fingertip saying, "Boop!" I guess you'd have to be there.

Another wonderful bonus was that one of the actors plays the violin beautifully and they incorporated this talent several times into the story. We even got to sing Christmas carols during a few parts. I can't wait to see it again next year! Bravo! Encore!

Appetizer Party/Christmas Sock Exchange

This year I hosted my second annual Christmas appetizer/sock exchange party. I have some wonderful neighbors and friends and love having them over to celebrate Christmas time. I love sweets, but appetizers are my favorite! This year we had some great, yummy tidbits, but the most surprisingly good were Elizabeth's "Date with a Pig", (I love the name.) It is simply a date wrapped in a piece of bacon. Yum.
I LOVED getting the chance to mingle with wonderful neighbors and friends. It makes me so happy to be around such awesome ladies. I hope they all had as much fun as I did!

Shannan deciding whether to keep or steal . . .

Tina deciding which of her mini skirts to wear these with! (o:

Eva found a pair she liked! (Eva is Sarah's best friend Monica's mom.)

Michelle telling us that Ruby calls these little "grippy" part on the socks "claws". (o:

Here's my snuggly socks! I love to wear them around the house.

Thanks everyone! What a fun night!

Rainbow Sherbet

I love this little sweater. It's been passed down through all the girls. I think my mom gave it to Sarah. It's so cute. I call it the Rainbow sherbet sweater. Aren't the colors fun?
Angela showing off her yogurt mustache.

Freezing our Buns Off

It is 9 degrees right now.

9 degrees!

Our local news website said this is one of the coldest mornings in our area in 10 years. It's definitely the coldest day I remember in the last 10 years we've lived here. It has been freezing cold all week, but thank goodness it has been very sunny as well. These are perfect conditions for freezing rain and fog.

We had a fun time (well, Frank* did most of it) thawing out a pipe in the garage with a hairdryer. The water that melted from it immediately froze on the sidewalk.

I've been bundling up the girls every morning to go to the bus stop - gloves, hats, scarves, etc. Something we don't usually have to do. Maybe those of you who live in colder places think we are wimpy, but 9 degrees is waaay to cold for my taste. I'll take the regular overcast and rain any day over this butt cold weather!

BRRRRRR!

And speaking of weather, we got the most wonderful news this week from a good friend.

Rod Hill is back!

Yeeehaw!!

He's only doing weekends on channel 8 for now, but at least hes back. I haven't even really cared about watching all the weather news since he left. It was just too depressing . . . )o:

Welcome back Rod!!!

Dressing the Tree

Once we get the tree up and lights on the tree, then the fun can really begin. I always do the lights, but I never really like it. The one year I let Bob* put the lights on, I kept fixing things that bugged me and thus inherited the traditional chore. We put on Christmas music and pulled out the boxes of ornaments. It's always fun to look back on all the homemade ornaments and ornaments the girls picked in past years. See my blog entry from Dec. 2008 to see some of our favorite ornaments.

Twilight was very curious about the whole thing. She must not remember Christmas last year. The ornaments and lights were so exciting! Our little tree we keep in the family room was constantly being climbed and undecorated, but she mostly left the big tree alone.

The next day, I found a lovely little puddle of what looked like regurgitated pine needles in the living room. I think she tried a taste of the water filled with needles. She learned that lesson the hard way. (o:

A little hot chocolate after all our hard work was a great way to end the night. (o:

This was the ornament Natalie chose this year. I tried so hard to sway her to wait until we could find a little violin, but she insisted she wanted the trumpet. I didn't realize until we were paying for it why she wanted it so bad. She pretended to play it almost every day until we put it away after Christmas.

I've said it before . . . what a nut. (o:

Jolly Old St. Nick

At our ward Christmas party, Santa (and Mrs. Claus too!) always make an appearance! Jayda joined us in line to have a turn.
Sarah asked for a Rock Tumbler

Natalie asked for a Barbie (Wow - we have Barbies coming out of our ears already)

Angela asked for a Polly Pocket roller coaster. Mommy later looked up this item online and found awful reviews for this very pricey toy. After a talk with Angela and a quick e-mail to Santa, we decided something else in Polly Pocket category would be great. (She was just as happy with her Polly Pocket waterslide Santa brought.)

