Merry Christmas!

Hello from chilly Utah!  What a relief it is to finally get some cold!  Pop had the big surprise this year, and was waiting for everyone in the family room Christmas morning dressed as Santa Claus.  And a mighty fine Santa he was!  He looked so good, it was even a little too much for Layla who just dropped to the floor in awe.

As was alluded to, we headed out to Utah for Christmas.  We didn't head just for Christmas, but also because Monica's parent are about to leave on a mission as well.  We had safe travels on the way out, and Grayson enjoyed getting to play Mario on the plane.  I think he has a new favorite activity while we fly!

I got lucky and Monday night Pop invited me to go to the basketball game with him.  It was SO much fun, and so great to go back to a basketball game after a long time.  We got the new cool BYU treat, a cougar paw, and had a fun time watching the game.

I believe it was that night when we got back that I saw this note on the counter.  Looks like Brooke lost a tooth, and the tooth fairy came between when everyone went to bed and us getting home.  Speaking of Brooke, she's been really into those rhymes you say while you clap and high five and stuff, and she was even able to get Pop in on the action one night.

Grayson really liked Anaya's stuffed jaguar named Jaggi.  He carried it around basically all day every day.  Anaya was really nice about it and didn't seem to mind, which has been great as Grayson and Jaggi have been having a great time together.

That great time even includes things like playing air hockey together.  All the kids were super into playing air hockey whenever no naps were going on.  While Grayson was sitting up there playing with me, he did fall off the table backwards.  He, fortunately, wasn't hurt bad.

The kids all got to decorate Christmas tree cookies and had a wonderful time.

And they also had sticker sheets where you use the stickers to make a snowman, or a Christmas tree, or gingerbread man. Layla thought that my face was a good place to put her extra stickers!  I think Grayson put a few on as well, and Layla wouldn't join us for a picture when they were done.

Grayson kept making earthquake shelters for himself.  He's been listening to Zoey and Sassafras Unicorns and Germs lately, and in the book the unicorn is huge and causes an earthquake when it comes and goes, and so he's been into earthquake shelters recently.

On Christmas Eve, Monica's family does a concert, and all the grandkids sang Mele kalikimaka for Gram and Pop.

Grayson sang his songs from his preschool performance.

And Brooke and Audrey sang a duet.  We forgot our piano books, which is too bad because both Brooke and Winry had worked on songs to play.

Then we had a nativity performance at the end by all the kids.

On Christmas morning, I went to set up a camera and found Pop ready and waiting for kids to come in.

And the stairs were full of kids ready to come up for Christmas morning, and all the surprises that awaited.

I believe on the 26th, we spent a lot of the day at parks.  In the afternoon we had a good time and the Checkettes brought the motorized paper airplane we gave them.  It looked pretty cool, and eventually got flown right up into the top of a tree.  I climbed up and did my best to get it down, but eventually we just had to find rocks and throw them at it until it fell out.

Shortly after that, Grayson laid down in the grass.  He was not tired, but was just going to wait there to see if he could have a turn flying the plane.  He was definitely sick, but still had a lot of fun and was a great trooper the whole time.

That night, we went to Luminaria, which is a huge light show they do up at Thanksgiving Point.  Here are all the cousins together.

They have different sections along the way that are decorated in different styles.  It's really cool to walk through.  Grayson was not feeling great, and so I had to carry him through most of it, which was okay but I was very tired by the end.

And here's Monica and Winry.  They also have a big sculpture garden with scenes from Jesus Christs life, and new (to us at least) they have a tree of life and a hill you walk up to get to it where you cross by a lot of other sculptures.  Those were all really cool to see, however, they were towards the end and I'd been carrying Grayson for a long time, so I don't think I enjoyed them quite as much as I normally would have.

Shane has all the best toys, and even when he tries to fence everyone out they just crowd in and take everything from him!  Just kidding, I'm glad everyone was able to play together happily.  Shane never warmed up to me, though he did get slower and slower to cry throughout the week.

We did family pictures on Saturday, and when we got to the park it started to rain a little and then even snow!  Sheesh.  So pictures were standing in your coats and staying as warm as possible, and then running out and getting a picture taken quick, then retreating to your coat.  The kids did really well. 

Grayson slept most, if not all, night with stuffed animals in his pajamas.  This isn't actually new for him, though it was new to the family we were visiting.

