Advent-ures

Honestly, our advent activities this December were a bit more sparse than usual, but we still managed to have some advent-ures.

* We love starting our month off with a visit to our Stake's Celebrate the Nativities Festival.  There is such a special spirit there as we view the nativities from around the world, see artwork of our Savior's life, and contemplate his birth. 

Bryce, who's currently a bit obsessed with helicopters, liked the nativity with propellers on the top best.

 Thane changed his mind 384 times, before deciding on a favorite.

 

 The children's craft room is always a lot of fun.  What's even more fun is having kids who are old enough to do some of the activities on their own!

 

Aubree and Thane submitted their own Christ-centered artwork to be displayed.

 

A highlight this year was an unexpected garden tomb.  As we finished walking down the hallway full of pictures of Christ's life, we turned a corner and were met with an empty tomb.  Talk about putting things into perspective! 

 

Of course we stopped at the cookie room.

And of course we had our yearly family nativity picture taken (so far, all the kids are still willing participants).  This year we were a little heavy on the angels.

* Aubree had the opportunity to be part of a "Christmas Strings" group, consisting of about 75 local, young violinists (I will add that there were a couple violas and cellos, otherwise Aubree chastise me).  This group performed twice at the beginning of December - at a city tree lighting event, and at the Festival of the Nativities.  It was a big deal to be part of the group and required that she memorize 30 minutes worth of Christmas songs.  

The tree lighting was held in the late afternoon on a cold, cold day.  Thankfully, the (relatively light) rain held off just until the kids had begun their performance and were under cover.  The group did a fantastic job, especially since (as Aubree informed me later), their hands were freezing.

Bryce and Thane had wanted to join me at the event.  Perhaps letting them come was a mistake.  About halfway through the performance, Thane was D.O.N.E.  He was so cold he really lost ability to reason.  "We are leaving!" he demanded.  "Go get Aubree, and we are getting in the car!"

 

Aubree loved every second of her time with the Christmas Strings group, which is telling, because she likes being cold about as much as Thane.

 * We had our annual salt dough nativity night.  This year we invited over a family that recently moved to our ward.  We love sharing this tradition with friends! 

Despite the fact that we've done this for YEARS, somehow the nativities of our guests always look significantly better than our own!

 

 * We made some guided drawing art projects.  Thane was completely unsatisfied with his Grinch and refused to let me display it afterwards.  I was most impressed with Graham's results.  He's hit the point where he really is capable of some very big-kid things!

 * We celebrated cousin Piper's 5th birthday!  Piper is such a star.  The girl is a certified Owl-aholic.  I love searching out owl-related items to get for her.  This year we gave her an owl necklace in an owl backpack.  Her reaction was the best... "It's an OWL!!  I LOVE it!  It's just what I wanted!"

Later, she came over to me, wrapped her arms around my neck, and said, "last year, you gave me owl pajamas, and this year you gave me an owl necklace.  You always get me owl things, and I just love them so much.  Thank you!"

Excuse me while I go find more owl things...

 * One of the best and most anticipated parts of our December is our Christ-like dinner.  My kids have now hit a point where they're able to come up with great nominations without any prodding from Mark or me.  In fact, this year we had some good debates about who to choose ... until one of the kids suggested Sister Davis, their primary chorister.  At that point, everyone was quiet for a moment before exclaiming, "Yes! Her!"

Mark and I were in complete agreement.  Emily is enthusiastic, talented, and joyful.  She truly loves all of the primary kids and makes each one feel so special and included.  All of my kids love going to music time.  Plus, her laugh is 100% contagious, so you can't help but feel happy around her.

 After dinner, we made frosting-covered Christmas trees, which was just the right activity for this young crowd.  My kids were most interested in seeing how much candy they could cram on the tree.

* Although we decorated the Christmas tree in the days following Thanksgiving, apparently Graham felt it was somewhat lacking, so he decided to help out.

 * We attended our ward Christmas party.  Well, more accurately, SOME of us attended the ward Christmas party.  This year is was a special event - a Night in Bethlehem.  Unfortunately, it didn't begin until 7pm, which is 30 minutes past Nellie's bedtime.  Mark gallantly agreed to stay home with her and Graham (who was recovering from illness and had gotten up at 5 that morning). Don't feel too bad for Mark - he's not a fan of big group events and was more than happy to have a quiet house!

Aubree, Bryce, and Thane were especially excited because they got to wear costumes.

It was a very well done event.  Each family got a purse full of "coins" that could be used at various marketplace stalls.  We "bought" our dinners, side dishes, and desserts, as well as used our coins to play games and do simple crafts.  Families ate together on blankets on the floor.  At the end, Mary and Joseph wandered through the stalls before ending up at the stable on the stage. 

* We also attended a Caspar Babypants mini-concert at a nearby library.

 If you have kids, and aren't familiar with Caspar Babypants, stop right now and look up one of his CDs from your local library.  He's one of our favorite kid-music artists.  "Eleanor the Elegant Elephant" is our family's favorite song, but there are a bunch of other great ones.  So fun!

Aunt Sue, Trip Two

My Aunt Sue came up earlier this year for a whirlwind, 24-hour visit.  It wasn't nearly long enough.  Last month she came back up and this time was able to double her time here.  It was still a quick trip, but we managed to pack in a lot of activities.

We picked Sue up at the airport on Friday morning and headed straight into Seattle to spend the day at the Pacific Science Center.  Katie and her kids were planning to meet us, but Jordyn woke up puking.  No bueno!

