Another Christmas in the Books

Or on the blogs, as it were.

This Christmas season has seemed particularly whirlwindy. But now that all the presents have been wrapped, opened, exclaimed over (or not), and put in a pile in each person's bedroom, I can say that this Christmas has been a very very nice one.  Once again it's been a homey Christmas and we've spent a lot of time just hanging out enjoying each other, and I like that. So nice to calm down a little and breathe.  Play a little Cribbage (Forrest's gift to the family -- once I got over having to do math fast in my head, I've been enjoying it). Watch some movies. Read. Get the kids some Tylenol. (Jonas started getting sick Christmas day, and now Wyatt and Elise are down. I'm washing my hands and hoping.)

I don't have very many good pictures this year. The light was bad or something. But not-so-good pictures are better than no pictures at all, right? So here goes.

First, the traditional shrimp-n-mac-n-cheese Christmas Eve dinner. Sorry so blurry. I tried to take a picture with the flash off and my focusing skills were thrown all off. The candles are pretty though, aren't they?

And the nativity! The kids were in charge of the nativity this year, hence the lack of costuming. Although Elise is dressed in black and looks like a stage crew techie (albeit a cute one), she is in fact an angel announcing Jesus' birth to our one costumed actor.

And yes, he was sore afraid. Told you he was a costumed actor (emphasis on the actor).

Neither Ethan nor Jonas wanted to dress up OR act anything out, so instead they took turns narrating.

And here they are, taking a bow, although it appears Ethan was refusing to bow. You can also see a nice shot of Forrest's toes.

The Forrest and Elise sang "White Christmas" and "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear." It was beautiful. I wish I would have recorded it.

Jonas got this puzzle ball from Grandma Sweat and worked on it for a couple of hours, getting himself juuuust to the point where he'd finish it and then having to start over again.

Wyatt with his books from Grandma Sweat. The Human Body book is especially cool (and kinda gross, which he likes).

Before herding the kids to bed, Wyatt decided he wanted to dictate a letter to Santa. Here it is, written by Wyatt in his 5-year-old glory, word for word as he gave it to me:

"Dear Santa, This your lovely Wyatt  from Minnesota. If you write a letter back I will know that you are Santa. I am just making sure. Thank you! Love, Wyatt."

Wyatt was very happy to see that Santa did, in fact, write him back.

The traditional "top-o-the-stairs" pic.

Elise unrolling a poster of her favorite band, Shinee. They're Korean. (Of course!) South Korean. (Of course!) I'm reading a book about North Korea right now and that place is all kinds of crazy. It's like a dystopian novel but it's REAL. Anyway, Elise loves Shinee, and thanks to the Internets, I was able to procure a poster and have it mailed to me from somewhere in Asia. Got here on time!

Ethan showing off his four slot toaster. Because what 16 year old boy wouldn't want a four slot toaster? How else are you going to make two egg-and-cheese sandwiches simultaneously?

Wyatt showing off his Angry Birds head blanket (his name) and a knobby ball I found at Target, left in the checkout line by the little boy in front of me after his mom refused to buy it. We had a knobby BLUE ball that Wyatt had accidentally popped a few weeks back, a cause of much weeping, so this was a nice impulse buy. Although I think the mom of the kid ahead of me in line was ticked because I heard her kid whining, "So why will THAT mom by the new ball and not you?" as she wheeled him out of the store.

Elise posing with her miniature Pony set (because lots of Freshman girls like South Korean boy bands and My Little Pony. It's a thing. Really!)  And in her left hand she's holding the gift that's making her beam from ear to ear: her new iPhone. The gift actually isn't as exorbitant as it sounds. Long story short, we added Jonas to our plan and got a free phone (iPhone 4, though, not 4s or 5), then another line was due for an upgrade and we got ANOTHER free phone, so both Ethan and Elise got iPhones. Jonas got Ethan's old one. (Merry Christmas! :-). He was fine with it, though: not old enough for a smart phone yet. He was just happy to have a phone to call his own.