Random December Pictures

This Christmas I had more requests to do pictures than any other time. So the first two weeks of December were nuts. One of the "pros" of this situation is that because everyone else was on the ball to get their pictures, it got me on the ball. Around Thanksgiving weekend I had about 4-5 family photo shoots, two of which were in my "studio". I decided to do our own family too while I had everything set up. Luckily, the girls are old enough now that I can do the self-timer thing. It worked out great. We even got a few pictures of us with the cat too - unfortunately, we did not look as good in those shots, so the cat picture was not a finalist for our Christmas cards. (o:
For one of my photo shoots, I was unable to find a location for my little "Loo" to play. Becky (the client whose family I was shooting) said to just bring her along. Angela was a very good girl and such a good sport. It was a cold and very soggy day so we came home and got all snuggly and had some hot chocolate when we were done. What a good little buddy.

Natalie practiced a lot in December for her first violin recital! Twilight likes her soft violin case.

For one of the December activities, the young women made cookies and cute Christmas tree posters with foamy "ornament" stickers to add on every time they did a small service for someone. The goal was to do one kind thing every day until Christmas.

The girls looked extra cute one morning as we went to the bus stop, oh, and we weren't racing out, so I had to get a picture. It must have been "hat day" at school. I can't remember why Sarah is wearing a Mickey Mouse hat! (o: They have hat days a couple times a year.

If Angela is up, she and Twilight watch us go to the bus stop out the front window. It's so nice to have the bus stop right in front of our house.

December 5th was our traditional ward Christmas Brunch.

The kids and families were encouraged to write little notes on the paper "ornaments" of 3 trees that were hanging on the wall. They were then mailed to the missionaries of our ward. One of the missionaries is our good friend Justin. He was our home teacher for almost 2 years before he went to Mexico on his mission. My girls love him and were excited to make a Christmas note for him.

Our Tree Tradition

We love our tree picking tradition at Helvetia Tree Farm. We've gone for about 6 or 7 years now. And it's the only place the girls remember getting Christmas trees from. They really got into it this year and had a lot of fun.

Angela found little stumps to sit down on...
Natalie found trees to practice violin on...

...and Sarah pretended the trees were alive and had quite the conversations with the little ones. I don't remember exactly what she was saying or pretending with them, but at one point I heard some chuckling and looked at a nice family who were enjoying the "show". They smiled and pointed at Sarah, who didn't know she had an audience.

It was a beautiful and warm day - we probably didn't need all the gloves, hats and scarves, but it's tradition! And looks cuter for the pictures!

Natalie wanted this little one. Maybe in a few years... Although putting lights on it would be a breeze!

This was the coolest part! As Mo* and I were carrying the tree back to pay for it, a nice man came by and picked up our tree AND our girls for a ride! Mo* and I enjoyed a nice leisurely walk back as we listened to the squeals and laughter of the girls taking the "long way" back.

The girls liked this Santa on a motorcycle and wanted a picture.

A fun extra - it started snowing! Well, not really - it was a "snow" machine. The little "flakes" were actually itty bitty suds or soap or something. They probably didn't taste too good, but the girls still loved to catch them on their tongues. I wasn't going to ruin the magical moment by pointing out they were eating soap!

Crimson From Head to Toe

There is one game that I anticipate the whole football season as many other U of U and BYU fans as well.

Thanks to my little sis - I was able to dress from head to toe in my team colors. I got my new hat just in time to surprise my resident BYU fan on game day. (o:
Ned* and I anticipate the big game and always make an event out of it. We have fun, but when the game actually starts . . . things can get a little tense in our house as we cheer for our opposing teams. (o: The girls feel a little confused and roll their eyes a lot.

This years game was a sad one for those who cheer for the red team. )o: The Utes came close and even tied things up at the very end, but somehow those blue guys pulled off the extra points first. DARN! There's always next year.

And I just want to say a little thank you to all my dear BYU fans who called or e-mailed to rub in the win. I will be sure to return the favor next time! (o: