Tra La La La!!!!

December was a month of lots of Christmas concerts. Concordia has a different concert every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for the first 3 weeks of December. I was privileged to go to the first one and some in between and the last. I felt like I was there all the time. The good thing was that they didn't go too long and they were all quite entertaining!!! Heidi and Meagan started it off with a choir concert. They go to choir early before school on Wednesdays and love it. (except getting up extra early)

Then Heidi had her band concert. Her band director said the 5th grade band was the best balanced band between woodwinds and brass instruments he had ever had. I was amazed at how many students were in the band. Then the next week we went to Emma's musical play called "Grandma's Visit".

It was the entire 2nd grade and cute even if Emma was still such a social butterfly that she talked to her friends all the time. We got a little embarassed but we made it through. Then lastly we went to Eric's performance on the last night where he sang his heart out.

All in all it was a fun month of Christmas concerts.

Gingerbread houses

We got invited to a friend's house for their annual Christmas/Gingerbread house decorating party. We had a great time and all the kids had a blast making gingerbread houses. They even had a table for the teenagers,

the middle kids

and the little kids. We were amazed at how creative all the kids were. We saw some amazing houses!!!

Sugar Cookies!!!

The kids had a half day of school so I thought it would be fun to let them each invite one friend over to cut out sugar cookies and then decorate them. The kids were excited and each of them had a friend in mind to invite. The invites went out and wow!!!! We had a few extra kids want to come! Meagan ended up having 2 friends and so did Heidi. Luckily they were the older kids and I didn't need to help them much. I wish I could say they were easier but Heidi's friends made the biggest mess. They wanted to start a flour fight inside and even with an ayi to help I didn't want that mess. I told them to take it outside so they did and they came back in looking like ghosts!!! Eric and his friend Lauren were the best to listen and help. Emma and her friend CJ just wanted to be little bakers and make the best cookies ever. Meagan's friends had a blast decorating with such precision that you would have thought they were professionals. All in all we had a great time with not too much mess but I was definitely grateful for our ayi's help cleaning up everything when we were done. She is awesome!!

Decorating the Christmas Tree!!!

This year we decorated our tree the earliest we have ever done it.  We did it on Thanksgiving day.  The kids had a half day of school and David had to work the whole day so we didn't have a big Thanksgiving dinner on the actual day.  I thought it would be fun to decorate a tree. I went to Metro (like a Costco) a few days before and picked out an artificial tree that wasn't too expensive but didn't look like a "Charlie Brown" tree.  

We put it up and David put on the lights while we strung popcorn for our garland.  Our Ayi wanted to help us string the popcorn so she sat down with us and did it.  She was very fast and we are grateful for her help or we wouldn't have as much on our tree as we do.

 The kids all had a fun time putting the popcorn through the needle and pulling it down on the thread.  Unfortunately they forgot to hold the thread by the needle and unthreaded it several times.  We also made candy canes out of red and white beads and 2 pieces of pipe cleaner wrapped around each other.  I bought a few ornaments also to put on the tree.

 We had a great time decorating the tree while watching our favorite church Christmas movies--"Mr. Krueger's Christmas" and "Nora's Christmas Gift".

Meagan was happy that the tree wasn't too tall because she got to put the star on the top of the tree! Living in China has helped us to remember we don't need to have a lot of things to have a fun holiday season.  The kids colored pictures and then cut them out and pasted them on colored paper and hung them all over the walls.  Heidi pasted together several sheets of green paper and cut out the shape of a giant Christmas tree and then colored and cut out paper to make lots of fun ornaments to put on her paper tree.  She even put white snow on the branches.  It looks great! (Look in the background of the picture of the kids stringing popcorn and you can see the bottom half of the tree Heidi made)  Eric was playing with his Polar Express train that he got last year and the girls asked if we could put that under the tree to go around it just like we have in America.

Eric loved the idea and so now his train is around the Christmas tree.  I was able to find chocolate advent calendars here and the kids love getting their new chocolate every morning, in fact it has been a great motivator to get them up and dressed for school before they can eat it.  Hope your holiday preparations are going well also!!!!

