Merry Christmas Morning

Merry Christmas to all! It's so fun to see the kids so excited--though they acted so silly and hyper sometimes that I had to practice the virtue of patience. We always have new PJs and this year we went homemade, by me, though I ran out of fabric for Chris and I, and the store ran out too, so we made do, but the shirts match "My Family Rocks". These pics may show the hyperactivity we experienced, though I was surprised that it was the 15-year old boy in this pic.

The big boys made breakfast, waffles and smoothies--though who puts protein powder in 'em on Christmas? Yuck--I had to make my own.

And more silliness going on-I couldn't get them to be still for a "nice" shot.And then they had to go nerdy--someday they will regret these photos, but it's all fun today!

Christmas is Coming!

If you have kids in school, then there's always special "Christmas Performances" of bands, choirs and symphonies. Now that I have relatives here, I get to go to there performances too. My niece is in a homeschool choir and below is her group--she's the dark one on the front row. It was cute.

However, I seriously loathe, despise, possibly hate, the cold weather and its been colder than normal this year--though today is in the 70's. It was national news but I'm finally sharing my story of the rare snowfall that hit Houston a few weeks ago. At first I was lamenting the fact that I promised to go to my neice's choir performance in Kingwood--45 minutes East, but I got a lot better snow experience that way. The snow really didn't stick in my neck of the woods, but it did in Kingwood for a short afternoon. Here's the pic while driving there. The whole time I'm like incredulous saying "I can't believe this! I can't believe it! This just doesn't happen here!" It was surreal.

Beautiful, eh? And inside it was site to behold as well.

The choir performance was great, but it was at a huge nativity centered display at an LDS church--a better decorated cultural hall I never have seen--literally hundrends of private owned nativity scenes on display. Afterwards we all dressed the part. Here I am in shepard attire.

And here's our whole gang--Matt a wise man, holding angel Mason, then Kalani as Mary, Tia, me, angle Jaedyn, Makana and Matt's brother, Drew, another wise man, visiting from CA.

Except Caleb would have no part of costumes or pictures--so you'll just have to imagine his little stubborn 3-year old self--though he happily partook of the cookies!

It's Eagle Baby

Through all the campouts, merit badge clinics, sweat and tears Colton has earned the rank of Eagle in Boy Scouts. He had his last board of review last week and the award will be given in a ceremony next February. It certainly seemed at times this would never happen. He has always enjoyed the campouts and comraderie in scouting, but the self-initiative was often lacking. Our great incentive plan began the summer of 08 when a cell phone would only be granted upon completion of the eagle project and all required merit badges. This should take a few months I thought, then it turned into a year and a half :( But we all perservered and are so proud of his achievement.

Another thing you may notice from the pic is his teeth, specifically braces. Just hours before the board of review, he got braces put on. Fortunately his teeth didn't hurt yet during the interview, but the next few days were painful as he even missed a day of school and a swim meet. We're trying a new technique call "Fast braces"--google it. Supposedly this new technology requires about half the time of conventional braces and are about half the cost. Sounds like a win-win as long as his teeth don't fall out, right?