We've had ALL the holidays since I blogged. I shall take them in turn.
HALLOWEEN
There were a lot of Halloween parties this year. Drew took the kids to an Intel Halloween party on a night that I had Messiah practice so I don't have pictures of that one. Puesta del Sol Elementary also had a Halloween carnival. I had to donate cakes for the cake walk. They were very sugary.
The library transformed into a haunted house and they had parents running photos in front of a green screen outside. We didn't buy enough tickets for us all to go through the library, so we sent Vivs, Rafe, and Annie in by themselves (muahahaha) then all took a picture after.
They woke up the morning after the party and settled right into eating their candy while I made breakfast (that no one ate).
We did a little Dia de Los Muertos celebration for family night that week. I printed out tiny pictures of everyone in our family, the kids' grandparents, and great grandparents. Genetics are so interesting!
I am missing Mark and Paula's groupings from my phone for some reason. Maybe next year I will have figured out how I want to do my visual family tree...still puzzling over that one.
We also carved pumpkins. I tried to stay with the Dia de Los Muertos theme. Drew had the kids draw a picture and then carved their work for them again, which is always a big success. There's a picture further down.
Rafe was Spiderman for the Intel party, the school party, and Halloween day at school.
He has a friend in his class that's Hispanic and on the pudgy side, and when they saw each other at the school event and greeted each other playfully I was reminded of this pair:
Vivien was Lucy Pevensee for the first couple fancy dress things, but by the time Trick-or-Treating came around they were all sick of their costumes. Drew painted some vampire fangs on Vivien's face. I didn't get a closeup but they were quite good. Ocean (as Jo Jo Siwa--YouTube personality or something?) came with us.
Here are the pumpkins and trick-or-treaters.
Rafe ditched the Spiderman costume and went as a knight, which Drew found offensively lame.
Here's Merrick crying the day after because I am not "turning on" Rafe's glowstick sword for him.
Annie went as Elsa.
Merrick went as a monkey. This costume as gotten a lot of good use on Halloween. Thanks Tracy Landry!
THANKSGIVING
We drove down to Ruidoso Wednesday night for Thanksgiving, leaving much later than we planned, as usual. The Kirkhams performed feats of great space usage and somehow found beds for everyone.
In the morning we had tasty breakfast together...
...then it was cooking time. The men took the kids down to the park for awhile before firing up the smoker for Casey's turkey masterpiece, involving such things as oranges and jalapenos. He doesn't mess around.
I had brought my favorite green bean bacon bundles ready to roast, a big bowl of roll dough that exploded overnight, a lot of butter and some potatoes, spinach salad stuff, and a cheesecake that was gifted to me by Leo who had gotten it from the casino--that's a fun rhyme!
Heather let me putter around her kitchen helping her create her masterpieces.
Merrick guarded the pies.
And maybe stuck in his thumb.
Not only did Heather host and cook, but she had fun crafts for the kids to do as well. Note Anya and all her pink.
Little hands busy with feathers instead of pies.
Pip and Holly were reluctant companions and had to be separated most of the time. He was still such a puppy he spent most of his time sleeping.
Ta da! Food time.
Look at these fun pumpkin plates piled high with goodness!
The next day we went for a refreshing walk along the river. A member of the community has made little fairy doors and hidden them along the trail to find.
Like so:
The kids had a great time searching for fairies.
Pip was more interested in deer.
I love Ponderosa pines and their puzzle-piece bark. When it was time for us to go, Rebecca came up to me and said, "Aunt Sabrina, are you leaving..." Yes was forming on my lips when she unexpectedly finished her question: "...the pie?" She was very pleased when I went ahead and let that half-said yes the rest of the way out, along with a chuckle. It's so fun to be an aunty!
CHRISTMAS
I love that BYU broadcasts their concerts so I can watch Colette and my amazing cousins in their Christmas concert from my couch while my kids take a bath.
