Oh all right. Early December wasn't ALL ballet rehearsals. But it did feel like I was constantly driving the girls back and forth and heating up late dinners and so forth. Whew, I'm so glad the Nutcracker is over! Lovely as it was, of course. Here are the girls in their cute little ballet hoodies (with their names on the sleeves! So fun).
Sebastian chose homemade donuts for his special November breakfast (which was in December. And for dinner. Details, details) which is a tradition we started accidentally years ago. (It was only meant to be for that year. But now it Must Be Done and it stretches out over what feels like weeeeks.) Everyone gets to choose a favorite breakfast and we talk about all the things we're thankful for about that person. It is fun! And these donuts were good! We get better at making them every year.
We found time one Saturday to put up our Christmas decorations! I can't decide if it's easier or harder with so many of the kids "helping." They CAN be legitimately helpful, but I think I'll go crazy if I hear another fight starting with "…but Daddy said I could put up the ____…" We also break an average of 4 ornaments a year. If we started with 100 ornaments, and allowing for 1-2 extra breaks every 3 years, how many years will it take for them to be completely gone? Just a little math problem for you to keep your skills fresh.
Anyway, I love decorating and I love the house at Christmas time. I love going to bed and waking up to the glow of the tree in the dark.
I don't even know why we have this Santa bag. To put people in, apparently.
The little julenisse family my brother made for us years ago. I thought we'd lost it in the move, but it resurfaced this year, in a box of Christmas lights!
More gnomes. Or nisse.
Festive pirate tucked in a wreath
The girls' room
The Relief Society asked us to help wash and put rocks in bags for our Ward Christmas Party. They were doing little rock nativities with stickers. It turned out to be a ton of work to wash and bag all the rocks because there were just SO MANY. But the kids did such a great job. They figured out an assembly line and had them all done in a few hours (plus more time moving them into the car…then out of the car and into the church). Everyone else in the family was disappointed in turn when they came into the kitchen, saw all these festive-looking gift bags, looked in them, and found…just rocks.
Seb's room, which he does clean up quite nicely every now and then
Cute cart-pusher
I'm sure this will be fine
Such a beautiful sunrise!
We all love Clemmie so much in this little fuzzy suit!
Daisy tried to pose her like this ornament
This was cute. I was just taking a picture of two little boys sitting at the garage door to wave goodbye to us. When suddenly…
…peek! A little baby found us.
She was so cute and pleased with herself, and she waved and yelled "BYYYYE!" proudly.
Daisy with a tiny pie (and big pie) she made
Wavy hair after braids
Double-yolked egg! There were three of them in one carton. So exciting…or should I say eggciting?
Seb taking bites of an unimpressed Clementine
Clementine discovered that when she drops a ball into the foosball table, it disappears! Now she wreaks havoc on every game that anyone plays by suddenly adding balls to it.
Gus in his car-di-nal blanket (if you call it a Birdie Blanket he will correct you)
Clementine secretly drawing on Sam's ipad in the darkš±
Another beautiful sunrise! These make the early mornings worthwhile!
White dresses (with blue satin sashes…of course)
Malachi's birthday (his shadow looms large)
BYU brothers
Dramatic sky
The cutest nativity scene, drawn by Ziggy
More tiny shrinky-dinks. The girls figured out how to make them 3D and it opened up a whole new range of possibility! These were all little decorations they made for their dollhouse.
A tiny table with tiny advent wreath. Eeeeee!!
The most boring pictures ever (the sickly fluorescent lighting! the line of fake smiles! the sea of parents! the projector screen, for crying out loud!) but commemorating a fun event—the end-of-year cross-country banquet. I (still) cannot believe Seb is in his last year and all of it made me very nostalgic, even the projector screen. Also they served Costa Vida at the banquet and it was good! I've only had food from there a couple times before and it was always somewhat bad, so I was pleased to see it could be good!
Malachi in the "future state champions" group ("I'll prove him wrong about that," Ky whispered as he sat down). He was in a more-than-usually grumpy mood that night. Of course, his grumpiness is about 90% put on for effect.
Got a smile out of him
Trying not to smile
Succeeding in not smiling while holding his "most likely to smile in a race" award. He likes to keep people guessing. He really did smile during every race…as you know if you read this blog!
Seb got a million awards (varsity letter, coach's award, four-year athlete, and some others I can't remember) but he was cuter just posing afterwards:
Seb and his friend Maggie
These boys feel practically like his brothers by now. They've been running together so long! Here they all are in this picture from freshman year, for example. Aww! They all used to be so small! And now they're so big!
Piano lesson
I loved this "home" Zig made out of Legos for his "mans." (It's always mans. Never men.) As you can see, there are three garages for their trucks, and three beds for them to sleep in. Simple and sufficient.
And lastly, Ziggy is obsessed with policemen and police cars right now. He draws them everywhere, and somehow figured out how to write "Police"…almost. Except he never gets it right. It's surprising how many WRONG ways there are to spell it, when you think about it. Here we have about the closest he got. "Poilce."
"licope"
"ilpocoee", "icopie"
And "Peileoc." Hahaha. I love him!
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