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.

After T-day

On Black Friday we packed up and went to AR for the weekend to visit my parents. One highlight of the trip was an outing to the new art museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. It is a beautiful museum. What luck for us to get to go. The collection is impressive and without my family I really could have stayed all day. In between galleries there is a sitting area filled with books on all the art and landscape that you see.  I envy my fellow Arkansans that will get to just sit their and soak up so much culture and beauty. I hope they don't take it for granted.

There is a children's section where the kids can play and learn about art. There is another room where they can create their own art as well.

The museum gets its name for Crystal Spring found in the ravine. The museum spans the creek, hence Crystal Bridges. It is autumn there so the area around wasn't lush, but Oh, that I could go there when the dogwoods are in bloom.

We do have a fabulous museums here in Texas, but they aren't 15 minutes away. I look forward to going again and again while we are on vacation there.

Here are the kids with Grandma. Macey did open up some while we were there.

The only competition for Grandma was the hotel pool. It was a few degrees too cool for me, but the kids had fun playing football with dad.

On our way out of town we stopped at the national cemetery to see Grandma's grave. She shares the marker with Grandpa Staudt. It was a subdued trip without being able to 'go home' and see her and enjoy in the warmth of her fire and my old room. But life moves on and I have peace knowing that our separation is temporary. What mischief we'll be in on the other side!

Here is my Grandfather's side of the marker. To the left of Ernie's grave is row upon row of Unknown Soldiers. They were relocated here from Pea Ridge where they fought the Battle of Pea Ridge during the Civil War. Truly, I love this cemetery. It has honor and peace and is so beautiful on Memorial Day with all the flags flying high and at each marker.

In the same section of the cemetery is my maternal grandfather, Joseph Brown.

Up through T-day

On a Friday night we went to a semi-pro hockey game, The Texas Tornadoes, with our friends the DeLucias and their friends and more of their friends. It was quite a crew, and I was the only 'mother hen' in the batch so I had my hands full! Next time I'll let the boys go and I'll stay home and enjoy playing babies or Sesame Street. Before the game we went out for wings.

The girls sat and colored nicely for a while.

The boys sat and fought over the video games for most of the time.

The children were determined to chase off anyone around us and the younger boys wanted to run amok. What I did see of the game wasn't too impressive. But, hey, I couldn't do it all so, good for them for being willing to get bashed up and knocked around!

I help set up the Big Centers in Kindergarten. Those are stations that the children rotate through every morning. All 4 kinders share Big Center space so a few volunteers come and set up the 'house' area to fit a 6 week theme. This time the theme is winter and we had fun decorating with holiday and winter decor. However, there lacked an activity for the children to do while in the house. So I made these felt activities. I made trees, a gingerbread man and a snow man and then a variety of shapes and colors to decorate with.

I also made these presents for the kids to put different foam 'toys' inside for them to 'wrap' and give. I hope they enjoy the activities and don't lose all the pieces on the first day!

Thanksgiving day was a nice day for us. We stayed home and built a puzzle in the morning.

We then walked over to the DeLucias for a late lunch.

John was a chef and makes wonderful food. We were certainly blessed to have him share his talents with us. They had other friends and family there so it was a loud and fun event. The only draw back being that they all speak Spanish except for me (well I don't know how much John really speaks...) Our friend Marcella is from Chile and it is so fun for us to share in her culture and family. It is an incentive for me to learn Spanish if we are going to be friends for a long while.

John made the most incredible cheesecake, but Ryan wanted the turkey cupcake from Kroger.

Here is Macey being friends with John. Let's see, we have been here since July and this is the first time that Macey has decided to really be friends.

Lego Advent calendar. I have gone back and forth with this Advent calendar for 3 years now. I really wanted it, but I didn't need it. So I kept saying I was going to buy it and then I would back out. This year it was offered to us as a gift and I jumped on it. Here are the first 3 days' pieces. I know you are thinking that it is too soon. We are counting down to our trip to AZ since I don't want to take it with us on the road.

Don't you love this picture of our sneaky Ryan!

Not much

Ryan stayed home sick on Monday. He was bored and left to his own devices, which isn't generally a good thing. Alas, he once again decided his bangs were too long and proceeded to 'trim' (I don't know that cutting hair to the root is a trim...) a goodly portion off, smack dab front and center. Once discovered, he had to sit down for a patch up hair cut. Oh, his beautiful hair! If you know hair trimmers then you will understand that I when I tried to salvage it with a 4 comb and a 6 comb that that is rather longish for a boy's cut, but that wasn't going to get the job done. And so I took the 2 comb and buzzed it all off. Really, he needed it shorter, but I was merciful. He was so disappointed. 'Please, mom, don't cut off my hair. I look stupid. Couldn't we just comb over my other hair to hide where I cut it?' When asked did he remember doing this before he looked genuinely surprised and said, 'Oh, I forgot that.'

I didn't get an after picture, but there is one below. To finish the hair cut story I have to tell about the next day. So, Tuesday morning I cajole and marshal my troops out the back door and wave them off since they walk to school on their own. Ryan was being reluctant and Alex left him in the alley. Unbeknownst to me, Ryan just hung out in the alley for 30 minutes. He finally came back inside. Once he did I was surprised and asked him why he was home. 'Everyone is going to laugh at me.' He broke down in tears and pleaded, 'Please, Mom. Don't make me go!'
Of course I did and when he got home he said that it was OK and then informed me that everyone had laughed at another girl in class (he never said why) but that he didn't laugh at her. There you have it. A bad moment for Ryan equals empathy for another child.
Below is my crew watching SpongeBob Squarepants. The boys DO watch Elmo with sister, but it is nice that all of them can watch something together and laugh.