Ethan's phone. This was a big surprise for him, too. A few weeks back he'd dropped his iPod Touch on the hard ceramic tile of the temple dressing room while changing for baptisms and shattered the screen. After looking it over, it was deemed unfixable by the resident tech kid in Priests' quorum. Surprisingly, Ethan hadn't even asked for a new iTouch and getting an iPhone wasn't anywhere on his radar. So, yeah, a good surprise. He did ask for a rat, though, which we did not get him, although my friend Brooke found a stuffed rat at Ikea and bought it for me to give to him as a consolation rat. When he open the stuffed rat he said, "I'm kind of glad that you didn't get me the rat. It makes me feel good when you don't give me everything I ask for." His is a complicated psyche.

Jonas is holding a Sonic Screwdriver, an item that any Dr. Who fan would recognize. He also got a stuffed Dalek (another Dr. Who item, a robot guy of some kind?) and a Dr. Who shirt that reads, "Rule Number One: The Dr. Lies." Thanks to Netflix, Jonas has become something of a Dr. Who specialist and spent a couple of hours Christmas night coughing, feverish, and watching the Dr. Who Christmas special on the BBC.

And finally, below, a picture of Ethan's lovingly made Christmas card to both of his parents (unsigned). Made me smile.

 Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We miss you.

A Photo Catch-Up Post, In Reverse Chronological Order

So I still have 30 papers left to grade and I'm hoping to be finished by Friday night. Still, I can't just grade, grade, grade. Gotta take a break and blog. Plus I have some great photos to share, some of them extending all the way back to Thanksgiving, and before we know it Christmas will be upon us and I'll have a whole NEW slew of photos to share. So here we go -- starting with the most recent. Today! Wyatt's Kindergarten Christmas party. The whole entire Kindergarten celebrates together, and it was so much fun to watch these kids skipping and dancing down the halls. They even had a karaoke station. It was awesome.

Here's Wyatt with his quintessentially young/cute/blonde/sweet Kindergarten teacher:

Isn't that the best face painting job ever? (They had me on the coloring pages station. I think you had to audition to do the face painting.)

Elise also had the East Ridge choir/band/orchestra concert, and she's been having a great time singing with her women's carolers group too. So far they've hit a retirement home and Sam's Club (twice!), and they have a few more gigs still to come. She looks beautimous in her long black dress. That I haven't hemmed yet.

Wyatt's also spent a lot of time playing with the Red Solo Cups grandma turned from receptacles for drinking to toys for stacking when they were here for Thanksgiving. Here's one of his best creations, completed while I was upstairs on my elliptical machine before school started.

We've also had a little Christmas cheer. Like sugar cookies! I love sugar cookies, which is one reason it's problematic for me to make them. You know how the Pringles people say you can't eat just one? (Or is that the Lays people?) For me it's the sugar cookies; especially homemade ones. Here's Wyatt and Jonas showing off their frosting skillz:

It's a good thing that I took 30 of these bad boys to seminary tonight for our class Christmas party. They were devoured. One kid had five cookies on his plate and I said (semi-coercively), "Wow! That's a lot of cookies you have there!" And he said, "Yup," and proceeded to sit down and eat all of them.

By the way, I love my home study seminary class. Although I loved my early morning class too, it was a "you challenge me, and I love you because of it" kind of experience. They were all good kids, but the early hour, plus a few personalities, plus the every dayness of it contributed to help make a vibrant classroom experience pretty tough to pull off. My home study kids, though, actually listen and discuss and have restored my faith that it is in fact possible to have gospel discussions with teenagers. Anyway -- back to pictures!

I also have some WONDERFUL pictures of the musical that were taken by a professional photographer. (I bought the CD.) The only bad thing--sad sad SAD thing-- is that Elise missed ONE rehearsal, and it happened to be the one where they took these pictures. I can't believe it. So I have professional pictures of Ethan, but not Elise. At least I got a couple of shots of her afterward. Anyway, here are some great pictures of Ethan as Ralph Sheldrake, army buddy to Bob and Phil turned producer at the Ed Sullivan show.

