Christmas Morning

The girls woke us up at 5:57 am; I grumbled, "Another half hour!" They never did... instead we heard them in the room next door talking and reading until they came back at 6:27 (another half hour, exactly!) when we (most of us) got up. Kristen got up at 7, and we commenced opening the ones under the tree. The girls loved their Santa presents and the; we took too many pictures to go here... the rest are over at Flickr.

I'm not posting the one of teary-eyed Russell; I surprised him with a new wedding ring (he lost his back in October). :)











Thank you to everyone who sent presents (and cards and well-wishes). Merry Christmas!!!

Cider's Christmas

The girls (who were up) showing Cider her presents.

These toys are fun...

But this one's funner (it's full of catnip!)...


And this one's the bestest!

Let it Snow, Part 2

Yesterday was the perfect snow playing day. It was 40 degrees, no wind, sunshine: beautiful. We took advantage of it.







There are more over at Flickr.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas -- Video Diversions

Because my girls say "More!" and "Again!"

Mr. Heatmiser

12 Days of Christmas, Muppet-style

You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch

John Denver Alfie poem; here's the song

Ekaterina Gordeva and Sergi Grinkov Nutcracker on ice

If there are more, send them along and we'll link to them!

Santa Baby?

(Say Cheese!)

Let it Snow!

We got up this morning to grass and thought, "Oh, well. That snowstorm they predicted didn't come." But it started snowing and blowing at 8 a.m., and now, eight hours later, it's just beginning to taper off. Color me embarrassed. We'll see if we have church in the morning...and whether or not it'll stick around for three days so we can have a white Christmas!

Alison and Kristen wanted to go out; Mom said, "No!" (They weren't happy.)

The view from our front door.

Caitlyn "dancing" in the snow...



and trying to shovel.


And Megan helping out.

And Megan helping out.

A (preschool) Nativity

At preschool on Thursday, they put on a little nativity play. Alison was Mary (initially, she got upset; she wanted to be the angel. Caitlyn -- bless her! -- talked Alison into being Mary).

Joseph (Matthew) and Mary on the way to Bethlehem.


Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus at the stable (me).


Everyone (the blue-coat is Kenneth, the shepherd; Bekah, the angel is on the side) at the stable to see Mary.

After that, Alison was done. She wouldn't even pose for a group shot. Oh, well. :)

Playing Around

I was feeling sentimental (and the girls were being cute) after we put up the tree...

I didn't put this one on the DVD for grandparents; but I thought they'd like to see it anyway.

This one is the preschool group dancing to Herb Alpert (I got it to load!!). It's cute, but still not as fun as last year.

Story Night Movies

Because both of these books are really long, I only videoed part of them. Still, they're fun to watch.

Megan reading "Christmas at Little House"


And Caitlyn reading the Grinch.


Sorry they're a little dark.

Story Night

We had story night last night. We had invited some friends of ours, but the dad is in the Secret Service and has been up in Iowa for the last month, and he finally was able to come home for a day or two yesterday. So they canceled and it was just us. Which was just fine.

We turned on the fire (that doesn't sound as romantic as "lighting" the fire), lit the candles, made the cocoa and tucked in to read.


Kristen discovered the joy that is our homemade hot cocoa (though Alison asked that next time we just have regular hot cocoa).

Caitlyn did a dramatic reading of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, with voices and everything. She said it was a tradition for her to read it. (And I guess it is...)

Megan read Christmas Comes to Little House. Though she also wanted to read Polar Express. It's hard to choose, sometimes.


Alison's choice was the 12 Days of Christmas. Kristen sat still (mostly) for that one, but went to bed soon afterward.

It was a nice evening! I took movies of the older two girls reading, and I'll post them as soon as they're loaded up.

Too Funny

So I brought home from the library Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith's newest book, Cowboy and Octopus and read it to Alison tonight. This part cracked us up:

"Knock knock," says Octopus.

Cowboy opens the door. "Nobody there."

"No, no" says Octopus. "You say, 'Who's there?'"

"Ain't nobody there!" says Cowboy.

"I know," says Octopus. "It's a joke."

Cowboy thinks for a second. "Well, dang. It's not a very funny joke."

Octopus laughs. "No, Cowboy. The joke comes after you say, 'Who's there?'"

"Okay," says Cowboy. "Who's there?"

Octopus says, "Lettuce."

"Lettuce?" says Cowboy. "That's crazy talk. Lettuce can't knock on a door."

Cowboy laughs. "That's a great joke, Octopus."

Octopus laughs, too.

Telling Cowboy a knock knock joke didn't work out so well.

But a lettuce knocking on a door is pretty dang funny.

Alison thought it was the funniest thing, and would say "Knock knock Mom" ("Who's there?") "Lettuce!" and then die laughing. (It morphed into "Nose!" and "Glasses!" too.)

Busy Busy Christmas Week

We've had a busy crazy week this week. It started Sunday, when Kristen became a rock star:


On Monday, we pulled taffy (and aside from it getting all over the floor, and the girls putting it on the table, it was a rousing success!):

Tuesday, the girls were home from school because of an ice storm (that never came); I forgot to take pictures. Wednesday was Young Men's and we started the 12 days of Christmas for a family that I visit teach (can't take pictures of that!). Thursday we made rosettes (again... kind of hard to take pictures when you'r working with super-hot oil and you've got an interested 20 month old). But Friday, we went for a carriage ride. And it was snowing!




No pictures of the snow this time (busy morning... forgot....) but the girls got out and played for a while. And Saturday evening, we had our ward party, and Russell got to be a wise man. (That's his hanbok from Korea, which he's worn maybe once in the last 14 years.)


And the girls saw Santa! (Megan respectfully declined to sit on his lap. Oh, well.)

What's This?!

It started out simply enough. Cider was interested in the train set that we put up yesterday.


What's this, she seems to be saying?

She decided it was a new toy for her. (We tried to get a picture of her actually pouncing on the trains, which she does, but the pictures were all blurry.)

Alison's Par-Tay

We had Alison's birthday party yesterday! We had so much fun playing games (mostly). We did pin the tail on the pony (I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of Megan's pony), played the balloon popping game:


Horse-horse-pony (it's just duck-duck-goose, though Alison kept asking when we were going to play that):


Opened presents (I've never seen ANYONE tear through presents the way Alison did. I couldn't stop her to save my life, mostly because she couldn't hear me above everything else.):


Blew out candles on the cupcakes (though Alison was the only one to actually eat the cupcake):

And played pass the presents.


It was a fun morning!

Curiouser and curiouser

I can just see her thinking: "What IS this big toy they've put up for me?"

Tree Day

Yesterday was St. Nicholas Day, and the tree went up again. Blogging does have it's benefits... I read what I did last year, and repeated it. Ornaments laid out, no headaches, no hassles, no broken ornaments. YAY! (I would have never remembered otherwise!)





The tree's a little top-heavy, but then we have a kitty and an almost two-year-old. That and it was decorated by children. :)