Pre-Christmas

Connor started taking piano lessons in January, so he had almost a year of practicing under his belt for his first piano recital a couple Saturdays ago. It was cute - the other students were two other boys his age and a married couple that decided to learn later in life. The teacher is wonderful. He comes to our house and is almost too nice for his own good. I'm really happy with what Connor has learned so far. At the recital he played "Rudolph" and "Frosty", (both as duets with his teacher,) and did great!
  

  

Ryan has a very serious rule against artificial Christmas trees. I understand - the ritual of picking out and setting up a fresh tree can be a lot of fun. This year, though, it got to be a week before leaving for Utah, Ryan was sick, and it was cold and rainy outside. In a moment of weakness, he agreed to let me run to the hardware store and get a short little plastic tree. I put it up on a box to make it look bigger, and put the lights on. The rest the kids did all by themselves. Easiest tree ever!
  

  

The week before Christmas was a bit crazy. Our friends from Hayward came down on vacation, so we joined them at Disneyland on Tuesday. It was a little rainy and cold, but not too crowded, and we had a great time. Corinne divided her time between the baby carrier, (snuggled inside my coat,) and the baby center - an awesome Disneyland service I'd never known about before. It's like a little clubhouse for moms with private nursing booths and rows of changing tables. It definitely beats freezing to death trying to nurse on a bench!
  

  

Thursday night was the kids' Christmas concert. It was adorable - they'd been practicing for it all semester at school. Connor's class sang "Gloria to God in the Highest" and "The First Noel". Elise's sang "Ten Little Angels" and something about friendly animals in the stable (I can't remember the name.) For the finale, the classes all went up together and did "Joy to the World." The lighting was pretty bad, but I'm posting the pictures anyway because they're cute!
  

  

  

   

Corinne Stuff and Kids at School

In the past week or two, Corinne has learned to roll on her side and swat at toys!  She's also talking alot, it's awesome.  I have to give credit to my other daughter for stealing my phone and getting some of these pictures without permission.
  

  

  

   

Connor and Elise just love to make art.  They do it at home, and at both their school programs, so I feel obligated to save some and take pictures of some (whatever is too big to file.)  These were mostly made at school, although the last picture is from an art show at the other school.  Yeah, my kids' education can be confusing.

Elise made this at home by herself.

The Forest, including a robin, lizard, and bear. (Connor)

Elise

Elise

Connor

Art Show (I'll take pictures of that stuff when I get a chance!)

    
Ryan and I celebrated our birthdays at the beginning of December, but we really didn't get any pictures.  Sorry!  I got Ryan some biking gear he wanted (a new helmet and a headlight,) and he got me bookshelves.  Boring, but totally cool.  Oh, and we went out to eat at a super fancy steakhouse in Burbank.  Elise and Connor both made us cards, although this one was too big to file, so it got photographed.  That's a picture of me ;-)
  

  
The weather has been rainy and cold lately, but that didn't stop us from going to the kids' school cookout.  It was supposed to be a campout, but none of the families wanted to!  We got the most important parts of camping, though.  (The ash-covered charred marshmallow parts.)
  

Evan loves to repeat, "Under the Umbrella!"  From Starfall

   
Evan has such a hard time when I drop the older kids off at school.  Sometimes he cries all the way home because he can't go, too!  So, I try to let him get out and play when we pick them up in the afternoon.  I think I stood there watching them all roll on the grass for an hour last week.  If only we had a lawn of our own!
  

  

Thanksgiving Weekend

This year, due to Ryan's work schedule, we stayed in California over the Thanksgiving weekend.  We actually had a lot of fun, though!  We got together with two other orphaned families from church and did Thanksgiving dinner together.  I made my mom's stuffing recipe, which everybody loved, plus mashed potatoes and set salad.  Other dishes there included coconut-topped sweet potato casserole, bacon-wrapped green beans, pie, turkey, salad, rolls, and sparkling cider.  It was so much easier than trying to do it all myself!  Plus, the kids had friends to play with.
  

I tried to get a picture of the grown-ups table, but they never sat down all at once!

Listening to "Run Turkey Run" - Kind of a dark story if you think about it . . 

   

We did do a thankful tree this year, but it was kind of puny.  Not because we weren't thankful, but because Ryan and Connor got attacked by yellowjackets while finding this stick.  They didn't feel like going out to look for a bigger one.  (Connor was stung twice, Ryan once.)

   

   
The day after that, we had a field trip to the California Science Center with some friends from Connor and Elise's school. We saw an IMAX movie about the Hubble telescope, then saw the Endeavor Space Shuttle exhibit.  It was amazing to see something that had been in space so many times.  I was really surprised by how many space shuttle missions there had been - 135 in all!  Some years in the mid-80's had missions every other month or so.  Also, a large number of the early ones were for the Department of Defense, and were classified.  Makes sense, I guess.
  

They had posters for every shuttle mission wrapping around the hangar.

Evan hadn't napped, and behaved accordingly . . 

       
Saturday we joined friends at Joshua Tree National Park for a day trip (they camped, we did not.)  At the start of one of our little hikes, I decided to stay behind to feed Corinne.  By the time she was ready to go, our group was long gone, so I decided to do the hike myself (I eventually found everyone.)  It was so, so nice to just be alone for awhile, walking in such a pretty area.
   

Just Me and Binny (and all those other hikers.)

Friends and Geodes

The company that sells the history/literature curriculum we use recently had a charity fundraiser that included videos about many poorer areas of the world.  The kids decided to participate, and filled their "radio-box" bank all month with spare change and their own money.  At the end, they worked together to count it (yes, that ended in an argument, but that's not the point.)  They ended up raising/finding $50 to donate!  I was pretty proud of them.
    

    

A month or so ago, a new family moved in to the other ward that meets in our church building.  I had several friends notify me that I "had" to meet this lady, and they were right!  They have a boy, girl, and boy just a year younger than my kids, and they homeschool!  That makes only the third homeschooling LDS family I know in our whole stake (large church region.)  We got together at Descanso Gardens one morning to play.
  

Pretending to be mad.  Connor actually was in time-out for running off.

Nice Cartwheel, Connor.

  
A few days after that, the kids had some of their best friends over while their mom got a haircut.  The little girl is definitely into babies, even stinky ones!
  

  
Since Connor's current passion project is on crystals and gems, I ordered some "break-your-own" geodes on Amazon.  They were kind of hard to crack open, but they were awesome inside!  Yes, we substituted goggles for safety glasses.
  

  

    
Evan decided one day that he wanted to pee in the potty. He did it several times that day, and got to wear training underwear, which he thought was awesome!  Then he had a couple accidents, and while waddling bowlegged back to the bathroom to get changed he said, "No underwear, get diaper!"  Oh, well.  I think we'll get him some pull-ups and take a more moderate approach for awhile.
  

That's right, Evan.  You rock!

    
Kevin's friend Katie requested this video a month back, and I forgot to put it on here.  I don't usually post videos, since I have my blog printed into a book each year, but here it is anyway!
   

 For printed blog purposes, here's the transcript: "Goodbye Grandma Cloe!  I love you!  Hi Katie!  Byebye!"