As a homeschool mom, I'm used to enjoying places like the PSC on less-crowded week-days.  Though we were visiting on a Friday, I failed to take into account that it was Veteran's Day, so everyone was out of school.  The place was packed!  Regardless, we set about exploring new and old favorites, and managed to make it through the day only losing one child, briefly (Graham).

One of the best things about Aunt Sue, is that she's the first one to get down and play with the kids.   Anticipating big crowds, the PSC staff put out a number of extra, hands-on activities.  While I wrangled Nellie, Sue and the boys built some neat structures. 

The kids couldn't wait to take Sue into the butterfly house.    Despite the fact (or maybe because of the fact) that Sue has traveled to 120 countries, she was deeply curious and eager to look and learn about all she saw.  Her enthusiasm and curiosity was contagious; I don't think we've ever stayed in that exhibit as long as we did this time around.

 

She didn't have quite as much success convincing the kids that the human brains were worth spending significant amounts of time examining.  

We didn't enjoy all the extra people, but still managed to have lots of fun.  

 

Nellie didn't nap (which no longer surprises me), so by the time we left, she was pretty unhappy with the whole situation.  The following days would not improve this situation.

Saturday morning, we loaded up again and drove out to Northwest Trek.  Again, Katie and her kids planned to meet us, and again Jordyn woke up puking.  Doubly sad.  When we arrived, it was cold and pouring rain.  Thane asked if we could just get back in the car and go home (an hour drive!).

We hopped on the Tram tour first, which provided heat and cover, and the rain stopped swiftly.  You never know what you'll get on the wildlife tours, but this time around we managed to see all the different animals, including three moose.

Nellie was definitely tired, and even pretended to lie down for a few minutes, but nothing we did the entire day could entice her to close her eyes.

No doubt, the kids' favorite part of the Park was the new kid play area.  Sue jumped right in and played as hard or harder than the kids!  Thane really wanted to go down the long pole, but was a bit nervous.  Sue went down a few times first, encouraging him until he got the courage to do it himself.  After the first time, he went down over and over and over.

After seeing his big brother go down, our little parrot decided he wanted to try.  He's not quite big enough to go it alone, but Sue came to the rescue again.

Nellie thought the play areas was fantastic.  She was fascinated by the water running by and kept sticking in her fingers and exclaiming in joy.

She also loved the rock slide and insisted on going down again and again.  So much for being tired.

On the drive home, we stopped for what is now our traditional Sue-is-visiting dinner at Mod Pizza.  Yum, yum, yum! 

Like her last visit, Sue brought a suitcase full of treasures for the kids (and the parents too!).  Since Katie's kids couldn't attend in person, they Face-Timed to join in the pre-Christmas gift fest.  The kids all took turns choosing their favorites from amongst the many options. 

One of my favorite gifts didn't come from the suitcase-of-marvels, but instead from Sue's backyard chickens!  The kids loved that the eggs were a blue-green color.

We are so grateful to Sue for taking the time out of her busy schedule to come and spend a couple crazy days with us!  It is such a treat.

Royal Harvest

When Aubree turned eight, she wanted to celebrate by going to visit our friends in Royal City.  Let me tell you, Royal City in the fall was spectacular! We've been itching to get back at that time of year ever since, and were finally able to go this October. 

We love Royal and all our friends there so much, that I always yearn to take my friends and family out to experience a little slice of heaven.  This time around, we took a day off of school, and with the Harps, trekked over the mountains to spend a day experiencing a day at the farm during harvest time.

I cannot overstate how generous and loving and wonderful are the Franks and the Allreds.  Every time we visit, they go above and beyond to make us feel welcome and taken care of and spoiled, yet still manage to make it seem like somehow it's us that's doing a favor for them! 

Our first stops on our Harvest Tour were to the apple orchards to glean.  Since apples become ripe at different times, we had better luck in some orchards than others, but were able to pick Golden Delicious, Granny Smith's, Red Delicious (only Aubree was interested in getting Red Delicious apples), Pink Ladies, Honey Crisp, Fugi, and Aztecs. 

We filled our trunks with bags and boxes of apples!

Aubree and Jordyn

We also had the chance to watch potatoes be sorted and stored in an enormous, refrigerated storing facility.  It was fascinating to watch.  First, the potatoes are harvested from the fields and put into dump trucks.  The dump trucks drive a little ways down the road, where they're connected to a conveyor belt.  As the potatoes come off the truck, a group of workers pulls out rocks and rotten potatoes.  

 

The rest move on down the belt until they're shot systematically into 30' high piles. The kids decided it would be a pretty fun job to be the guy with the remote who controls the robotic arm of the end of the conveyor belt.

The workers were unbelievably nice.  One in particular, went out of his way to let the kids be involved in the process and "help." 

Some of the potatoes were HUGE.  Thane found himself a knobby one, and was quite thrilled to take it home.

Following our harvest adventures, we went back to Ashlee's and the kids had another chance to run in to park-like sprinklers and jump on the trampoline and check out the newly completed (and totally fabulous) tree-house. 

Sharing the afternoon with cousins made it that much sweeter!

As if all that wasn't enough, our group split up and some got to go four-wheeling, while others took a quick tour of the dairy. 

dare-devil T fell on his nose immediately after I took this picture

We ended the day treated to an excellent, early dinner by Ashlee, then we hopped back in our cars for the drive home.  It's a lot of driving to go there and back in one day, but so, so worth it.