Piano!

Christmastime also brought along piano recital time. Grace and Grant memorized two songs each and performed them well to a chapel full of parents and friends. Grant was thoughtful and precise. Grace displayed her usual performance flare... We sure love our teacher Ms. Sabrina. She hosts quarterly theory group lessons (which are more like huge educational play dates), as well as student recitals (for students eyes and ears only) throughout the school year.

12 days of Christmas

Being at home until Christmas day gave us the opportunity to do the 12 days of Christmas for another family. It is a tradition the children always ask us about. Our holiday travels have made it impossible to do it every year. We did it once in Petoskey, once in Phoenix, and we were so happy to be able to do it here too. (None of the families we have hit read our blog, so I'm fairly confident our secret will be safe!) Here are Grace and Grant delivering 3 pizzas on the third day of Christmas. Most nights they were costumed in one thing or another to stay incognito. Eden even got in on the ding-dong-ditching action a couple of times.

Polar Express and Changes

We had a big change come to our ward family just before Thanksgiving. Our single congregation was divided into two. Though we had grown to a remarkable size, the long-timers of our ward family had been together since the time they were a small branch meeting in a building 20 minutes away. But it was time. Our primary was 180+ kids strong. The youth program was enormous. All the auxiliaries were laden. And ward functions were cumbersome.

In our new ward, I got to keep my post as the 1st counselor in the young women's presidency. Cori was called to be the 1st counselor in the bishopric, serving with our bishop from the previous ward. As the newest ward, we got to take the 1PM slot for sacrament meeting for a month- a true test of faith for any parent of young children. (We now meet at 9, amen) 

Plans were already in full swing for our ward Christmas party before the split. So, although we began meeting separately for everything else, we joined together for this one last enormous fun activity. As neither ward meetinghouse nor stake center could accommodate our numbers, we rented time in the cafeteria/auditorium of one of our elementary schools. 

It was a fun night. Pajama dress code, dance floor, dinner, cutest Santa ever, a reading of The Polar Express, some caroling and coco. We filled the place up to capacity.

Bishop L, the fearless shepherd

Thanksgiving

We met Cori's family in St. George for the Thanksgiving break. It is getting easier to travel with our crew. The older three just need a few books and electronics and do great without much help from us. Keeping the baby happy is still an adventure! But we had an easy uneventful trip over.

We all look forward to these visits. But Grace, Grant, and Eden (and Jeffery soon enough, surely) lay awake at night with excitement anticipating our time with family. Once we get there, it is days of non-stop play dates with their favorite friends. We love that they love their cousins so much. 

The whole beautiful group. 34 strong and counting.

We had a particularly nasty flu bug sweep through the camps. Grace and Eden were struggling with it on family picture day. I didn't even ask Eden to leave her blankie.

Ray has been busy organizing family names for temple work. He had work that needed to be done so he could be sealed to his parents (both deceased). It was really special to participate in this. Over the course of the week, we got to do baptisms, confirmations, initiatories, endowments, and sealings.

We had our Thanksgiving feast at the park down the road from Grandma Sandy and Papa Ray's condo. This was a perfect venue for our group. The food was great. The kids played and played. Cleanup was pretty quick.

And then it was time to head home. We said our tearful good-byes and drove to Vegas where we flew out the next morning.

(movie time in the basement)

Other Fall Goings On

I took the kids up the road to a nature preserve to take some pictures. Cori was away and doing it by myself nearly killed me. The older three were so so good about the whole thing. Jeffers gave me about 4.5 minutes at the beginning of the shoot. He sat still, but every time I asked him to smile he gave me the kissy lips pictured above. Once we hit the five minute mark, he had had enough. We tried multiple places, poses, you name it. There was another photographer setting up for a shoot who saw me and my crew and took pity. She had a barrel full of apples and gave one to Jeffery which kept him still. She stood behind me and did the ridiculous things that all good photographers do to get kids' attention. It was with her help that I got the picture we ended up using on our Christmas card. 98% of the rest of the pictures I took that afternoon ended up like this:

and this:

and this:

Grandpa Randy extended one of his work trips and spent a few days with us. We loved having him stay with us and he is a lot of fun to explore with. We met Cori down by work one day for lunch at an Argentine restaurant (Both Cori and Randy served their missions in Argentina). Then, Randy and I took Eden and Jeffers downtown to the Discovery Green. We explored the park and played and then made a perfectly timed exit wherein we beat traffic and made it home before the school bus.

At home, the kids took advantage of every opportunity to wrestle Grandpa to the floor. We also played a lot of Left Center Right. And we went out one night for some bonafide Texas BBQ.

One blessed night, I came into the kitchen and discovered this scene of parental bliss.

Before we departed on our Thanksgiving adventures, we met some friends downtown for Zoolights. It was a drizzly night. I spent nearly two hours in traffic getting there (I am still a newbie driving downtown and went all the wrong ways) and JJ threw up his dinner before we got there. But we still had a great night with our friends and the animals.

Cori spent several weekends building some amazing horseshoe pits for the backyard. Grace was a faithful helper and spent happy hours with him in the garage.

We had just enough room for the pits on the west side of the pool. Cori was sure to install them at the official regulation length. The kids throw from the halfway mark. 

Gracie's hair above was for a crazy hair spirit day. Pictured below is the cloud of hair that resulted when we pulled all the rubber bands out. Grace was wishing we had waited to free her hair till the next day so she could 'fro it at school. I just smiled and told her to get into the shower.

Grace and I attended the world-wide women's meeting for the Church at our stake center. We got to help put together humanitarian aid kits before enjoying some dinner and sitting with friends for the broadcast. I love sharing these events with Grace. She is one of my favorite people.

Eden has developed into a regular chip off the old block. True to form, as set by her older siblings, Eden loves to spend time coloring, writing, cutting, and creating. We always have a flurry of projects in the works on her days home from preschool.