Christmas Fun!!

Our Christmas season was filled with family and friends and I feel so blessed to be able to say that. I know that not everyone gets to spend Christmas with loved ones and there have been times when I have been in that vote. Just two years ago we were without Matt for Chirstmas for the second year in a row because he was deployed. So again I feel blessed to have been surrounded by those that I love over this Christmas season.

Our Christmas season started with Christmas concerts and parties that were just the ticket to get us all in the mood. The concerts were all wonderful and I was so pround of all the kids and how well they did. Jess even had a solo in her Christmas concert and did very well. She still shocks me at how much she has grown up since moving here three years ago. When we first moved here she was extremely shy and I would have never imagined that she would get up in front of her whole school and sing a solo, but she did. She also sang at our ward Christmas party while John played the piano (to see a video you can see my facebook page). Speaking of our ward Christmas party, it was great. We had a lot of fun with our friends that night and the entire program was great.

Once the kids were out for break we had fun playing in the snow, baking, and playing games. We were very lucky to have a white Christmas and to have a perfect sledding spot for kids. My mom's drive way is the perfect size for most of the kids and when they get cold they can just go in and warm up. We spent Christmas Eve at mom's sledding and then also the following Wednesday. The kids also had fun building snow forts in the drifts. This is a favorite due to the fact that we often get blizzards and once they are over we have drifts that are 4 to 6 feet tall, sometimes more. Mom's are even better though as her's will reach up to 8 feet. Needless to say they were in fort heaven for several days.

Christmas day we had a day planned full of fun, but due to our blizzard we were snowed in for two days and spent a quite day with just the five of us. It was nice though to be able to relax and just have fun with new toys and playing games.

I guess I better rap this up before I ramble on too much. I did not put a lot of pictures on here because I posted them on my facebook page and most of you that follow this blog are also my friends on facebook. So if anyone wants to see more pictures of our Christmas fun see my facebook page.

Gift of Music!!

I am going to brag, but it is my right as a mother. John has been playing the violin for about two and half years, which is not that long, but he is really good. For his Christmas concert he had to audition to see what chair he would get and he got first chair. He did not think he would since he knows that there are several kids who have been playing much longer than him. This video is of John walking out to tune the rest of the orchestra and then their first number. It was a great concert full of Christmas music to get us in the mood for this wonderful time of year.


Just a few days later we were able to go to John's first piano recital. John loves playing the piano and has fiddled around on it for years. This year I decided that I better get him into lessons before he picked up too many bad habits. He surprised his teacher by picking this difficult piece, for a first year student, and then surprised her more by actually being able to play it. The gift of music is something he has certainly been blessed with and Matt and I love having our home filled with music!!


Sorry they are not the best recordings but they were both done on my camera.

The Nutcracker

As a family we went to see the Nutcracker Friday night and we all loved it. I was not sure if it was going to keep Abbi and Jess' interest for the full two hours, but it did. I loved the questions that I kept getting from Abbi. She wanted to know who all of the characters were and what there names were and what they were doing. Thank goodness I have seen the Nutcracker before and know the story because she was not happy with the simple answers or watch and see. In the program was a short version of the story and John read it to Jess while we were waiting for it to start, so that helped the two of them understand the ballet. I was very impressed at how well the dancers did, it made it so fun to watch.

I don't have any pictures because I forgot my camera, which ended up being fine because we were not allowed to take pictures of the performance anyway. It was a great night out as a family, one I am sure the kids will always remember.