Christmas Piano Recital

Last year, a friend of mine who also teaches piano told me that at Christmastime, she has little "mini" recitals in her home. I figured I would give it a try. So what I did was had three nights available for the kids to come, play their Christmas songs, have some goodies, and then go home. I was hoping that with a casual setting, they wouldn't be as nervous and it would be a good test run for their big recital in the Spring. My kids performed on Wednesday night. My Grandma was staying with us for a few days while my Mom went to help my sister with her new baby, and the kids were excited to have her there. Spencer went first and I got a little of it on film.

And then I had to help Jenna with her song so Steve took over as camera man and only got still photos, so sorry no songs.
Jenna does just fine playing, but occassionally she will look down at her hands, and then she loses her place. She played Jingle Bells.

I played a duet with Haley one of my students. We played "Carol of the Bells".

This is Jenna's friend Meigan. She didn't really need any help, but I was there, just in case.

This is Melissa's friend Erin (our next door neighbor) she played The 12 days of Christmas.

After that, she and Melissa played a duet of Up on the Housetop.

Then Melissa finished up with Fur Elise. Not really a Christmas song, but it was a piece she'd been working on since September and she had it completely memorized. I thought it would be a good idea to play it now since at the Spring recital I always have several kids who want to play it.

It was a fun night, and I think a lot of the parents enjoyed the low key affair and the goodies! Me too!

Jenna's Christmas Party

In our neighborhood, there are 15 girls that are Jenna's age. If you add the boys, there are 7 more. We decided that for Christmas it would be fun to have a little (OK, big) party for the girls. I offered to host the party and the other girls Mom's either sent stuff for a craft, sent some snacks, or came and helped me with the party. We started off with making a craft. The girls decorated some foam gingerbread men or Christmas trees with stickers. What a selection huh?

When the girls were waiting for all of their friends to arrive, many of the went downstairs and played dress ups. Some of them didn't want to take their dress ups off.

A couple of the girls are in morning Kindergarten with Jenna, but the majority of the girls are in the afternoon so it was a fun thing for the girls to all play together again. Last year, most of the girls were in a playgroup together, it was quite a group.

Jayden was happy to enjoy the snack with them.

Snack consisted of various crackers, apple slices and caramel and Jenna's favorite crackers with the spreadable cheese.

Really this group of girls is quite remarkable. They all really enjoy each other, and RARELY have disagreements.

After snack, they decorated some cookies and then we had a gift exchange. Each girl brought one gift and then after doing a big switcharoo, they all went home with a gift from someone else. The funny thing about the party that we will have to remember for next year (if there is a party) is that they were just so excited to all be together that mostly all they wanted to do was play. Well, play and have snack that is!

Last Spencer B-day post

It is customary at my kids' school to send a poster of pictures telling about our child on their birthday. Three weeks before Spencer's "special week" (as it is called) Spencer told me that we needed to get started making his poster. He wanted to make sure that we didn't forget and had plenty of time to get it done. I told him that there was plenty of time, and I would FOR SURE not forget. Well, I forgot. That is until the night before it was supposed to be done. I think that is supposed to be the other way around, I thought parents were supposed to get on their kids, not the other way around. But I rallied, and pulled an all nighter and this is what I came up with!

So, to explain the pictures from right to left and top to bottom it goes like this:

• Professional picture taken of Spencer when he was 1
• Spencer pulled out his first lost tooth
• Picture of Spencer when he was 4
• Spencer's favorite sport to play right now is soccer
• Die cuts of all his favorite sports as well as a puzzle piece (because it is something that he REALLY likes to do and is REALLY good at)
• Spencer at age 3
• Spencer sledding last year
• Spencer age 5
• Spencer at age 4 on the lifeflight helicopter
• Spencer with his brother and sisters
• Spencer at age 7
• Pizza is his favorite food
• Spencer showing his muscles (around age 3)
• Spencer and his Daddy when he was 1
• Spencer at age 3 when he broke his leg (jumping on a trampoline)
• Spencer at age 3 doing his GQ pose that his uncle taught him

All I have to say is it's a good thing that I scrapbook and had a bunch of pictures at my disposal!

