Ryan & Erinn's Family: December

In early December, Elise and Connor played at the Pasadena Keyboard Theme Festival. Connor did well, but was up against a lot of older kids. Elise got second place in her division! (She was happy to have broken the 4th-place-curse that has been following her.)

Ryan and Evan marched with the Cub Scouts in the Montrose Christmas Parade!

Highlands Latin School held it's annual Christmas Cantata. All the classes and both choirs did musical numbers. My Latin class performed Dona Nobis Pacem as a round, and I was surprised by how well it went!

Junior Choir

Fourth Grade

Henle/Third Form Latin did a short skit.

Combined Choir

For my birthday, I asked Ryan to get the kids a new toilet so I could stop plunging it on a daily basis. It sounds pitiful, but it was such a great gift! Our combined birthday cake really was pitiful, though. Pepperidge Farms cake is much less delicious at room temperature - I think it's designed to be eaten half frozen.

All year, I had the privilege of teaching the 13/14-year-old Sunday School class. These are the nicest kids, they were a pleasure to teach, despite their inability to stop talking. It was also neat to get to know Connor's age group a bit better.

A lot of my anxiety issues at this time revolved around deciding what Connor should do for high school next year. All the deadlines were coming up, and I was trying to gather information and keep an open mind. We looked at the public school's textbooks, attended orientations for both CV and Saint Monica Academy, and researched Inspire Charter School, online school, and community college options. I was totally stressing about whether we'd make the right choice, and whether Ryan and I could be unified in supporting whatever Connor decided he wanted to do.

Lauren Gubler's Math Book

I tried to "run models" on my overstressed thoughts.

Ryan took the three older kids to a Brahms concert downtown. It was probably very nice.

Celeste wants to be a big kid so badly. I walked in to find her making bread and butter by herself. Or maybe it was butter with bread.

Elise went to the dentist to get a loose tooth pulled that had been bothering her, and the dentist (after checking with me) decided to pull a few more, since they were already getting loose, too. She was really mad when she found out, poor gummy kid.

Ryan decided one day that what we really needed in our life was a cabin in the mountains, so we started researching and visiting cabins in Crestline and Lake Arrowhead, about two hours away. We took a Saturday and went house shopping with the littlest 3 (Connor and Elise had a bad attitude, so we left them at home.) A month or so later we realized that we don't have time to visit a cabin, so the idea was temporarily shelved.

Lake Arrowhead Village

Lollipop Park

Our ward did their annual Temple Lights evening. It was fun and chaotic and sweet, as usual.

Due to the recent program changes at church, Elise was scheduled to go into Young Women's in January. They invited her and Camden to start coming to the activities a little early, and Elise loved it. She said, "It's a lot more fun than Activity Days, because there aren't a lot of little girls around asking for help."

Corinne's birthday was in August, but time-management being what it is in our house, her birthday party didn't happen until Christmas Break. Still, she had a great time! She sent out an invitation with pictures of her Beanie Boos on it, and the other kids helped me put together some fun games and activities.

Beanie Boo Coloring Pages

Elise hand-drew this.

Right before Christmas, we had Mariah fly down so that Ryan and I could go on a little trip. We started with brunch downtown, then went to the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda. Sadly, it was closed due to the government shutdown, but we still got to look around the grounds and gift shop. We stayed in Costa Mesa that night, went to church the next morning, then went to the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve to hike and look at birds. It was so, so great.

This Big-Pharma Christmas tree was in the mall where we ate Downtown.

Bolsa Chica. Best Birding Ever.

Then, when we got back to our car, we discovered that someone had broken in and taken all my credit cards and cash. It took awhile to get everything cancelled and replaced.

On Christmas Eve, we went on a little hike with the kids. Later, we let them open their pajamas and cousin presents, which this year were books that they immediately sat down and started reading.

The baby doll got a new nightgown (that matched Corinne's) and, I think, a magic bottle.

Christmas Morning!!

Box of Baking Stuff

Electric Fireplace

Money from Nana and Al

Electronic Microscope

Ryan got me a book on cooking wild game. It had great photos!

Reading his comics while using his hover-board.

Christmas Woodpecker!

The day after Christmas, we took everybody to Las Vegas for a couple days. The kids mostly just watched TV and went to Bass Pro Shops. Ryan and I mostly went out to eat. But it was fun!

On New Year's Eve, we persuaded our friends the Emmersons to go with us to look at the Rose Parade floats. They were good sports about it, especially since something had gone wrong, and none of the floats were there until after midnight. Also, we had parked really far away. But we did get to see a few awesome floats, and it was fun to be with friends.