Natalie's Very Merry Christmas

Natalie was lucky enough to have some fun events during the Christmas season. The biggest event was her first violin recital! She had only been taking lessons for about 5 or 6 weeks before the recital. We were so proud of her and the older, more accomplished violinists were so sweet and she got a lot of applause after her lovely rendition of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". She was definitely the youngest (and cutest) one playing that night. I'm just a little biased. I need to get the video on here because it is priceless. She was so excited and had a HUGE smile when she was finished.

Isn't she cute? I only wish I had my better camera. . . .

The first grade classes at Natalie's school have a gingerbread party tradition each year. It began with a cute little Christmas "concert" of 3 or 4 songs including "O Tannenbaum" sung in German and "All I Want For Christmas is my Two Front Teeth". Natalie is in the front row in the red - wearing the Santa hat.

Afterwards we went back to the classrooms to help build "gingerbread" (or graham cracker) houses. The children got to decorate the houses later in the week at school when the frosting had hardened.

Natalie loves Mrs. "B" (o:

Our Tuesdays were insane in December. They are my youth nights and Freddy*, who is our ward financial clerk, had to be at church three nights a week for tithing settlements, including my youth night. Add to that, the fact that the above events were both on Tuesday nights and we had a pretty crazy Tuesday almost every week. One of the nights, Natalie found one of her primary teachers in the foyer, Brother Baxter. She loved her teachers - Brother and Sister Baxter. They were the sweetest teachers and took such good care of Natalie. Brother Baxter always got a little teary eyed whenever he talked about Natalie or the other cute kids in their class and how much he loved them. He always pointed out exactly what qualities made each child special and and he and his wife always went the extra mile for their lessons. They are the sweetest people. We were so grateful Natalie got to have such loving teachers. Notice in the picture above also that Angela looks like an orphan. I realized when we got home that the jammie bottoms she was wearing were size 2! (o; HA! And she has a huge hot chocolate stain on her jammie top. My girls love coming to young women's with me, but it gets a little chaotic.

Natalie loves to "cook" by herself. She loves to chop up her own fruits with our kid safe knives. She made this colorful fruit snack one day after school all by herself. She's always coming up with inventions of "recipes" she would like to try. They always include her favorite ingredient - some kind of fruit.

Christmas Craft Party

Sarah with Monica and longtime friend Paige! Paige is Sarah's bestest buddy from preschool adn the Quatama ward. I LOVE that they have remained good friends since our move 4 years ago.

Lydia working hard on her ornament . . .

I believe this is the 3rd or 4th year of our traditional friends Christmas craft party. It began with Sarah inviting a couple friends. Last year Natalie got to invite a couple friends and, this year, Angela was old enough to invite two friends. They each had two friends over and we had a fun and rambunctious time making crafts while listening to Christmas music. Oriental Trading had some great craft kits that made planning easy. This year we made "scratch it" Christmas tree ornaments, bracelets, sticker cards and messy graham cracker treats. I love this tradition. It's what Christmas is all about - smiling happy children, laughter, friends, family, love . . .

Jayda concentrating hard too . . .

Awww - Lauren and AngiLoo

Cute Olivia

Christmas Dress Photo Essay

Part of the fun of having girls is doing fun matchy dresses. Every year I enjoy the hunt. It's a tricky feat with girls in different sizes. Most years I have had success scouring clearance racks at Gymboree - cute dresses, the right sizes AND good deals... YES! So invigorating! They didn't have a skirt in Sarah's size that matched, but I found a jumper in the same material which was close enough! The sweaters I found at Old Navy.

Okay, I know this is a lot of pictures of the girls in their Christmas dresses, but the story it tells makes me laugh, so I couldn't take any out.

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: