Angels We Have Heard on High

On Monday night, Clarissa and Krystal had their Christmas dance recital. They danced a little ballet mixed with modern number to Angels We Have Heard on High.
Clarissa just loves being the center of attention.

The girls with Miss Hannah, their instructor. We just love Miss Hannah, she is so talented. Not only does she dance, she also sews, she made the costumes too.
After the dances, we had a surprise visit from none other than Santa! Clarissa is all smiles, but Amber is not sure what to think of Santa.
He did not even hesitate to pick her right up and cuddle her. I agree with Santa, she's irresistible.
Jared gave each of his sisters a bouquet of handmade flowers. Isn't he sweet?

First Snow

Yum!

Cold and wet, but happy!

Beautiful.

November Nothings

One sunny Sunday morning we were all getting ready for church when we noticed that by chance we were all wearing matching/coordinating clothes. What a perfect opportunity for a photo shoot.



In an effort to keep the house clean we came up with a new incentive system. For every thing that the kids clean up or put away, they get to pick an M&M or a skittle out of a jar. At the end of the week if the house has been kept clean, we will have a fun family activity. The week of Thanksgiving was the first week we tried this system. It worked beautifully so on Friday night we went bowling. We had a great time.
Math with Skittles. We did sorting, counting by 10's, 5's, and 2's. Adding, graphing, dividing, etc. It was fun and worked for all ages, plus was yummy too.
Our history group is studying Ancient Civilizations. This unit was about Ancient Asia. Since we knew that Chris would soon be going to India for work, we chose Ancient India to study. Jared did his project about the Indian art. The colorful piece on the bottom right is his own creation based on the Indian techniques. Clarissa made an ancient dwelling from clay and Krystal made a bracelet to present to her brother as part of an Indian celebration.

It wouldn't be November without the annual playing and jumping in the leaves!

My calling in the youth program at church keeps me busy with meetings and activities. Chris is always so good about being home with the kids while I'm gone and having fun with them. The above two pictures were taken on two different nights while I was gone. One was with friends over and the other spaghetti night (Yes, he cooks and babysits other people's children while I'm gone.)
The first weekend in November we went to Charleston, West Virginia to visit Grandma Mattson, Chris's sister, her husband and their baby, James. Little Jimmy is just adorable and the kids just love their chubby little cousin.

Halloween...the extended version

This year, Halloween began on Monday the 25th with a trip to get pumpkins and even though it was just at Wal-mart, Amber thought it was just great to climb all over the pumpkins. We brought them home to gut them out and roasted the seeds. Clarissa loved the messiness of course.

We didn't have time for carving yet, but we finished off the evening with making caramel apples. YUM!!
Thursday, Amber had a Halloween party at Preschool, so I made mummy cookies for the kids.

Amber dressed up for Preschool as a cheerleader.

The kids finally got their pumpkins carved and painted. This is Krystal's pretty pumpkin.

Friday night the whole family got dressed up for Trunk or Treat at church. Our theme this year was a sports theme. Amber, the cheerleader, Krystal the dancer, Clarissa is a soccer player, Jared, a Notre Dame baseball player, Jen, a hockey player and Chris our coach.

Chris passed out candy from the back of the van. Jared's Frankenstein pumpkin is in the background.
Our county voted to do Trick or Treating on Monday since Halloween was on a Sunday. So, Monday we went to our friends house to meet with all our friends for a party and some Trick or Treating.
Also on Monday, our little dancer lost her second top tooth. So, now that Halloween is over she can start thinking about Christmas...all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth...

On Bangs and Birthday Parties

As I was decorating the cake for Jared's 11th Birthday Party, my thoughts drifted back to 1987 when I was in middle school and my mornings were spent in trying to tame my bangs into that perfect 80's wave. You know, curl bangs with curling iron, style the top half of bangs up and back, spray with aquanet until a stiff wall forms, form the bottom half of bangs into a perfect curl going down toward forehead, spray with aquanet, put every stray hair in it's place, more aquanet, when sure that bangs are perfect, spray more aquanet. After years of early morning frustration, some time in High School, I stumbled upon the concept that my hair actually looked a lot better if I would just let it do what it wanted to do. I distinctly remember getting compliments for how my hair looked with friends asking what I was doing different and I would reply that I just let my hair do it's natural thing. So, other than reflecting on my personal responsibility for the deterioration of the ozone layer, what does this have to do with birthday parties you might ask.

I used to try to create what in my mind was the perfect birthday party experience for my children. You know, a theme with decorations, games, goodie bags and cake all based on the theme. But, somewhere between the volcano cake and the Barbie dress cake, I lost my love for cake decorating and actually shed tears as I threw the Barbie cake in the sink and started over. Since then, the cake part of the birthday party has been very stressful and I usually have a friend come over, if not to help make the cake, just for moral support. Then it happened...on the day that I made the worst cake of my career as a mother, Jared, after seeing the cake for the first time said, "Mom, you did it again!" And I thought, "What, ruined another cake?" But upon further questioning, he said something to the effect that I was the best cake decorator ever. In that moment I realized that to make the perfect birthday party experience for my children I could really lower my expectations considerably. So, ever since that day, I have let the cake decorating happen naturally, just like my bangs. However, although not aerosol, a can is still my favorite creative tool. I know many people will cringe when they read this, but I just love frosting in a can, not for the taste, but for the ease in which I can create what my kids deem as the perfect cake.

Happy Birthday Jared! I hope the $1 foam swords and frosting-in-a-can-cake really made you as happy as you looked. As for me, I was much happier than in past years and really enjoyed the no stress party.

Back to School

Krystal is presenting her history report about the mummification process. Her project includes a "stone" sarcophagus, a "wooden" coffin, a "gold" coffin, the Barbie mummy she made, canopic jars with organs made from clay, and plenty of furniture, food, and jewels to last for Barbie in the afterlife.
Jared's presentation was about the Great Pyramid at Giza built during the reign of the Egyptian king Khufu also known as Cheops. Jared was interested in the architecture of the tunnels and chambers of the inside of the pyramid. He did a great job researching online and presenting what he learned.
Clarissa talked about the games and toys of the Ancient Egyptians. Chris helped her make the wooden horse with wooden wheels. She told everyone that two of the games the Egyptians used to play were leap frog and tug-of-war, which was followed by a tug-of-war game outside, boys against girls of course. Much to everyone's surprise, (and heavily debated afterward) the girls won. There were about 9 girls and 7 boys, but the boys were older and bigger. Those girls are tough.
To make learning how to count change fun, we played candy store and Clarissa was the store clerk.
Krystal's mummy during mummification process. These are the jewels and amulets that were put inside her wrappings.
After using math to make some homemade playdough, the girls learned or practiced new words by forming the words out of playdough and making a figure of what the word represented.
Amber started Preschool this year. She absolutely loves it. Preschool is taught by the mothers in the group, each of us trading off weeks. There are four other kids from church in her Preschool. So far they've learned All About Me and about Fall. Amber is learning to write her name and loves doing her schoolwork (workbooks that she picks out).

Happy for 13 years

Chris and I have been married for 13 years now. On the day that he asked me to marry him, I made him promise that he would make me laugh every day of our lives. He has definitely kept that promise.
The other morning I walked into the kitchen to find this tomato amongst the others on our windowsill. It's the little things like this that keep us happy.