A Christmas Tribute

The few pictures are all poor quality, but this event gets its own post. Our stake put on an unconventional Christmas program. It was a mixture of singing, dance, and narration celebrating the birth of Christ. The program was created by a group of very talented people. Because of the difficulty of the choral pieces, we began rehearsals in August. Many, many hours were put into this program, and I was so grateful to be a part of it.

Some of our youth in costume.

We did a few pieces of from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It was so much fun to do it with a live orchestra. Our stake has a lot of talented people!

Backstage "selfie" of the choir.

Holly was in both the choir and the orchestra.

Holly did the percussion in the orchestra and I teased her for months about it. It came back to haunt me because her percussion was so cool! I couldn't deny her contribution was awesome!

More cheesy pictures

Alexis Smith played the french horn.

We had three performances and about 600 people came every show. It was a really great missionary opportunity and there were many stories shared about their experiences.

I was so impressed with the beautiful stage created for the event.

It was an amazing experience and I was so glad to bear my testimony of the Savior through music. My favorite piece was called "The Work of Christmas". Here are the lyrics:

I can't help but think about home teachers or bishops out serving in the trenches, so to speak. Those suffering from physical or spiritual anguish are given relief. Each minute that a visiting teacher serves her fellow sister is a testimony of Christ. That is the real work of Christmas and it touches my very soul. I am so grateful for the example of our Master and Savior who showed us the way.

Remember December!

We got our tree and holiday decorations up early December because we were going out of town for Christmas. I love, love, love this picture. I found Brooklyn gently plunking on the piano in just the light of the tree.

Painting at the Sweetwood's house

Sadie's school had a free outdoor dinner/movie night. They played the Polar Express. Brooklyn, Mary, Sadie, and Boston enjoyed their oreos.

The movie screen in her school's amphitheater.

Mommy and Brooklyn

We were excited Daddy got to join us right after work.

Our city had a "winter wonderland". It was chilly enough outside we enjoyed some hot cocoa.

The kids begged for a pony ride. I have dozens of pictures and all of them are blurry... oh well.

They couldn't even hold still for a picture with frosty.

It is so much more pleasant to walk around the lights when your toes aren't freezing!

My friends are cooler than yours! Haha! It was Holly's birthday and she had to have a Star Wars theme.

The kiddos made their monthly project at Home Depot and look what Brooklyn won!

Boston was evaluated by a behavioral pediatrician and was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Dysfunction. His case is mild comparatively on the spectrum so we started a home program to desensitize him. Since then we've also been working with an occupational therapist to prepare him for kindergarten. He is very bright and is already reading sentences. His preparation for kindergarten is to help him deal with all the noise and chaos that accompanies 2 dozen 5 year olds.

Brooklyn's drawing of our family.

This was the most thoughtful gift I got for the season. I saw this music at Holly's house and I mentioned that my Grandma Anderson had this exact book and would play all the songs around Christmas. I remember flipping through the pages as a young child looking at all the little pictures at the tops of the pages. Well the day before we went out of town, she gave me this copy she had found online! Since my Grandma has been gone 10 years, I am excited that I can make some memories with my kiddos!

Spiderman Birthday Party!

Boston turned 5 in November and we marked the occasion with his first friend birthday party. Ryan and I were especially proud of the pinata that we made.

Charlotte, Sadie, Maggie, Genevieve, Boston, Brooklyn, Andrew, and Zoie are pictured here, and we also had Mary and Cole come a bit later

Our first activity is difficult to see in the picture, but it was a "webbed" volleyball net to play volleyball with a balloon. It seemed like a good idea, but the kids weren't entertained. They basically gave up within 5 minutes.

So we moved on to our next to a donut eating contest.

Most of the children cheated. Haha! They are so cute!

Time to destroy our work of art! Here's Genevieve giving it a good whack.

Sadie

Charlotte

Maggie

The birthday boy

Brooklyn

Spiderman survived all the kids in round one, but Sadie pulverized him with one good swing in round two. Then we went in to have some lunch. This is Zoie. Boston regularly talks about Zoie and how much he loves her. :)

On to the pressents!

Look who got a Spiderman costume!

Boston and Andrew are good buddies!

Boston is seriously such a cutie pie! He is so friendly and when he meets new people, he is often described as charming. He just has a way of making others smile. We sure love him!

November Photos

Here are just a few random pictures from November (excluding Boston's Birthday) Sadie went to a birthday party at a house with giant tortoises.

It's that time of year again, to seed winter grass!

Boston's adorable preschool creations

Boston's preschool took a tour of the local Fry's Grocery Store.

We got lots of free snacks. One silly thing about this trip was when the pharmacy gave each kid a weekly pillbox. Kind of a weird gift for toddlers, but the kids were fighting over them. They loved it. Kids are so funny!

Genevieve made a 'train' for Boston, Caroline, and Maggie

Cute girl

Sadie was worried about the homeless people in town, so she made them some notes. It was sweet to watch her trying to make a difference.

Our poor Sadie has ever-increasing allergy symptoms despite medicinal intervention. We had allergy testing done with more to come. Poor girl. At least she doesn't have any food allergies! (Thank goodness!)

Our traditional "Thankful Tree" was scanty this year because of our crazy, busy schedule. We didn't even put it up until the last 2 days of the month! Maybe we can get ourselves together a bit better next November!

We had our friends, Del and Michelle Black, over for Thanksgiving dinner. Both our families are out of town, so we partied together! I failed to take a picture of the whole family.

Ryan and I had a talk about his new schedule serving as Bishop before he was sustained. We knew Sundays would be full of meetings and we decided that two nights a week should be expected. Our goal was that three nights a week would only be occasional. So far this plan has gone well. We didn't really discuss weekends at that time because we had no idea how many Saturday obligations he would have. That was a HUGE eye-opener for us. He is great at delegating things, but he still has 2-3 partial Saturdays a month obligated for the calling. This is NOT meant to be a complaint at all. It is merely a learning curve and new expectations. We really love our ward and feel their support and love. They are awesome!