Time to UN-decorate!

Tomorrow is Saturday, a perfectly good day to UN-decorate my home from all the Christmas decorations. As much as I love to put them up come the holiday season, I love to take them down as well! I hope that doesn't sound too awful. By the end of December, I just feel so cluttered with the decorations all over the place. This year we decorated on November 30th, so nearly four weeks of it is enough in my book! The tree just doesn't look as nice now that the presents are unwrapped and just sitting under the tree. Its time for the kids to put their things away, and me, too!

Hopefully I can get everything accomplished tomorrow, and also put on a big pot of "something" (soup?) for my sister's family who will be arriving in town tomorrow by dinner time.

I'll probably UN-decorate my blog, too, and get it back to the usual. I actually look forward to January. I feel like its such a fresh start and time to clean, organize and set some personal goals. That's definitely how I'm feeling right about now!!

Christmas Eve Eve

Well, I can hardly believe its the eve of Christmas Eve! December 23rd! Today is Grandma T.'s birthday and also that of Joseph Smith. Of course, they are both passed on.

It seems like just yesterday we put up the tree (which was actually November 30), and here its two days until Christmas! How did this month pass by so very quickly? At least I can say that ALL the gifts are wrapped and under the tree. That is, all gifts except for Santa's gift and the stocking stuffers. We've made our neighborhood and friend treats and taken them around to almost everyone. This year we gave out cute little bears with toffee puffs with a note that said "We Wish You a Beary Merry Christmas". Christmas cards were done a couple weeks ago and now we're just enjoying getting some back in the mail. We've had family gatherings with both of Jason's parents, his brother and the cousins. Only one was at our house and that was last night. We had soups, salad, dinner rolls and dessert, and then a short musical and poetic program after.

I'm glad to have someone else hosting a Christmas brunch this year. This year is strange and sad; I haven't been much in the mood for hosting but got through last night's dinner just fine. This is my first Christmas EVER without my parents here so its been hard to think of things to do that didn't include them. We are going to keep things as low key as possible, which is what I need right now.

Happy 63rd Anniversary, Grandpa and Grandma M. !!

Here are my cute, sweet and totally awesome grandparents! Today, December 20, 2008, marks their 63rd wedding anniversary. They were 17 years old, hopelessly in love and decided to elope! What examples they are to us all. They both turned 80 this year. Its so sweet to see how Grandpa has cared for Grandma since her stroke 12 years ago. I told them yesterday they ought to receive some special award for the longevity of their marriage! :-)

Today they are celebrating by going out to Red Lobster. They don't get out much these days, so it will be special for them.

Grandpa and Grandma....63 years (or so)ago!

 

Here are Grandpa and Grandma M. with the girls just last night. We went over to curl Grandma's hair, visit and give them their Christmas present.

 

What a cute couple!!

 

SNOW DAY!!!

Jason stayed home from work and we're having an official "snow day". Who would have thought that possible here?

 

LET IT SNOW! LET IT SNOW! LET IT SNOW!!

Wow! I don't recall the last time St. George had this much snow. Not that its THAT much...but...considering its a week before Christmas, this is pretty darn exciting! It's been coming down pretty good for 6+ hours or so, and still falling lightly outside the house.

Jason and I were coming home from a Christmas party a little while ago, and stopped to take this picture. I hope to add more pictures in the morning, once the kids have had a chance to build snow men and probably have snow ball fights! :-D

 

"Chocolate in my stocking for Christmas....."

This Christmas season, Emily and Sarah had an opportunity to be in a local children's choir. They only had about 4 weeks worth of practices (and could have used more I think!), but they had a good time and then got to perform publicly four times. I was able to get a short video segment at one of the performances, but unfortunately my battery died before their song ended.

Sarah is on the front row (second from the right side), and Emily is on the back row. Both are wearing glasses. It was a strange place to be videoing from, so its not the greatest angle. But, here they are!

Christmas-time Math!

The other night, I came home from the Commonwealth Awards night to find Emily sprawled out on the living room floor, with all the presents sorted out by name of each family member. She sorted them into piles and then counted how many gifts were to each family member. The girls have done this countless times already and have such a fun time doing it. She was so proud of herself that night! I'm sure it will be fun for her to find out a few more gifts will be added between now and Christmas!

