We had such a great Christmas.  I just love seeing the excitement of the kids getting a candy cane in their stocking!  Daniel got a kitchen, a Little People truck, and a stuffed dog. 

Kathryn got a new doll, doll clothes, and Jenga.

Amelia got a stuffed puppy, doll stroller, and new doll.

We had the missionaries over for part of the day.  There are six elders in our ward, and they all came!  Some talked to their families, we did a Christmas puzzle, and a couple of them spent over an hour doing the chimes!

Darryl and I both got a couple books.  I got an autobiography of Nelson Mandela, a memoir of a Romanian girl during the holocaust, and a book of the history of our Seattle neighborhood.  Darryl got a book on Warren Buffet and a photography book.

Family | No Comments »

  We had a nice Christmas Eve program.  I purposely didn’t plan anything until the day of, because I didn’t want to stress about it.  We came up with everything that day and it was fabulous!  Here was what we did:

Kathryn and Amelia sang “Picture a Christmas” accompanied by me on the viola.

Daniel had everyone open a small present from cousins.

Darryl played a piano duet with me.

Amelia chose to do small Christmas puzzles.

Then we acted out the nativity and read the scriptures.  Amelia took the role of Mary very seriously – she was very reverent the whole time.  Daniel as Joseph didn’t run away with Baby Jesus this year.  Kathryn was the angel, with Darryl as a wise man, and me as a shepherd.

Family | No Comments »

    Overheard last night after the kids went to bed:

Kathryn:  Daniel are you ready for Christmas?

Daniel:  Yeah!

Kathryn:  Christmas is when you can open all your presents.  Are you ready for that?

Daniel:  Yeah!

Amelia:  But tomorrow isn’t Christmas.  Its the day before Christmas.  That’s Christmas Eve.

Daniel:  Oh.

The reason this is so cute is that Daniel says “yeah” a lot.  And he says it when he is really excited in a very cute way (like when he gets to cook or when his favorite Christmas song comes on, which is “Tiny Little Baby”).  Also his new thing is to say “oh” when we explain something or tell him to do something different.  He is definitely ready for Christmas.  Here he is enjoying a candy cane.

I put one present for him actually under the tree (the other presents are all on a shelf).  He has been playing with the present all the time.  He is so excited about it.  And he knows which present is his on the shelf, too, and will point to it.

He is just so cute!  He is the best helper in the house.  Sometimes a little too good.   The minute I tell the girls to clean up something and they are making up excuses or dawdling, Daniel goes and cleans it up!  He tries to mop before I have finished sweeping. 

Daniel | No Comments »

I know it was awhile ago, and the recent pictures show them, but I needed to write about Kathryn and Amelia getting haircuts.  They were always telling me they wanted short hair.  But I have it in my head that little girls should have long hair, I guess because I always had long hair.  Finally, I went for it and cut their hair myself.  The girls were so excited, I was so scared.  But the haircuts turned out great, and the girls look adorable!  And it is a little easier to take care of.  Here they are a couple days after the cuts.

A couple weeks ago I drove an older lady to the temple and the kids and I walked around while she was inside.  Daniel had the most fun with this statue that had a dad. 

There were some statues out of Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, and lambs, which Amelia loved the best.

Family | No Comments »

Family | 3 Comments »