On Sunday it was Monica's parents farewell.  They both spoke in church and did a fantastic job, and Monica and her sisters all sang a musical number together.

And that's a wrap on last week's activities.  Tomorrow Monica's parents will head to the MTC, and then we're planning to head up to North Salt Lake and spend New Years with my sisters before heading back home.  I hope everyone had a safe, and Christ centered Christmas!  He is the reason for the season!  Merry Christmas, and a happy New Year ahead!
 

Kids' Christmas Presentations

What a week!  This is the final week of things before the Christmas break, which also means that this is the week when all the presentations are!  The girls had Christmas dances for us to come see (and are in 8 classes between the two of them.  I don't think I have that many videos though).  We'll kick off the week with Winry's first dance.

Right after we got to see that dance, she headed into her hip hop class, and about an hour later we were back for an encore.  Grind that coffee!

Grayson had a pajama day at preschool AND a balloon party, AND they were the same day.  That's enough happiness kids might explode!  Fortunately they didn't.  And, in the video this time the teachers also didn't have to tell a kid not to hit :).

When I was walking back to the train one day this week, I stumbled upon a delivery robot on the sidewalk waiting to cross.  This isn't actually where I was going to cross, but I wanted to watch it so I crossed the street with it, and then it went almost all the way with me to the train station!  It was fun to watch it navigating the sidewalk, swerving around scooters and finding the wheel chair ramps.  Honestly, I'm surprised how many places in downtown have a staircase in the  middle of the sidewalk.

On Wednesday, Grayson had his Christmas performance at preschool.  He was very excited to see us when he walked in, and did a great job singing all his songs.  He is in the oldest class, which gets to dress up for the nativity.  They sang their two songs first, and then sang with everyone else the final song at the end.

Here he is with Lincoln, his best friend, trying to stave off boredom and behave between opportunities to sing.

Jelly is starting to warm up to Brooke more and more.  She'll take her lap just as often as anyone else's in the evenings these days.

Monica watched the Weeks kids for a while on Friday I believe.  Brooke really loves to help out with watching kids and loves taking care of babies.  She is very excited to become a babysitter in a few years.  She took Lewis out to swing while they were over.  She looks like a natural.

Friday, both of the girls had dance class. First we went into Brooke's dance class to watch her.

And then they held up the second class to let any parents with kids in both to make it to watch Winry's dance as well.  Then we went to pick up dinner, and were planning to come back and watch Brooke's next dance, but the Texas traffic was unreal and we barely made it to the restaurant to pick up our food by the time Brooke's class finished.  It's usually a 10-ish minute drive.  Sigh...  but Brooke was a champion about it and didn't complain at all that we missed her dance.

We had a cookie decorating party at our house on Saturday, and while I was working on cleaning up and putting away these puzzle pieces, Jelly decided it was a great time for a nap.  Thanks Jelly.

Here's a gaggle of kids over decorating cookies.  The invitation was a come and go type event over a few hours.  It was a lot of fun to have people over and talk, and the kids all had a great time decorating cookies.  I don't think many adults decorated cookies, but even with  my minimal decorating I think we personally ended up with 8 plates of cookies.

Saturday night we had our Bethlehem dinner.  We usually do it closer to Christmas, but we're leaving on Monday to go out to Utah, so we had to get everything in before.

And speaking of getting things in early, we also did mini-Christmas morning on Sunday.  We gave the kids presents from us, especially since we had some larger items that would have been hard to pack along with us.  Winry got an electric drum set, and played it all day long.  She was loving it so much.

Grayson got a big Hot Wheels shark car wash that he was ecstatic about.  He also got a cardboard crafting kit with a saw and screwdriver and screws.  He really loves cutting things (his New Year's resolution was to cut something with scissors every day) and was having the time of his life cutting up cardboard boxes all morning.

Brooke got a really big Hogwarts Castle Lego set.  Apparently we didn't take a picture of it, and she didn't quite finish it by Sunday evening despite working on it all day.  I'll make sure to get a picture when it's complete after we get back.

We also got some larger items from Gram and Pop.  These all probably fit into the category of "actually wouldn't fit in a suitcase."  These would include a lacrosse stick for Winry, a pop-up volleyball net for Brooke, and a mini-trampoline for Grayson.  It's a good thing church wasn't until noon.

