Busy Holiday Season

There's always so much going on during December and this year is no exception.  So far this month we've attended a choir concert, taken the family down to a Children's Theater production of Peter Pan, attended a Christmas party thrown by our kid's dentist office (it is the coolest office EVAH!), participated in the annual Walk and Knock a community event to collect food for the food bank, gone to family craft night and third grade performance night, had breakfast with Santa and an adult Christmas dinner.  This is in addition to regular school, preschool, playgroups, choir, scouts etc.  Of course, I don't begin for a second to presume that we are any busier than anyone else.  Actually, we are not as busy as many because we don't have additional sports or lessons.  Still.  Busy.  Happy though.

D at his choir concert.

A and her friend playing in our snow!

Singing Christmas songs while waiting for Santa to arrive at our Breakfast with Santa.

Chatting with the big guy.  The girls both had lists to give him.

New Old Post: A's Ballet Class

Anniversary

Today is our 11th wedding anniversary.  The kids kept asking me where we were going to go for our anniversary.  I kept saying nowhere.  I finally said we'd have a party with just our family at our house.  K asked me how everyone would fit.  It took me a bit but I finally realized why they kept asking me these questions.  It's because we went to Grandpa and Grandma's 50th wedding anniversary party this summer.  That's really the only association they have with the word "anniversary"!
Anyway, Roy and I played it low key this year.  I made his favorite lasagna for dinner and he surprised me with a beautiful card and a little flower. I love Roy.  He's pretty clueless about flowers and such though.  He told D, "Hey, come see what I got for mom."  D took one look at the little flower and said, "Oh, a poinsettia." Roy was flabbergasted.  "How did you know that?  I didn't know what it was."  Roy confessed he was pretty lost when he went into the store looking for flowers.  "Uh, I was here at Valentine's day and you had all these flowers. . . " Seriously, I love the story as much as the flower!
We didn't go out tonight because there's an adult Christmas dinner for the ward tomorrow.  They are having a nice dinner and dancing.  We'll be doing that.  And I definitely plan on getting my "groove" on (assuming I still have a groove after 11 years of marriage and three four kids).

A's first talk

A came home from church last week with a wristband indicating she would be speaking in primary next week -- which was today.  So this week we've been working on her talk.  I had her dictate to me what she wanted to say because she had her own ideas about what her talk should be.  The topic was something about Jesus Christ will come to the Earth again.  A's talk went like this:

I know that Jesus Christ will come again.

And all the animals will be good.

And all the people will be good.

I know Jesus Christ loves me. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Short, sweet and to the point - and written by a four year old.  She memorized it but insisted on having her paper with the talk written on it with her, ya know in case she forgot.  I guess she forgot she can't read yet.  We practiced a lot during the week.  She really wanted to go up to the church and practice in the primary room at the pulpit.  It took until Saturday evening but we finally made it over to practice.  She did great except she kept talking like a robot, enunciating every syllable.  Like, Je. Sus.  and An. I. Mal.  Also, no matter how many times we talked about it she kept saying "I know when Jesus Christ will come again."  Oh well.  I suppose the Lord will forgive a Sunbeam claiming to know when the Savior will come again.  And judging by the noise in junior primary I'm not too worried that her audience will be led astray by her claims.
So today, she got right up when it was her turn.  I went up with her to hold the pictures but she spoke into the microphone and said her talk just like she'd practiced.  I had to prompt her to finish with "In the name...." but otherwise it was entirely from her memory.  Roy and I are so proud of the great job she did and confidence she displayed.  What an awesome girl!

New back posts: Primary Program
Pumpkin Patch

Baby C: 9 Months

• So happy.  If I had a dollar for every time someone made a variation of, "What a happy baby!" "I've never seen such a happy baby" etc. I'd be able to pay off Roy's student loans!  Seriously though.  He is a very pleasant and happy baby.  Although he's been waking at night which leads us to...
• He now has 3 teeth!  Two more broke through in the last day or so.  This makes the two front bottom teeth and one on the top.  Of course you can only really see the one on the bottom but the other two have broken the gum... finally!
• He's up to 17.4 lbs.  Yes!  Back on the growth chart down in the 13th percentile but at least on the line.
• Height is 2' 5" which puts him around the 85th percentile.
• Head Circumference is holding steady in the 35th percentile at 17.25 inches.  
• He loves to eat.  Everything.  I took C in for an ear check on Nov 14 where he weighed 12.something pounds.  (He'd been sick - loss of appetite as well as. . . uh. . . excessive excretion).  One does not gain 5 pounds in 3 weeks unless one has a hearty appetite.  I couldn't even list all the foods he's had to this point.  But some of his favorites are greek yogurt, sweet potatoes, avocados and baby cheetos (the Gerber kind, not actual Cheetos. Sheesh, I have some dietary standards.)
• Learned to use a sippy cup this month.
• In the last month my milk supply has started dwindling.  C-man is almost entirely a formula bottle baby now.  He's getting nursed once or twice a day but still needs to eat after nursing.  I have moments where I'm sad about this but mostly it's okay.  
• His army crawl has really taken off.  He's getting quite speedy.  Also, I've seen him on his hands and knees a few times.  This is not the sort of behavior we like to encourage at our house though so hopefully we can put that off as long as possible.
• Along with his increased mobility has come his curiosity.  He's becoming quite the little scientist.  He can pull things off our CD tower (as long as they are on the bottom three shelves).  He pulls over to the fireplace and starts banging on it just because he can.  He can dump his tote of toys over and spread them far and wide.  Quite frankly he's already making messes and I'm not sure I'm ready for an explorer yet.  Ready or not here he comes!
• Despite how I've made it sound, I love this age.  He's "talking" and exploring.  He's able to entertain himself a bit although he'd really prefer company.  He's so bright and alert.  It's just fun to watch and interact with him.  I miss cuddling though.  He's too busy to cuddle much anymore.

Baby C: 8 Months
Baby C: October Pictures

Baby C: November Pictures

I apparently didn't take many pictures this month.  Humm, I'll have to do better in December.

Here's a few cute ones from Thanksgiving though.

I was feeding this guy to avoid him getting too dirty.  I put a bite of food in his mouth.  Turn to my plate and when I looked back this is what I saw.  Apparently he really wanted to wear the sweet potato instead of eat the sweet potato.

December 1

We started our 25 Days of Christ devotionals tonight.  It was great.  We sang a Christmas song, shared some scriptures, opened our daily ornament (from this company) and opened our first Christmas book.  It was so pleasant to meet around the Christmas tree with nothing but tree lights for illumination.  I'm looking forward to the next 25 days.  I know it won't always be as easy as it was tonight to fit our devotional in but I'm committed.  I really want the season to be about more than presents.

Finished Christmas tree

 The kids finished decorating the tree while I was in bed this morning.  Not the Hallmark Channel movie sort setting but it was nice for me!

The presents under the tree are actually our 25 Christmas books for us to open one each night.

Don't let the face here fool you.
He's actually obscenely happy to be destroying the train.
Sometimes his happy looks upset in pictures.
Actually, sometimes his upset looks happy in real life too.