January

On January 2nd, since Tony was off for the New Year's holiday, we went to the Kaysville Theater and saw Puss in Boots for just $2 each.

After the movie, we fed the ducks at the Syracuse pond. New Year's Day is one of the most boring holidays in my opinion, but this year we had fun!

On Saturday the 7th the kids played in the little bit of snow we got and then came in for some hot chocolate.

We ate our favorite dinner--teriyaki chicken and steak from Mo' Bettah Steaks!

On the 10th I volunteered to help with Dibels testing at the school again. Christian was such a great helper! He read books, played with his iPod, and then hid in the library playing a game of "sneaking up on Mom." We were there for over four hours! My Buddy's such a volunteering trooper.

On the 11th the kids got a hold of my camera again. This time it's crazy pictures with sugar snap peas! We get them fresh in little bags near the salad and they are the most delicious, healthy treat! And apparently tons of fun, as well!!

 Here's our Lowe's craft from the 14th: a castle!

That day, after enjoying some shoestring licorice Lady and the Tramp style,

we ate lunch at Chick-fil-A,

then went to play at Boondocks. We did a round of mini-golf,

said "Hi" to the mascot,

bowled two games, ate slushies, played at the arcade and picked out awesome prizes! What a fun day!

The 16th was Martin Luther King Jr. Day so to celebrate I made a special breakfast of Rice Krispies cereal with chocolate milk (for the bringing together of different skin tones??) I try to celebrate for each holiday, but I think this was an epic fail :) Better luck next year!

Here is some of Buddy's artwork from preschool:

For this, his teacher asked the kids to draw something that happened at Christmastime and then dictate a story to her, which she wrote down word for word.

"Santa came and brang an iPod. He didn't bring us anything else. He ate part of the cookies. We bet he can't drink anything else! He only ate part of the cookie. We left the reindeer eight carrots. We waked up. Faith waked me up. We got to see what we had. We waited until six o'clock. And then we waked mom and dad up. And Santa bringed us a note. It said, "You could be a lot more good so you better watch out!" 

Uh, I think Santa's actual note said that he's proud of them but they should work on getting along with each other and minding mom & dad :)

I love this artwork and how Christian loves to copy what Faith draws. Hers is on the left--a darling Santa bringing gifts. I guess Christian noticed that there was a fire in the fireplace, so he drew Santa with his bum on fire. LOVE IT!! Also, I guess this scared the cat, Dusty, because he's on the ceiling in Buddy's picture :)

On the 20th we had some crafts planned to do with friends, but they forgot so it was just the three of us. Here are our snowmen treats out of mini powdered donuts:

and our awesome Chinese new year dragons! Buddy's is on the top left, Faith's on the bottom left, and mine is the crazy "pride parade rainbow" one on the right.

More of Christian's artwork from preschool: he's so good at snowflakes!

On the

Here is Faith's Bikini Bottom (SpongeBob's city) picture:

and here is Christians:

They're both so great!

 On the 26th we were in the mood for some clam chowder, so I made some of the delicious stuff

and I made cheesy biscuits (like the Red Lobster ones) to go with it. I didn't have any Bisquick, so I made my own mix and they came out extra crumbly. I'll try these next time and make sure to get some Bisquick. No, I don't eat bread, but I did have a small taste.

On the 27th Ann brought her kids over for our "Snow and Groundhog Celebration." Faith made signs for some really fun games.

After games, we made groundhog snacks out of Little Debbie heart cakes.

(Faith made a vampire one, go figure.)

The Lowe's project on the 28th was dinosaurs. They came with two different sets of stickers, so the kids each did different ones.

 On the 30th Christian made this great sculpture of a panda climbing bamboo out of Sculpey.

It didn't quite hold up when it was baked, but I'll still have to get a picture of the final product after he fixed and painted it. Such great detail for a five year old's work!

Proud mama

I had so many pictures of the kids' artwork and projects this fall that I thought I'd just do a full post on it. First up is a fall tree picture that Christian made at preschool in October. His teacher had the pasta (that is leaf and pumpkin shaped) set out with some half-sheet card stock and glue. The other kids just dumped a bunch of glue on the page and stuck the pasta into it. Christian asked for a full sheet of light blue construction paper and went to work while Miss Kelly and I were helping other kids. When he came over to ask for some cotton balls, Kelly noticed what he was making. She told me that he inspired her so much because of his artistic talent! I love that he has his own ideas and is so creative that he knew he wanted to make a tree with falling leaves, pumpkins on the ground, and clouds in the sky--and then did it!

These are some Halloween pictures that Buddy drew for me while I we were at a PTA board meeting. They say "C MOM" because that means "from Christian, to Mom." Here's a witch:

vampire killing someone and their blood coming out:

mummy:

One Saturday morning I had made Belgian waffles for breakfast and then I froze the leftovers. About a week later Christian wanted one for lunch, but he wanted to "make it myself." He figured it out, mostly on his own, and was so impressed with himself that he wrote out an instruction "recipe card" for us to keep. He dictated what he wanted me to write on the bottom:
Directions for making cinnamon waffles. Step 1 - get the waffle out of the freezer and break it in half. Step 2 - put it in the toaster. Step 3 - remove from the toaster with oven mitts. Step 4 - put butter in microwave for 2 seconds, then 3 seconds to make it soft. Step 5 - put butter on the waffle. Step 6 - open the cabinet. Step 7 - get out the cinnamon sugar shaker. Step 8 - sprinkle on the cinnamon sugar. Step 9 - it's all done! (Then it has a colored picture of the finished product)

For a school assignment, Faith had to write about something she'd done over the summer and she chose the Utah Shakespeare Festival. I love her writing!!