Ethan delivered the first line of the show. (He also figured out how to hide his mic pack after this dress rehearsal.)

I love this picture. Who would have thought I'd ever see Ethan singing on stage??

Soldier-turned-producer, working the phones.

The whole cast in the finale

Ethan, taking his bow

Ethan, looking tall

Another shot of the cast. See that hole next to the two girls in the back? Elise should be standing there. Sigh.

Ethan ended up getting an award from the Spotlight Awards, a state-sponsored award given by a professional theater group in Minneapolis for all high school musicals. He got an honorable mention for "featured performance," which is awesome. Also, East Ridge was one of five high schools in the Twin Cities who scored high enough to perform during the Spotlight showcase  this spring. The whole cast was stoked.

Oh! And Ethan also got a 31 on his practice ACT. AND he scored in the 99th percentile on his PSAT, which will probably qualify him for National Merit Semifinalists status. It's been a good couple of weeks for Ethan.

Finally, here are a few pics all the way back from Thanksgiving that deserve a blog spot:

Wyatt, looking blue eyed and handsome with his homemade turkey

Grandma, showing off her ginormous Pepsi as we waited for The LIfe of Pi to start. (Grandma isn't one to drink ginormous Pepsis very often. Hence the picture.)

The Mall of America, Black Friday. Grandma loved the lights so much she made me take a picture.

Everybody but me at the James J. Hill House, a cool old mansion owned by a curmudgeonly industrialist at the turn of the 20th century. And I say "everybody but me" because I managed to get Forrest and Grandpa in the mirror.

Outside the James J. Hill House. It's so big you can really only get a shot of the entrance.

And now I'm caught up! Wyatt is beside me, snoring like an old man, and everybody else is waiting for me downstairs so we can pray and hit the sack. Next up: Christmas!

White Christmas

Today is the first big blizzard of the winter of 2012-2013. It's also the last day of the run of East Ridge High's production of White Christmas. It's been such a wonderful show; the best musical I've seen at East Ridge. In fact, it's one of the best high school productions I've ever seen. This isn't just my motherly opinion, either -- lots of people who've seen the show feel the same way. I think it's the combination of Christmas, patriotism, familiar music, and a bunch of really talented kids that do it. Both Ethan and Elise did a fantastic job. I'll be getting a CD with professional pictures of the show itself soon (we're not allowed to take pictures), but here are a few I shot after the show:

Elise looking lovely

Elise and her Dad. Think they're related?

Ethan and Elise post-show

Lookin good!

 I also got a few shots of Ethan with his friends. Elise had already scampered backstage to change.

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Ethan and Evan, a great kid in our ward who's also taking my class at Inver Hills.

I wish all of you could have seen the show!

In other news, we also sold the Mazda and bought car #3, the official "kid car." Forrest has always had a thing for Jeeps and we got a great deal on this one, a 2005 Liberty. It will be a nice safe car for the kids to tool around in.

And now the blizzard! It's snowing like crazy outside. So crazy that I guess the Weather Channel named it Winter Storm Caesar. (Seriously.) Of course Wyatt had to go outside immediately and sled down our backyard hill.

Dad is such a trooper, always willing to get the gear on and be the official sledding attendant.

And he's off!

See? White Christmas!

Forrest popped his head in the door and asked Jonas if he wanted to come out and sled too. He was happily curled up in front of the fire and asked me plaintively, "Do I have to? It's cold out there!" Since I vividly remember actively disliking sledding as a child (so cold! so wet! and a little scary, frankly!) I gave him a pass.  Besides, doesn't he look comfy?

And now I have to go make 2 dozen chocolate chip cookies for the cast party tonight. Next week is my last week of class and I have to get grades done before Dec. 23, not to mention all the other Christmas-related craziness that descends upon every family this time of year, but it's all good. It's been a fun holiday season so far. Hope you're all snuggly and warm and get to enjoy a little Christmas snow yourselves this year!