Thursday, December 21, 2017

Christmas lunch day 5

 The Nativity.  I had to stretch a little on this one, but I think I made it work.  They were each packaged up in a fun little Christmas bag.  After school we will bundle up and head to the zoo for our advent activity.
A little paper I made up for their lunch.

It SNOWED!!!!!!!

Oh happy day!!!  It snowed!!!!!!  Our snowy thoughts must have helped because we have waited a long time for this snow.  So happy.  Like not even kidding, you could hear my silly self exclaiming to the world how happy we were for snow as I got the snow ready for snow ice cream.  We were happy people last night.
 Haley did not waste any time in making a snow angel.
 William worked on the cutest snowman.
 Snowball fight.  And even though I love the look of the newly fallen snow.  I also love the look of a well used yard after playing in the snow.  Foot prints everywhere, snowmen and angels...it is awesome!
 Afterward we came inside and had a fire, ate dinner and enjoyed our much anticipated snow ice cream.
Then, as our laundry pile was drying out, we roasted marshmallows and read stories. What a terrific night!

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Christmas lunch day 4

Thinking happy snowy thoughts with this one. 
Snowman lunch kit!

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Christmas lunch day 3

Santa's sleigh and Rudolph 
A lunch like this would at least make me smile. :)

Monday, December 18, 2017

Christmas lunch day 2

Really this is just a random gathering of things.  The theme for today was "funny Christmas jokes."  Then I threw in some holidayish items and called it good.  Each of the kids got several Christmas jokes or comics to read at lunch.  Love my kids and making them smile, even when they are not with me.  After school....Caleb's indoor game.  I hope that brings us more smiles.

Random Christmas fun

A few advent activities worth remembering....
Red and Green Christmas dinner around the tree.
 Yummy lasagna (mac and cheese for those not liking the goodness of lasagna), red fruit, green veggies and no red and green dinner would be complete without cheery Kool-Aid.
 Christmas Treasure Hunt dinner.  Here they are decoding their items at the store.  William was in charge of a dessert. Haley and dad were in charge of the drink.  Peter and Caleb were in charge of the side dish.  I took care of the main.

 They also had funny pictures to take along the way.  This one is, "find something you would take to the beach."  They chose a coconut. Awesome!
 "A picture of something stinky."  Garlic.  They are perfect!
 "Something expensive."  They are all pointing to the lobster legs that cost $26.99 a leg!
Haley and mom had a fun little project on Saturday.  We made a little cardboard house together.  Fun times and no boredom for that moment in time.  Yeah!
Sunday was gingerbread house day!!!
We all got our mess and candy on and had some fun.
William had some issues with the frosting dripping everywhere, but that was solved with a change of clothes and more candy.
Busily at work....
The finished products.  Rob did the camper in the back in honor of our amazing friends, the Kjar family.  Haley went for fanciest and most things you can put on a house.  At one point she said, "I am struggling.  There is no more room to put anything else."  Such a fun time we had together.

Friday, December 15, 2017

Let the soccer posts begin!!!

SO FREAKING AWESOME!!!
I love watching my kids give it their best.  Peter tonight did just that.  His team was losing by about a million.  UGH!  But they were not giving up.  They just kept taking shots and running. Mind you that their game started at 9pm, kinda late.  But they just kept going.  At exactly 9:53pm Peter made this totally great move with the ball and scored his teams only goal of the night.  Like I said, 1 to about a million, but they felt so awesome to get that goal, and this kid, he is so cool!  Love him.
In other news, tonight we signed both Peter and William up for session 2 of indoor, excited!
AND.... Caleb will be able to play indoor as well.  A fellow soccer mom that we know has a great son who needed another player and they called up asking if Caleb wanted to play.  Heck yes!  He will be doing both keeper and field so it will be nerve wracking and exciting!  Let it begin, I know we are ready.

Christmas lunch day 1

 Red and Green
Goes along well with our Red and Green dinner around the tree tonight for our countdown.
Also today, Haley was recognized in school for Student of the Month!!!  Way to go, Haley!

Sunday, December 3, 2017

Tis the Season to do things

While a bunch of people were hanging out at the Festival of Trees, we decided to go a different way and go to this awesome Nativity Festival!  Thanks to an amazing friend who tipped us off about it, we spent a fun afternoon looking at some pretty terrific and interesting nativities from all over the world. There were so many different types.  To name a few: made from fabric, cross stitch, nesting dolls, glass, wood carvings, one carved into an ostrich egg, paper quilling, ribbon, metal, rubber ducks, a coconut.... so many fun discoveries!  They had a scavenger hunt the kids could do, a dress up area, a craft area and cookies to snack on.  This was all put on by a local stake center, pretty impressive.
 One of the first ones that I, Diedre, really liked - a black bear set.
 So tiny and cute.
 I think I counted at least 5 nesting doll sets, this one was my favorite there.
 Painted on the side of a horse, very creative.
 Done from ribbon.
 Amazingly cool kid dressed up as a Wise Man.
 Stained glass piece.
 Caleb and Haley's favorite, the coconut nativity.
 A tiny gourd the size of my phone.  Amazing detail for so small.
 The festival's smallest nativity and William's favorite.
One more of Caleb's favorites.  There were so many, and all so different and fun to look at!  We were dashing form table to table to look at each other's discoveries, so it was sometimes hard to stay reverent or feel the Christmas spirit.  However, there was this sweet girl playing Christmas carols on the piano, so that was nice to have a song going though my head as we looked for the next fun nativity.  A great weekend activity for our family.

Friday, December 1, 2017

Another month gone!?

Where does the time go???  How do we fill each day??  Not quite sure. Between school, soccer, dance, cleaning and reading and playing and sewing....somehow we are at December 1st!  One of my favorite months of the year is gone, November.  So, this is something to remember it by:
 Science fair season is upon us.  Still need to do the poster, journal and Caleb's. UGH!
 Happy Thanksgiving!!!!  We went to the zoo and it was awesome.  The animals were so active and it was super fun to be together!  Zebras were running around and fun to watch.
 The polar bear was swimming and playing with a pumpkin.
 Sorry Haley you got cut off, but these kids are fun.
 The elephants had fun stomping huge pumpkins up and then eating them.
Our turkey family, 2017.  Love this family of mine.  

Sunday, November 5, 2017

Goodbye October

 We took a trip up Big Cottonwood to the kids favorite place, shale mountain.  These boys like to push boundaries sometimes and freak mom out sometimes.
It is also very difficult to get them to leave the mountains once they are having fun.  Skipping the shale rocks was super fun!
 William was recognized at school as a Star Student for the quality of inquiry.  Such a great kid!
 A trip to Wheeler Farm.  We went on the longest wagon ride yet and it was fun, but dusty because the wind was starting to pick up.
 Cute corn maze the kids had fun exploring.
Awesome kids having fun together, this was before the dust really picked up.
 Haley started her dance class of part tap, part ballet.  She is excited!
 More leaves, more jumping!
 More sewing.....

An awesome art display we found at the library.  Caleb and I really had fun looking at these.

Halloween!!!  A ghost, soccer player, super hero and archer!

Sorting of the goods.
Hello, November!  This one I happily get to keep.