Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend, filled with lots of food, family, and fun!

A family from the ward joined us for Thanksgiving dinner. It was a mom and her 3 teenage boys, who we did not know very well, so I was a little nervous at first. But I was glad that we were able to provide a place for them to go for Thanksgiving. It ended up being a great afternoon! It was wonderful to get to know their family better, and the teenagers were so sweet to our kids! As usual, I didn't get any pictures of Thanksgiving dinner, but I did manage to take a picture of the turkey treats we made. Everyone got one at their place for dinner.

The rest of the weekend included some relaxing, kids playing with friends, a little Christmas shopping, and a lot of Christmas decorating! Fortunately, the weather was great and Ryan was able to hang the Christmas lights. For the first time, ALL three boys got to be on the roof to help!

Nathan and Joshua

Benjamin got to do the tricky corners while Ryan held the ladder

Everyone helped assemble the tree. We have a really great system where Ryan unloads the box in the basement, the kids are the runners to bring branches up a few at a time, and I put the branches in the tree with some help from the kids! When it was time to hang the ornaments, we first opened up our new ornaments from Grandma-ma and Grandpa-pa this year.

Elizabeth loves her new Rapunzel ornament!

Benjamin posing with his baseball-playing penguin!

Joshua wrote his full name on his penguin's bat

You know Nathan is happy when he doesn't scowl for a picture!

decorating the tree

Ryan likes to joke that the whole reason I wanted a fireplace installed was to have a place to hang the stockings at Christmas. I have to admit that he is mostly right! So I wanted to make sure I got a picture of our first Christmas mantel! I still have work to do on the bookshelves, but I love the mantel!

Disney On Ice

Today we took the kids to Disney On Ice!! They come every November, and I always want to go, but we have never gone before. But since Ryan and I are trying hard to do more family activities lately, we made the effort to go this year. I'm so glad we did -- it was a fun day!

Waiting for the show to start!

It was a great show! They covered a lot of the Disney characters and stories. The only disappointment (at least for Elizabeth and me) was that Rapunzel was not in the show at all. I think the favorites in our family were the sections on Aladdin, Beauty & the Beast, and The Incredibles. Our seats were amazing -- 4th row -- so we had a great view of the whole show!

After the show we went to the Gateway mall across the street for lunch. We wandered the mall a little and spent some time playing at Blickenstaff's Toy Store before heading home. It was a fun and successful family day!

Cutie Pie

We took some fun pictures of Elizabeth this week:

She has a new dress, and we wanted to make sure that Grandma gets to see how cute she is in it!

We had our first big snowstorm of the year, and Elizabeth was so excited to go out and build a snowman. I don't like being out in the cold, and so I put her off at first. Luckily, the snow was still around the next day and we had fun building a snowman together!

Birthday Bash

Today we went to Nickel City for Nathan's birthday party. Nathan has been begging to go there for several years, but we have never gone until now. I just assumed it was a hole-in-the-wall arcade, and so I had avoided going there. When I looked into it while planning his party, I discovered that I was wrong! And after going there today I am very impressed -- it is like a Chuck-E-Cheese but with more arcade games for older kids, laser tag, a nicer atmosphere, and much better pizza!

Two of Nathan's friends were able to come to the party with us. Everyone except Elizabeth and I enjoyed a game of laser tag while we waited for our pizza. Then we did pizza, cheesecake, and presents. Nathan also got to spin the Nickel City prize wheel since he is the birthday boy -- he got 400 extra tickets!

 The pizza was delicious -- I was quite impressed!

More Legos -- his friends know him well!

He won 200 tickets on the wheel, but when they brought his voucher out a few minutes later, they had upgraded it to 400!

Everyone was able to find plenty of games to spend their nickels on. And of course they picked out some small prizes with their tickets before we went home. A good time was had by all, and I am sure that we will be going back to Nickel City in the near future!

The Magic of a Moment

Every year the school participates in the PTA Reflections program. Students can submit entries in different categories like visual art, photography, literature, choreography, and musical composition. This week both Nathan and Joshua submitted their work for the theme, "The Magic of a Moment."

Last month Joshua's teacher had the kids write something for Reflections. He chose to write about a rainbow. When he brought it home, I asked him a few clarifying questions and he added some more details. Just a few months ago, we couldn't get Joshua to write more than the minimum required for an assignment. Now he LOVES to write! Even though he didn't win the contest, Joshua received a certificate and small prize at the Awards Night tonight.

This is what he wrote:

The Magic of a Moment

Rainbow

One time when it was raining, I was standing on my porch. I looked at the mountains and saw a rainbow. It looked like it split in half. That is called a double rainbow. My dad took a picture of it. It looked beautiful. It is magic to me because I have never seen a double rainbow before.

Nathan has been working with his friend, Matthew, on a musical composition for his Reflections entry. Although he complains almost daily about practicing the piano and begs to quit, he has been EXTREMELY excited about writing and performing this piece!

Their song is titled "A Walk in the Forest" and is about two friends (a piano part and a violin part) who start off walking together and then they get separated from each other as a storm comes in. At the end they find each other again (which I believe is the magical moment). They were able to perform their piece at the Awards Night this evening. Although the song is simpler than some of the other music we heard tonight, I am proud that Nathan set a goal and used his new talents to create something new!

Eleven Already!

Nathan turned 11 years old this week! I'm sure I say it every year, but I really am amazed at how quickly he is growing up!

For his birthday dinner, Nathan wanted to do what we did last year -- a one-on-one date with Mom! He still favors Ryan for just about everything, so I was touched that he wanted to go with me. It was no surprise that he picked the Brick Oven!

This picture was taken with my new smartphone. I will have to learn how to hold it better so the pictures aren't so blurry next time!

When we got home from dinner, he opened family presents and we had cake. This weekend he will get a small friend party.

time to start opening presents

Kingdom Keepers books -- he loves to read!

Nathan is a Boy Scout now!

We gave him a small MP3 player -- he didn't see that one coming and was REALLY excited!

More books -- now he's set for the rest of the week :)

Nathan requested the cheesecake we had at Valentine's -- white chocolate raspberry with Oreo crust. Yum!

Little Ballerina

Elizabeth was playing at Izzy's house this morning before dance class. When I came to pick the girls up to take them to class, Elizabeth was wearing one of Izzy's tutus over her regular leotard. She looked so cute in it that I had to take some pictures. Thanks, Izzy, for sharing some of your cute clothes!

I love what Miss Miriam is teaching the kids in creative dance! They explore different types of movement, and often it is based around themes of holidays. Around Halloween, they tried moving like a ghost (high and flowing) and a spider (low). Today they talked about autumn leaves. I'm guessing they tried to act like a falling leaf. When Elizabeth and Izzy came out of class, they were so focused on finding and collecting leaves. I couldn't get them to come to the car, and ended up letting them play in the leaves for about 10 minutes! They each brought a collection of leaves to the car, which I'm sure I'll have fun vacuuming up in a few days!