We got a fake tree, which I managed not to take a single picture of somehow. It needed some new ornaments, so we did some crafting this year. We beaded icicles, tied some ribbon Christmas trees, painted some popsicle-stick sleds, and I made a really beautiful thing out of some old music. We'll see them again next year.
I also put up our Christmas lights. We didn't have a step ladder yet, so I was using an old IKEA dining chair. It collapsed underneath me when I went up on tiptoes to hang the ones over the garage and I had to roll out onto my driveway amid the splintered wreckage. My neighbor had just pulled up from work right as it happened, but luckily was looking the other direction so she didn't see. I probably could've played it off like nothing happened, but she came over to visit for a bit and I was still breathing so hard I had to tell her!
The kids had their first round of Sunshine Generation concerts. I bribed the children to perform well with candy. They both wanted Kinder Joy's. For some reason Kinder Joy is like the stupidest name for a candy to me in the history of candy. It makes me want to say it in the most demeaning tone of voice I'm capable of, haha. I'm not sure why. But, they performed well!
Vivien's line:
And Rafie's dance solo around :48
There was a Sunshine party with a gift exchange. The kids had gotten into my room and seen some of their presents, so I made them take those. So evil!
We had our Stake Messiah performance. It went better than I was expecting. I don't know if I can do it with them again though. Too frustrating when the conductor and organist don't count! The distinction between triplets and dotted quarters with a sixteenth is very important to me. I enjoyed our friend sing-along a the Richardsons though; they set up a bunch of chairs in their family room, handed out scores, then blasted a recording to sing along with. We only did the chorus numbers, then we ate a lot of desserts. It was the same night as the Woods' Christmas party, that I sent in a video for:
We also had the stake's Nativity Celebration. I took my knitted set.
It was such a cool event! So many different scenes from all over the world. This was a favorite:
They had them all set up in the auditorium, then there was live music all day Saturday in the chapel. My friend Bo and I took a half hour each. I played my penny-whistle and my cello in front of an audience. I am so used to performing on violin and piano, it's hard to be a newbie again on the other instruments.
Bo and I also played Sheep May Safely Graze. I liked the arrangement so much I got it for Mommy for Christmas, with a joke to go along.
The kindergarteners at Puesta got to do a fun Christmas around the world day at school that Rafe really liked.
I spent a good deal of December knitting, because I am a terrible procrastinator.
This is how much of Sarah's sweater I had done by Christmas. "It's not very good, is it?"
We drove down to Ruidoso on the 23rd. I was sick all Christmas Eve day (my 3rd bout of intestinal distress since I started working..."I'm falling apart!"), so I mostly laid on the couch and knitted, but there was lots of movie watching and playing with cousins and puzzle doing and general merriment. For Christmas Eve the Kirkhams do a no-manners Medieval Dinner, a piñata, recite the Living Christ, read the Christmas story from Luke 2, and play games. This one where they split into teams of two and had to be the first to wrap a whole roll of streamers around their partner was funny.
In the morning we opened presents and ate breakfast. Then Grace and I started a game of wizard's chess that went a whole lot faster when Casey started giving helpful hints (I lost as spectacularly as Harry does to Ron).
Then we hurried home because we'd left all our presents under the tree. I got a beautiful coat from Paula and a brand new iPhone Excess from Drew and aaaaaaaaall the Poldark books from my Mommy.
Drew got a drumset. He was pretty happy about that, though it's been a challenge to keep the kids away from it. I was trying to take a nap before work the other day and couldn't block out the thumping--I came out to investigate and found Vivien with the headphones on looking exactly like Animal from the Muppets.
Then Merrick was crying, because he hadn't slept all night and had slept fitfully in the car, and Rafe was whining because he didn't have as many presents as everyone else, and Annie was crying because the unwrapping was all over, except Vivien had one more special present tucked away for her that turned out to be some blank pieces of paper stapled together into a "coloring book" along with some play money and a couple of woodchips that Annie was not impressed with and hurled across the room, so then Vivien was crying too. And my couch was full of unfolded laundry. Jesus would not have been impressed.
I think that's all I want to say about the holidays last year. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed after that last video!
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