Spencer's Baptism

Turning 8 means being baptized for Spencer! He was super excited about it. It was done the day after Jayden's actual birthday, so I think that was one reason he was so agreeable to sharing a birthday party with Jayden... he wanted this day all to himself. Here he is with his Dad...

And here is all of my cute kids. I love it when they all look like they are happy and love each other. If only it was that way all the time!

Melissa wanted me to make sure she had a picture of her and Spencer together for her scrapbook, and Jayden and Jenna wanted their own picture too.

And then we took one of the whole family!

Steve did the actual baptizing and then my Dad and Steve's Dad were the witnesses. Thanks for smiling Dad.

Spencer sure was proud of his new suit.

By the end of the day, he said he was tired of smiling!

It was a snowy day, so mostly only the locals came. My parents and Grandmother came, but Lisa's family was sick and couldn't make it, and James and David didn't want to drive in the bad weather. Steve's family all came: Mark and his family, Mike and his family, Marlene and her family, and then Brooke and her two boys (Curtis works graveyards, and didn't make it). After the baptism, we came back to our house where we had a nice luncheon. Many brought salads and goodies, and we had lunch meats on rolls. I know, not all that exciting, but I want it noted for posterity's sake!

Spencer's 1st Pack Meeting

Turning 8 is a big deal for Spencer. His friends have all been 8 for quite a while and they have already been attending Cub Scouts. Spencer has been WAITING for a long time. Lucky for him, the day after he turned 8 he had his first den meeting and the following week was his first pack meeting. To start it off, his den was in charge of the skit.

For those of you who can't hear, Spencer said, "Oh my!"

(maybe not with the exclamation point though)

And of course, the punch line is...

Following the skit, was awards. Spencer was all gung ho to get going on his Scout stuff, so he worked really hard from the day after he turned 8 to earn his Bobcat award by the first pack meeting. There was one other boy getting his Bobcat as well. For those of you who have never done or seen the ceremony, they have you paint some stuff on your kids' face and they represent different things in scouting. Don't ask me what those were, I was paying more attention to what I was supposed to be doing, hoping not to get it wrong.

Of course, two seconds after I went up, Jenna and Jayden had ran up to see what was going on. Steve was working late, so I was there by myself with them, and a friend of mine was taking the pictures.

You'll notice I had to watch the other Mom do hers first before I attempted to paint Spencer's face. She's done it before with her older son.

Then, Spencer got to put a pin on me (upside-down of course because then they are supposed to do a good turn/deed and then turn it around). Nice that they award the Mom's too because we have to do about as much as the scout does to earn the award.

Here's the final result:

And compare that to the other boy...

Dang! I should have put a white Y on his nose that we would be represented... Go Cougs! And Go Spencer!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was somewhat of a quick and quiet affair. We celebrated with my side of the family this year. All but Michelle who was set to have a baby sometime in the following two weeks (from Thanksgiving - she's had the baby already). So here's the run down...
2:00 - Everyone shows up, and I am still in my PJ's. Yep that's right, you would think that where I was ONLY in charge of the Turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes, that I would have had plenty of time to do all of the above and get a shower in, but nope, I didn't. So after a quick shower and change, we were ready to eat.
Here was the first group shot. From left to right, and front to back, it goes Melissa and Spencer (mine) then Brandon (in the blue hat, just about ready to take a bite - Lisa's oldest) then Nathan is in the back on the left (David's third). Then on the right, there is BJ (Lisa's 3rd) followed by Matthew and then Ethan (James' 1st and 2nd). [This photo cracks me up with how every is looking] Now for the cute girls table there's Brittany (Lisa's 2nd) Jenna (mine) and then Ashton (David's last)...