Piano Recital

Hiyo, guest blogger is back.  Tai tai Tracey (that means "wife" in Chinese, literally it means "too, too" or "excessive, excessive"-- you can tell Chinese was invented by men) had a long, busy day helping 4 children and their friends make sugar cookies all afternoon, so she started this post, couldn't get the pictures to upload, told me to make it work and went to bed.  So there you go.   For today's entry, titled "Piano Recital," we'll play a new game-- "Old fashioned slide show in the living room, narrated by Dad."

OK, imagine the whirr of the fan, the lights darken and the bulb comes on... the corded remote control button is pressed, and:

KA-KLICK!

"Now here's Heidi sitting at the piano bench.  We had a piano bench like that when I was a kid.  It broke when Aunt Wanda tripped over it one year and Uncle Vernon tried to fix it but he could never fix a dang thing.  Anyway, as I recall Heidi played some Christmas songs like "Joy to the World."  She did pretty good.  Hmmm... yeah, this must have been at Christmastime because you can clearly see a decorated Christmas tree next to the piano.  Moving on..."

KA-KLICK!

"OK, now, here's Meagan at the piano.  I'm pretty sure she played a Christmas song too.  I think it was that one that does dum-da-da-dum, dum-da-da-dum, dum-da-da-dum, dum-da-da-dum... can't think of the name..."

(everyone else) "CAROL OF THE BELLS!"

"...right, Carol of the Bells.  That's a pretty good song.  I like it when they play it on the radio... with bells and all... reminds me of the church bells they had in the tabernacle downtown when I was a kid.  Aunt Wanda probably broke those too..."

"MOVING ON..."

KA-KLICK!

"OK, here's Emma.  I think she was 8 when we took this picture.  It may even have been the same day she got baptized.  Oh yeah, it's definitely Christmas time.  You can see the little Santa decoration on the left side of the picture.  Anyway, Emma must have played a duet with the teacher.  Can't think why else she'd be sitting next to her at a recital.  I think it was the "Up on the Rooftop.."

"HOUSETOP"

"..Housetop click click click song.  She did a good job.  Hmm, let's see... not much else to say about this one..."

KA-KLICK!

"OK, now here she is doing a song without the teacher.  That's good, you can see her better now .  I don't think this one was a Christmas song.  Oh look, you get a much better view of the little Santa decoration in this shot.  I think it's sitting on aspeaker.  There's a TV further left there but I didn't really get it in this shot.  I remember Uncle Vernon's old black and white that only picked up Channel 4 if Aunt Wanda grabbed the antenna with one hand and raised her other arm in the air.  Now you have to remember this was before the days of "Secret" and "Dry Idea."  We didn't watch Channel 4 too much as I recall..."

KA-KLICK!

"Hmm... I guess that was the last slide.  Wow, that was a short roll..."

LIGHTS UP.  TIME FOR CAKE.  GUEST BLOGGER SIGNING OFF.

Emma's Baptism!!!!

Saturday December 6th was a gorgeous looking, sunny looking, but very cold day.

 We got up and shipped the 3 girls that we had been hosting for a competition at the school out the door and then quickly left ourselves.  We arrived at the baptism 10 minutes before the start and Mom didn't even get too upset because she knew they couldn't start without the guest of honor EMMA!!! The Baptismal service was at our friend's home the Butters.  They graciously opened up their home and filled their master bathtub with warm water for us and all our friends in the Branch.

 Emma had asked Sister Butters to give the talk on "Baptism" and Meagan to give the talk on "The Holy Ghost".  Heidi played a musical number on the piano and Eric gave the opening prayer.  Dad performed the baptism and the confirmation.  And mom lead the music and gave the Primary President's message.

 Everyone did a great job on everything.  Then when it was over we had a lunch with BBQ pork sandwiches, chips, salads and fruit.  And 12 dozen cookies.  Emma was absolutely beautiful in her baptism dress that her Grandma Lawson made for her and the day was absolutely perfect!!

Even when dad had to use his knee to get all of Emma's clothes completely immersed!