Rebecca spent the first two days of this week at home with a cold, pair that with the two days last week kids were home sick and our one snow day and you're looking at a mom who hasn't left the house in ages to do anything remotely close to preparing for Christmas. GR did get the tree up Monday night, but that's the extent of it here ... it's up, not decorated and two sets of branches are refusing to light ... grrrrr!.
But the boys spent a couple of hours with Grandma, Grandpa and Grandpa's son Jeff this morning which was a huge help because it meant I was able to get the Christmas package for my SIL and family wrapped up, boxed up and mailed out in time for it to arrive for Christmas. I upload a picture to my Flickr account of the tutu's I made for my nieces. They turned out so cute!
Every year, I make grand, elaborate, totally unrealistic lists of things I want to make as gifts for more of a "hand made" Christmas, but alas, each year, I'm able to only pull off one or two projects. So far they've been fun and successful projects, but still, I really wish I could think of all the others in JULY instead of at the end of November, so I'd have a fighting chance at accomplishing a few more!
This afternoon the boys and I went up to the school for a special 1st and 2nd grade assembly in their Pod. It's close to the end of the month and time for the teachers to award the Character awards to students in their classes. This time Rebecca was awarded the RESPECT award. Here's what her teacher had to say about Rebecca and why she was given this award:
"She works to be a good role model for her class. She appreciates the talents of others and is always ready to praise others for their accomplishments."
We are incredibly proud of her for her and Emily both for being such great students and friend to her classmates. And as you can see, she was very surprised and thrilled to get this award!
We are still a live, and while tempted, I have not given up on staying with this blog and seeing it through it's fourth year. Let me just say that while December has some wonderful memories - which I will be blogging about in the coming days - it was a long, stressful month that I am grateful to close the books on, an not look back. So here's to highlighting the good, the fun, the memorable! (written 1/7/08)
When we last left the super six, boss number 2 was busy in the kitchen cooking up a storm in preparation for the Ward Christmas Party that night AND her Christmas Brunch the next morning...
The Christmas Party was really nice, and well attended but not crowded. And the three older ones were asked to participate in a Nativity Play that was really cute. I got pictures of all the kids dressed up in their costumes from a friend. I remembered at 5:30 they were suppose to have costumes for something that night, and after a couple of quick phone calls got to work pulling together two animal costumes and a shepherd ... one shirt and two pull overs from our closet, a horse/donkey mask from the dress up drawer, a some quickly sewn scraps from the sewing room, and we had our three costumes that didn't look half bad ... considering.
GR had a number of families get their family pictures taken, keeping him busy most of the evening. He was really pleased with how well all of them had turned out, making Saturday morning that much more painful. We lost all of the images Saturday - without even so much as a full size viewing of them all - due to a massive memory card failure. That 6G memory card had captured ~30,000+ pictures in it's lifetime and from now on we will be replacing our memory cards on a yearly basis. Thankfully, all the pictures lost were totally replaceable - they weren't "in the moment" captures that couldn't be recreated. He set everything up again Wednesday night and retook most of the pictures he'd taken Friday night, again capturing some really great shots!
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The brunch was a fantastic success. The 7 inches of snow that was suppose to dump on us during the night waited to come until Saturday morning and continued all through the brunch. The steady constant falling of the snow outside at Diane's country home, really added to the spirit and ambiance of the morning. The food was fantastic as always, and the company was even better.
Diane started her Christmas brunch when her kids where small as a chance for her and other friends with young children to get together and catch up during the busy winter months. It quickly grew to a guest list of over 100. It was considered THE social event to be invited to, and women would get very concerned if the didn't get their invitation in the mail for fear they'd be dropped from the list. A few years after she moved here, we started it up and rotate the location - her house or mine. It's still an opportunity to catch up with old and new dear friends, but also a chance to thank the important women in our lives and let them know how much we love and appreciate their association in our lives during the year. It's a lot of work, but well worth it.
Oh and one of the best surprises of all didn't arrive until late morning when most of our guests had gone home, my sweet sisters arose early in the morning and braved hours of treacherous snowy highways to spend the afternoon with me and my kiddos! It was so great to have them come and visit and play with my kids. It totally made their day!
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Sunday afternoon was Sam's Christmas Sing-Along at Preschool. This is by far one of our favorite events of the season. The kids work so hard on their songs, dress in their Sunday best, and beam from ear to ear as they sing their hearts out!
Sam was the first little kid on the stage and sang every word of every song. He's such a good little singer.
Last Saturday he was invited to a birthday party for a little girl in his preschool class. The party had a high tea theme, and so I encouraged him to dress up - at least a little bit ... black slacks, white polo shirt, gray sweater vest ... He's an option kid, and so I also set out chinos and a blue blazer he could wear instead. He comes out of his room holding a suit I purchased for him at a rummage sale over a year before, and announced he was going to wear his suit. I wasn't even sure it fit, but I couldn't talk him out of wearing it.
When Sam came downstairs dressed in black loafers, black suit (that looked like it was made just for him), white shirt and blue and red striped tie, GR nearly dropped his teeth. He looked so good and so cute! Of course when I picked him up from the party, like every good boy, his tie & jacket were off and his shirt untucked, but he still looked just as sharp in his suit.