Table 1 from the other side: Bryson (in the high chair is Lisa's youngest - until May when she's due) then Craig (David's 2nd) Daniel (David's oldest) and then of course Melissa again.

Then for the grown - ups (mostly) there's my Mom, Cindy (David's wife) David, Lisa, Steve with Jayden, Blaine (Lisa's wife) and then a nice profile shot of James. Missing is My Dad, Grandma Moseley and Heather (James' wife). I didn't realize that they were already at the grown up table in the family room, so no picture of them.

Of course I had to get a shot of all the yummy food. Yes, we had turkey and ham, they just happen to be on the counter behind Steve, you can see Blaine on the right (or part of him at least) dishing up some ham and turkey.

I should have gotten a picture of all of the pies. There was some REALLY good choices pumpkin, apple (that Heather makes from scratch), a german chocolate, a chocolate satin, and a banana cream (yuck - no offense to who made it). There was also our signature rice-krispy treats that we have had every Thanksgiving since who knows when.

And like my Dad says, a great time was had by all!

Some Snow Fun (It's got to be good for something)

These pictures were taken before Thanksgiving. It isn't unusual for it to snow before Thanksgiving, but it usually melts about as quick as it comes. However, this year it snowed and then just stayed. I can't remember it ever being this cold and snowy before Christmas. The kids were sure excited about it.
Including Jayden. Outside is one of his most favorite places to be, and even though there is snow or below freezing, he will try to brave it for at least 10 minutes.

Jenna just loves to eat the snow. I tell you, I am not sure what if anything will ever make her stop. I've tried the taking some snow from outside and melting it in a cup so that she sees just how dirty it is, but it doesn't seem to phase her. See what I mean?

Here's some other fun videos I got of the occassion:

Getting Ready

Sometime in the next couple of months, the 6th grade does a science day and they have all sorts of competitions. There's speed stacking, bridge building, tower building and some others I can't remember. Melissa first heard about it in November, so one day when her friend was over, they thought that they would start practicing. Melissa's friend is quite a bit taller than Melissa, and they were excited that the tower was taller than she was.

See? Quite a bit taller.

However, as time went on, the tower started leaning more and more, but never did fall!

As a side note, Melissa's class has been practicing as well doing the other stuff and Melissa is pretty proud of the fact that she currently holds the record in her class in speed stacking.

Happy Birthday Boys

Spencer and Jayden have birthdays that are only separated by a few weeks. Being as how Spencer turned 8, and therefore was only having a "family" party, and Jayden isn't old enough for a friend party, I decided to do their birthdays together. {Not to mention, Spencer was baptized the day after Jayden's actual birthday and I didn't want to deal with birthday party one day, and baptism luncheon the day after.} They didn't seem to mind sharing the day! Spencer got a game for his Nintendo DS, and we disguised it by putting some legos in a box with the game and then wrapping that. He thought that he was getting legos and Melissa was pretty proud of herself for successfully disguising it. He also got some clothes from Grandma and some cash from his other Grandma, Great-Grandma, and some aunts and uncles.

Jayden got a t-ball/pitching machine thing which he won't really be able to use until Spring, but for now, he likes watching the ball pop up into the air in the basement. Thank goodness he can't quite hit it yet or else we might have some broken windows. He also got some clothes, dinosaurs and money.

Here is the cake that I made them. It took four cake mixes! And the wheels are ding-dongs, my personal favorite. I did make sure that I had a whole box of extra ding-dongs in case more than one kid wanted a wheel.

The proud 3 year old!

And the happy 8 year old.

Melissa made the back license plate for the car. No surprise it says Jayden.

Jayden getting ready to blow the candle, only it really looks like his target is Spencer's candle.

But Spencer quickly put an end to that! Although Jayden doesn't look too happy about it because Spencer blew Jayden's candle out as well.

So, we lit it again and let Jayden do it.

Everything went so great, and was a lot less work doing the two together, I think I will give it a try for Melissa and Jenna in March. Both have even birthdays and so only get a family party. Do you think Melissa will go for a princess cake?