'It's Autumn time, It's Autumn time, the leaves are falling down.'

A beautiful view out the windows and down the street. There was a pleasant little rain yesterday evening and so Macey and I got our rain gear on and splashed in the street. She was so cute in her galoshes, raincoat, and bright green umbrella. The neighbor came out and enjoyed watching us play in the rain.

Of course our mighty Oak trees will loose their leaves and their acorns, so there is work coming on. But hard work is character building, and with 3 children in our house, character building is essential!

The One Halloween Picture

Thanks to a new acquaintance, I've got this one picture of us on Halloween.

Halloween

I am so depressed this morning because when I went to download our pictures, the camera deleted the pictures without downloading them! What sorrow! Perhaps a friend took a picture of us; I shall try to locate a picture today. Alex said he would be willing to go get pictures taken because I was so sad this morning. Ah, but will Macey?
I shall try to capture our memories without the images... I realize that this will be less exciting, but I must record it for our family record!
From the previous post you know that we were characters from Harry Potter. Dan was Tom Riddle, I was Moaning Myrtle, Alex was Harry Potter Quidditch, Ryan was Harry Potter School robes, and Macey was Hedwig the owl (oh, and she was so precious). The boys were so handsome with their spray painted black hair and red scars. Macey was never a willing participant in the getting ready department. After coaxing her into her piggy tails, I painted her face. The mistake I made was when I showed her in the mirror how cute she was. She wailed and wailed (and smeared that make-up). But, it was still cute.
We got dressed up and went to Trunk or Treat at our church building. The 3 wards met there for a mad dash of candy grabbing! It was fun to see our new friends dressed up. My friend Marcella shared our trunk, so I wasn't alone handing out candy while Dan took the kids around. Once Macey figured out the whole get candy for being dressed silly, she was delighted to be an owl! Ryan is a complete nut: he would go down a row and then come back and show me what he got. Then he would go for more and come back. He lost Dan and co. and was just going at it haphazardly. At the end Dan and Alex were harassing him that he could have gotten so much more, but I said, 'Leave him alone. He had a great time! He isn't disappointed at all that he didn't do it your way.'
At 6:30pm we were in a race to get home. One of Alex's friends and family and one of Ryan's friends and family were meeting us at our house for dinner. We had pizza and healthy fruits and veggies to try to balance out the sugar intake. As soon as Macey was done eating she begged for her owl costume. Hooray! She was ready to go out for some more.

After a round of family pictures (now lost in a digital graveyard) we took off to trick or treat in the neighborhood. Our neighborhood was great for trick or treating. The boys found friends along the way besides the ones that came with us. And the weather was fantastic. A perfect holiday! Ryan was in a race to get down the street the fastest. And, oh, this is where my heart breaks that the camera was broken. My sweet 2 year old owl would walk daintily up the sidewalks and wait her turn to get to say trick or treat, all on her own and come slowly (so she wouldn't fall) back down the sidewalk. Her silhouette was so precious; this little bitty girl holding up her pumpkin to the great big adults. Oh, joy of joys!

We finished our rounds at about 8pm with a stop next door so Macey could play with Megan for a minute. The boys were showered and in bed by 8:30, just like usual. I think they had a wonderful night. And our haul of candy must be some where around 8lbs.

More October

Our Cub Scout Pack organized (well, not really organized, more like had the idea and then followed through in a so-so sort of fashion) a Space Derby. I had never been to one before, and I guess neither had anyone else. But the boys enjoyed putting their rockets on the line and watching them zoom across the gym.

Here is Alex with his 'Best Rocket'.

Here is our Pack, which is three wards combined! Two of these boys are my Bear Den. And three other boys are in my CTR7 class.

I saw a great idea online for a Lego table. I was thinking it would be a fun family project or an excellent Christmas gift. Instead, we just went to Ikea and bought a table and storage bin. I was planning to glue the large building plates down, but I think I won't now. The boys are happy with the table and have been making movies with the Lego guys on it.

I went through and sorted the Legos. Why? I don't know exactly. But they did enjoy having all the people and accessories in one bucket for that one day...

There was a quidditch match played on this particular day. I still need to create a back drop so the movies are a little easier to watch. Oh, and I need to teach the boys how to make a movie with out making the viewer sea sick!

This last Saturday was a very busy day for us. Alex had his last soccer game of the season in the morning. They lost all the games they played (they did win on a forfeit game). But the team improved so much over the season. They really were hard workers. If they stick together for a few more seasons they will be really great.
After the game we came home and carved pumpkins. Macey carved a pumpkin pie pumpkin. Here is a girl not afraid to get dirty! Of course we had the usual whining from Alex and enthusiasm from Ryan.

Ah, and then the real fun for the day. I teach the CTR7 Primary class, which is Sunday School for the 7-8 year olds. We have 7 students in our class and a few have some very unique personalities, so I have been working on a reward chart to help them earn a class party. I pushed them to earn it so I could give them a Halloween party, and they did it!
Here are my two Harry Potters: school and quidditch.

Here are I am as Moaning Myrtle.

Here is my class minus one girl and add one of Alex's soccer friends.

We played Spooky Picitionary Man. Dan made a treasure Hunt. We decorated Halloween cookies.

And we decorated tiny pumpkins.

Here are the class' pumpkins.