It’s December….

For Jessie’s “calligraphy” class at school, that really just turned out to be a regular art class, she made an altered book.  We stopped by the Spanish Fork library and picked up this discarded book on Philosophy for her to use.  She had to use 7 different mediums and also write up  her thoughts on each page she created.  Some of her pictures were of memories she has and others were of bucket list things she finished.

This page is of our wood burning stove and roasting marshmallows in it which we had just done the week previous.  I think it turned out amazing!  I can’t remember if I took a picture of it or not, so I’ll just include it here, but after Jessie got this assignment back she and Mark hollowed out the back of the book.  They were so excited.  She now takes it to school with Nerds in the hollowed out part and has only had two close calls with discovery of her secret stash.This post has a couple of silly sleeping poses for Neil.  You can tell he and Abbie are related – both silly sleepers as toddlers.

Our friends were sick over Thanksgiving and didn’t get to go see their family so we had a post Thanksgiving dinner with them.  Yeah for celebrating a holiday twice.

The soup I made for dinner was too hot to eat, so Neil went to get an ice cube to help cool his off.  This is what he came back to the table with.  Hot soup was no longer his problem.  :-)  (Love you too Jessie.)This year we took Rachel to see the Festival of Lights.  We happened to pick the perfect time to go and got right in.  We went around twice looking at all the fun things. Isaac learned to pull himself up.Isaac still has no teeth.  He’s about 3 months behind all my other kids, that popped teeth up at about 6 months.  On the day of running a million errands we picked up some Puff’s, which we have never gotten before, both he and Neil both LOVED them.  They were a lifesaver for the day out.  Well worth the $2 we paid for them.

More silly sleeping.  I’m so grateful that Neil goes down for naps so easily!Jessie had her band concert.  Her teacher is really awesome.  So on top of things!  There were three bands that played that night.  They each played three songs and after the last song they would replay the last minute of one of their songs so all the parents could come up and take a picture of their kid.  It was great because you could just enjoy the concert and not worry about getting a picture of your kid.  And as an added bonus the concert was done in under an hour!  Jessie band played a really fun Christmas song that had a bunch of different drums spotlighted.  All the kids loved that song the best.And since Spencer smiled so nicely for the first picture we got to take a silly one too.

Rachel came with us to see the lights at Temple Square.  That night was cold and rainy/snowy.  But the lights were still beautiful.  Rachel wanted us to try a new restaurant that she attended for one of her cooking classes.  Unfortunately when we got there the deli had closed early that day for some unknown reason.  So we ended up at Subway instead – just someplace warm was good enough for me.  I think we only had two spills during dinner, luckily no people got soaked, just tables and the floor.

After dinner we walked down to ride on Trax in the free zone to get to the temple.  The kids loved this part.

Pictures at Temple Square.  What a fun tradition.

Three of my boys all playing together.Isaac learning to pick food up.  So fun to watch babies grow and learn.

Sometimes with all the laundry I do I feel like I live at a hotel.  And this stack proves it. :-)I saw an idea for tic-tac holders at Halloween, which I made, where you punch a circle in a paper and wrap it around a package of orange tic-tacs and then glue a jack-a-lantern face in the circle.  They turned out super cute and so I decided to tweak the idea and make some for Laura for Christmas.  I was so happy with the end product.  Yeah for being crafty.Isaac just loves socks.  Why?  Who knows, but he’ll drag one all around with him.

A Sunday afternoon snack compliments of Ken’s work Christmas party where he brought home some summer sausage, cheese and crackers.Dipping pretzels, another Christmas tradition.  Abbie is helping Mark out with his drippy chocolate.Crazy hair day for spirit week at school.Neil and I were looking for something new to do after we put Isaac down for his morning nap. We ended up wondering down to the basement and found the Lincoln logs.  It was fun to build together.Abbie and Spencer had their Children's Choir Christmas Concert.  The singing was nice and we got to join in with the Hallelujah Chorus which Mark, Ken, and David really enjoyed.  They had an extra violin soloist, who was incredible, but it made for a long concert and restless babies.  Abbie’s on the far left and Spencer’s the far right.This year we have gotten quite a bit of snow.  Maybe the weather is making up for last year when we didn’t get any.  It sure has been beautiful!Some random afterschool pictures.Our new Elementary school has a chime choir.  Mark has really loved being able to play in it.  They had some extra spaces open up after Christmas and now Abbie is playing in the beginning chime choir.  Mark’s playing two of the low notes.  Look how big his chimes are.  It was fun for Mark to tell us about the different techniques he has learned to play their songs.