An Attempt at Catching Up

We are so BUSY! Seth's sister and her family drove up from Tennessee on Christmas Day. We are up to our eyeballs in cousin fun right now, which means I am falling further behind by the minute. The rest of the adults headed off to see Tron tonight, and I volunteered to stay behind. I will take a house full of sleeping kids over a theater full of snooze inducing Sci-Fi any day. Since I am here, I will try to make a dent in my ever growing list of things to post. I can only catch up to Christmas Eve, because I got a new camera on Christmas and haven't had time to learn how to transfer pictures from it yet. But caught up to Christmas Eve is a start.

Day 20: Grinch Games

This was our first week day without school. Yahoo! We started out by reading How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and then played some Grinch games. We took turns stealing the presents from under the tree and hiding them around the house. We played a game where we each drew a card, and one of us was the Grinch and you had to try to figure out who it was. And then Alyssa suggested that we play Grinch sardines, so we drew cards again and whoever was the Grinch would hide and the rest of us would be Whos and go find the Grinch. Then I told the kids to go dress like Whos. I didn't really give them any more instruction than that, because I wanted to see what they came up with. Then we made Who hairstyles (which is hard with short hair) and watched the movie.

Alyssa played it pretty conservative.

Alex nailed it!

Chloe reminded me of Lynne (Helen Hunt's character) in Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Day 21: Ice Skating

We teamed up with Jen and her girls and hit the ice skating rink. Alex just used the buckets that they provide for kids to hold on to. Alyssa held hands with Jen or the wall. Chloe went berserk when I tried to hold her hand and skate. I plopped her on top of a bucket and skated all bent over behind her so that I could push the bucket. It was a bit hard on the back after an hour or so, but it was worth it to hear Chloe sitting up on her little perch proclaiming, "I'm doing it. I'm skating. I'm not scared anymore."

Day 22: Polar Express

I didn't take too many pictures since this year looked nearly identical to last year. Train seats, hot chocolate, tickets, and bells. This year Alyssa's word was LEAD, since she has become a leader to her brother and sister. She helps me often with them, and also set a good example for them by being baptized this year. I didn't remember that the girl in the movie also had the word lead too. Oops. Alex's word was LEARN and again I forgot that the annoying boy in the movie had that word. I felt bad about that one, because I meant it in a very different way. Alex has grown so much this year. He was my late talker and I had to struggle just to teach him his letters and letter sounds to prep him for Kindergarten, so I was thrilled when his teacher reported to me that he is the most advanced reader/writer in his class. He was the first to write and illustrate his own book, which is a goal the teacher likes them to complete by the end of the year. It has to include 5 pages, each with a sentence spelled and punctuated correctly and his is done and in the reading center. So proud! Chloe's word was CHARM, because...well if you know Chloe then you totally get it.

December 23: Cookies

I never did manage to do gifts for church friends and neighbors. I wanted to do cookie/candy trays, but when I got 4 in one day, I decided to think of something different in case people were cookied out. My brilliant idea never came. So we decided to at least make cookies for Santa, and our Bishop's family because 1: Bishop's work really hard and 2: Our Bishop's wife helps me ALL the time in Primary and she raves about my cookies (hint: if you like something I make, tell me and it will go to my head and I will want to make it for you often). Our Bishop's son is also Alyssa's piano teacher so she wanted to bring him a treat as well. We baked them monster cookies and made candy cane cookies for Santa.

December 24: Christmas Eve Party

Christmas Eve dinner is Alex's favorite! He asked about it all month long. We had our traditional clam chowder, shrimp and sparkling grape juice. We followed our humble feast with the opening of one present of their choice, since we had already done jammies. Alex opened a Lego set from my dad. Chloe opened a set of animals for Noah's ark. My dad got her the Little People Noah's Ark, and I bought a few boxes of animals to go with it. She didn't get the Ark until the next day, but she was still happy with her little animal pairs. Alyssa quickly targeted a gift, and looked sorely disappointed when it was a Touch N Brush toothpaste dispenser, which she has asked for for years. I am pretty sure she thought that little box was a Nintendo DS. Hee, hee! We rounded out the night with our reading of the Book of Mormon account of Christ's birth and got our candles for our rooms to signify a night without darkness and the coming of a Savior. Then it was off to bed for little monkeys so that we could work our magic.

I'll be back to let you see it all when I figure out my darn camera. So far I am not loving the new camera. Seth is tired of me crying about it after every picture, but it is SLOW to process between pictures and most of the pictures are blurry. So sad since they promised me it was way better than my old camera. I think it is going back, so if you have an awesome point and shoot camera I would love to know what you have.

Anyway, I hope you all had an amazing Christmas. Be back soon!