She also made this witch in school.

Buddy made this "haunted house" in preschool. I love the windows that open and you can see that ghosts are inside.

 These next two are crafts Christian made at home with recycled cans. The first is a volcano (??) and the other one is two creatures.

 This is a vampire out of toilet paper roll. If you look closely you can see his bloody fangs!

 Hand and foot print turkey from preschool:

Faith's "cube" book report. This is a poem with specific elements directed by her teacher,

 and here is another side with a picture.

One day Christian saw that I was about to put this milk jug in the recycling bin. He strongly protested saying, "I could make something out of that!" Sure enough, he did. Entirely his own idea. (I think Faith helped by cutting out the nose and mouth.)

 Buddy put on some of my lip gloss and kissed the paper, then proceeded to make a vampire out of it.

 Here is a compilation of October artwork.

Faith made this at school: a vampiress. It was supposed to have moving eyes, but she didn't get around to cutting out the eye holes yet.

 Miss Kelly cut out cat shapes for the kids one day and Buddy decorated this darling cat.

 The toilet paper tube guy is a "scarecrow" that Christian made.

Some great books

I have read so many good books lately that I wanted to keep track of some of my recent favorites.

The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein

Told from the dog's point of view, it's the story of the dog, nearing the end of his life, and his owner, a race car driver living in Seattle. They believe the Mongolian legend that a dog who has learned all he can will be reincarnated in his next life as a human. He learns many things from his owner's passion for race car driving and relates them to life. There are some depressing things that happen in this book and I'm usually too sensitive to enjoy sad stories, but this one was so very good that I have to recommend it anyway. Rated PG-13.

The Help - Kathryn Stockett
This story is about African American maids during the early 1960s.  The main character realizes that they are treated very differently from how the white people are treated, so she decides to write a book about being a colored maid in Mississippi. Very well written and thought provoking. I'm looking forward to seeing the movie!

       
Divergent - Veronica Roth
Here's the blurb: In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.
Very exciting read!


Matched - Ally Condie
Is also a young adult fiction novel set in a dystopian future. Here, couples are given what they eat, put into a profession, and even matched to their future spouses by the government. The main character, against all odds, is matched to her childhood best friend, but when she views his information microchip also sees another boy's face flash on the screen for just an instant. This causes her to consider the unthinkable: rebelling against the predetermined life The Society has in store for her. LOVED IT!


        
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows
This book is written as a collection of letters. The main character is a writer living in London after World War II. By chance, she receives a letter from someone who lives on Guernsey, one of the Channel islands between England and France which was under German occupation during the war. She begins to correspond with him and a group of his literary society members, falling in love with the people and the island itself. It took me awhile to get into this book, but the characters are so interesting and believable that I got sucked in to it and loved living in it's world. 


Of all these books, this is the one that I would strongly pressure everyone to read! It was so wonderful that I immediately set out to read everything by the author, who I found died before the story was even fully edited (thus the listing of two authors) :(  These characters still feel very real to me. I may have to just read it again!

Christmas Eve through New Year's

Faith came down with the stomach bug from Christian on the 23rd and by the 24th was still not up to participating in our Christmas Eve Extravaganza. Buddy chose to be a wise man this year with Alaura as Mary and Noah as Joseph.

Eric was the angel, way to rock that costume!

The kids woke up at 5:50 a.m. Christmas morning, but followed the rule and waited until 6 to get us up and start opening gifts and stockings.

Dusty got some toy mice from Santa!

The kids didn't have much to open because they both wanted an iPod Touch from Santa. We told them that they were way too expensive and the only way that could happen is if we sent all the money we were going to spend on presents to Santa Claus and all the money together would be enough. To our surprise, they both agreed to that! Well Santa surely came through:

But Tony couldn't help but overspend and get a family gift, as well--the Kinect system to go with our X-box (it reads your motion with a camera and it's like the Wii, but without using controllers) and some games for it.

After a few hours of playing with their ipods and eating a breakfast of bacon and eggs, we got ready for church.

After church we went to my mom & dad's where we were deluged with fun gifts.

Then to Braegger's for even more!!

Unfortunately, Tony started feeling sick and ended up with the stomach flu from the kids--terrible Christmas gift, by the way! We hurried home and got him to bed. While the kids played with their new stuff, I started the miniseries of Pillars of the Earth which I had recorded on our DVR a few weeks before.

Tony mostly slept through the episodes I watched that night, but the next day he really got into them and we watched all nine hours of it! It's a story, set in the 12th century, about the building of a cathedral in the fictional town of Kingsbridge, England and the soap opera of what goes on in the people's lives. We really enjoyed it!

Over the next few days Tony recuperated and I helped Buddy with some of his gross experiments from the "Doctor Dreadful Food Lab" toy he'd gotten from my mom. Here we had just made gummy bugs.

Tony was all better by New Year's Eve and we went to his mom & dad's to party! It was just our family + Zach this year over there with them, but we enjoyed our Chili's ribs just the same. We played lots of games (Faith's favorite being Catch Phrase), made lots of noise, and watched the ball drop.

Happy New Year!! We're all excited to see what 2012 brings.

I wanted to include pics of our ornaments for this year. We just started a few years ago getting a new ornament each year, but because of illness and just slacking, we didn't get one before Christmas. We went through the sale stuff at WalMart on January 5th and there wasn't much left that was any good, but I kind of liked this chapel ornament and it reminded me of our miniseries, so we got it.

The kids also wanted these doggy ones for their trees in remembrance of Crumpet.