Apparently, Sarah has "three" more gifts than the other girls do, which I wasn't aware of until that night. Come to find out, her sisters have both given her something that I hadn't known about (plus one extra...who is that one from????) I haven't taken them shopping for one another, so it must be other little things they've come up with on their own from around the house. :-)

Commonwealth Awards Night!

Reading her letter from the soldier in the Revolutionary War.....

Receiving her award from her Shakespeare mentor, Mrs. F.

The other night was the awards night for the Commonwealth School. Each class had some sort of presentation, as well as awards for the students who accomplished all the requirements. The Key of Liberty class had all the students recite the Declaration of Independence together, and some students shared a paper they had written. Maegan shared her paper that was written from a viewpoint of a soldier in the Revolutionary War.

During the Shakespeare class presentation, she and one other student from the class displayed an "insult contest" for the audience. The purpose of the insult contest is to get the students acting, use their voice skills, and also teaching them a bit of Shakespearean language. A lot, or actually most of the insult words, are words that Shakespeare himself made up! Maegan had won the insult contest in class a few weeks ago. Of course, its all in fun and no one takes the "insults" seriously! This Thursday the Shakespeare class will have their royal banquet as part of their awards. Maegan achieved the "princess" status but can achieve "queen" status if she watches a few more Shakespeare plays this week. They have to watch/read/listen to a minimum of 17 Shakespeare plays in order to receive King or Queen status. So far Maegan is at 12 plays.

A TJEd/Commonwealth Family Dance!

Last night was our TJEd Family Dance, hosted by our Commonwealth School. It was such a blast! Being on the activities committee for the Commonwealth, I was a little nervous at how our turn out would be for this event. This being such a busy time of year it was hard to know what to expect. But, I think we had a very successful and fun turn out! I'd say about half of the Commonwealth families were there, plus a few other TJEd families too. Everyone seemed to have a wonderful time. Things just came together for good, clean family fun!

It was great to have kids of all ages interacting and socializing together. Little kids and teenagers danced together. Parents danced with their children. Husbands and wives danced together. Jason and I agreed that we are a bit out of shape and need to dance more so as not to get sore hips! I was glad to have some ballroom dance instruction and actually think it would be fun to take some real lessons. I am so grateful to all those who helped make last night a success!

I also just wanted to comment about a couple other things. First, Maegan found this dress just the day before the dance at our local "D.I."....for 10 dollars! I told her that dress was meant for her to be there...great price, and it fit her beautifully! The black jacket is mine and was needed to make it modest, as the top part was sleeveless. But, it worked and she was so pleased to have her first formal gown!

Also...notice the sweet little boy who is dancing with both Sarah and Maegan in those top pictures. He is my friend's son and such a cutie. He's had a crush on Maegan since last February when the girls spent a day with their family (Jason and I were in Las Vegas). Then we noticed he was also eyeballing Maegan in a sweet way when she was dancing with that little girl in the bottom right picture. I told my friend it will be fun to see him dating girls in another 10 years...he's getting some good practice being a little gentleman at the age of six! :-)

Gratitude to a wonderful piano teacher!

Yesterday I had to call my girls' piano teacher, Mrs. B., and explain our current financial situation. Work has slowed considerably for Jason, which means that his income is way down from where it has been. For the first time in our 15 year marriage, we're really having to watch the budget and cut out things that aren't totally necessary. So I called and told the piano teacher this yesterday, and asked what we can do to keep both Maegan and Emily in piano. She came up with an awesome solution: Pay for just one girl in lessons ($72/month rather than the $144 we've been paying) and have them share the hour lesson. This is basically what we were doing last year as well, although at that time she was basically just giving Emily lessons for free since she was such a beginner and only needed 15 minutes out of the hour lesson. It will probably be divided up closer to 30 minutes each for my girls now, which is great because the piano teacher team teaches with her adult daughter and they'll still get what they need! Mrs. B. also said that if it ever became necessary, she would just scholarship both the girls to be able to continue their lessons. She says that it is SO important to keep up their music, even if it means a cut in her own earnings. I know she is doing this with other families who are feeling the economic crunch as well. What a gem she is! I'm SO glad to have found her a few years ago. I feel like I should do something special to thank her. Maybe a baked good of some kind with a nice note??? hmmm....I'll have to think on it!