Jelly really wanted to get out in the backyard, so I let her come out with me leash free.  I really probably shouldn't have, as it probably is teaching her it's okay to dart out the door, but she enjoyed chewing some grass, and the cool morning air for a while before we headed back inside.

Brooke got some fancy hair for church, and it looks like one of those braided bread things and makes me hungry for a treat every time I see it!  Good job Monica.

Sacrament meeting was mostly all music, and the primary got up to sing a musical number.  In between verses, the chorister was signing things like a star to help the kids remember what the next verse was. Every time she did, Grayson would turn around and in a very loud whisper, that I could hear 6 or so rows back, would let everyone know what the next verse was going to be.  I got several comments specifically about Grayson's performance after sacrament meeting, and the chorister came over and gave him a hug and thanked him for helping keep everyone together for the song!  I'm grateful for our great primary leaders.

After church, we got our annual Christmas picture in front of the tree!  It only took a bit of bribery, but it also only took like 3 pictures.

Sunday night the Couches, one of our new friends in our new ward, invited us and some other families over for cinnamon rolls.  We had a great time over there, and there was a large gang of kids who were all having fun together.  Except Grayson, who needed some individual attention from his parents.  I went up with Grayson and we found this Mario Kart Hot Wheel track to set up.  Grayson was having the time of his life racing the cars over and over again.  It was a pretty cool track.

We got home pretty late Sunday night, so it's a good thing our flight isn't too early tomorrow morning.  Next stop, Salt Lake City!
 

Monica's Christmas Concert!

Christmas is fast approaching, which means, of course, that it is time for all of the Christmas songs!  Monica's been hard at work these last few months getting ready for her choir concert, and the day finally came this past Thursday.  We dropped Grayson off at a friends house, and then I took Brooke and Winry to the concert.  It was SO GOOD!  Also, the Packers, our friends from CO, have also joined the choir, so we got to see them there too!

On Monday, we had Grayson's co-op preschool at our house.  I don't know what the lesson was about, but here they all are, probably counting fuzzy balls.

And at rainbow bridge preschool, Grayson has apparently become an elf.  Monica caught this little decoration hanging up in this class room, can't wait for that to come home.

On Wednesday, the building I work in was having a Christmas party for the whole building in the afternoon, so I stopped by before heading off for the train.  The party wasn't much to write about, but I was up on the 24th floor, so you could see over more of the city than I usually get to from up there.

Jumping back to the concert on Thursday, here's me and the girls congratulating the lovely lady herself after her performance.  She did great, and it was so much fun to get to go listen to her sing.

The kids have been doing a few advent calendars this month.  Some friends in the ward dropped off a chocolate one for each of them at the start of the month, and on the 1st we let them open this Harry Potter Lego one (that I might have already talked about).  We also got a cat treat one for Jelly.  Grayson's dream every day is for Brooke to wake up early enough that they can open the Legos before Winry goes to school, so this picture must be Saturday, judging from all the pajamas.

Saturday morning we had our ward Christmas breakfast.  And now that I think about it we all wore matching pajamas, so I'm not sure what day they got to open the advent calendar early.  All the kids had parts, and everyone did a great job.  They even had a real baby donated to use for baby Jesus!  Grayson was back and forth on whether or not he would participate, but in the end getting to hold a lamb tipped him over the edge.

On Saturday, Winry had a dance intensive hot chocolate party, or whatever they really called it (Nutcracker tea party :) ).  It was only for younger kids, so Brooke didn't get to go too.  Winry had a lot of fun, and of course they try to have a dance ready for the parents to see when it's time to pick up the kids.

Our next-door neighbor stopped by on Saturday at some point and invited us over for an open house that evening at their house.  We went over right after having dinner and found out that we had made a mistake.  They had a large spread prepared, and it was SO tasty as well!  We need to get Monica and whichever of them was cooking into a cooking fight, as everyone in the vicinity would greatly benefit.  They recently got a new kitten, which to Brooke's delight, came out to say hello while we were.  In fact, after 15-ish minutes Grayson was ready to leave, but I stayed with the girls for quite a while just waiting for chances to hold the kitten (and eating more food and treats than I should have considering it was right after dinner).

On Sunday morning, we had Santa pancakes for breakfast.  Winry had hers the normal/proper way, while Grayson insisted he didn't want a pancake, and had his the cup of yogurt way.

And that's a wrap on this week!  We continue to get more and more excited as Christmas continues to inch closer, and we continue to enjoy the music and light and spirit of the season.