Holiday Recital

For the Winter recital, Mrs Smart had the children perform at a nursing home. Alex was in high anxiety mode on this day. It always begins poorly when he has to dress up on any day that isn't Sunday. I did manage to get him in the car, drag him into the center, and finally drag him to the piano bench. He would only go that far if his teacher would sit on the bench with him. Once at the bench he was resigned to do it. With a big huff he started to play. And he did fabulous! He played 'Come Ye Thankful People, Come', 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer', and then he played 'Deck the Halls' while the audience sang along. He really is so talented and I hope that his love for the piano will over come his fear of performing.

It snowed!

'It snowed!' says Alex as he runs and skids down our tile hall.
Shaking my head I reply, 'No, no, Alex. That is just frost. When it is this cold in the morning the dew freezes into frost.'
'But, Mom, it is snow.'
'Really, Alex I don't think so.' I walk over to the back door and look outside.
Huh. 'That is snow! It really did snow,' I say dumbfounded.
It has rained here for 4 days straight. I guess a cold front pushed through and gave us an overnight surprise.
Alex runs down the hall to tell Ryan... 'It snowed!'
Ryan rushes to get dressed and says, 'Let's go play!'
I guess we should have clarified before. It was just a dusting... with most of it on the roof...

Nevertheless, it was our first snow in Texas and also Ryan and Macey's first snow in their own house.

Gingerbread house

Before our churches services (that don't start until 1:00pm) we built a gingerbread house.

I found gingerbread poptarts that made the construction very easy. They were exactly the right size for a little house. Dan had already left for his meetings, so it was just the 4 of us. Here is the basic house.

Below is our finished product. Macey mostly ate whatever she could sneak. Ryan and Alex were good to wait to see what candy was left.

Front door. To the right are 2 men behind their fort aiming at the 2 men on the right, behind their own fort.

Aerial view. My friend Kristina B. gave me this charger one year for Christmas and I have now found the perfect use for it at Christmas! By the way, don't you love the $4 table cloth from Wal-Mart?

Sneaking a peek over the pretzel fort.

We made excellent use of the left over Halloween candy. Too bad I didn't notice the bag of just twizzler stuff until we were done. Below is our wienie dog and house.

One glutton of a gingerbread man below in the candy garden.

Why have snow (even green snow) if you aren't going to sled?

We missed the Wrights this year, but we still had a good time honoring this tradition.