A Role Play and New Furniture

Tonight Jared had the Family Home Lesson. He prepared the whole thing himself. He gave a great lesson. For one part he had a role play of the Nativity story. He provided all the costumes. It was all very interesting.

If you look close you can see our new furniture. After almost 13 years of marriage we finally bought some furniture. Alex got me a couch, love seat, chair, coffee table, and an end table for Christmas. I love them.

Luke is an angel in a red table cloth.

Caleb is a Sheppard holding a broom and a towel.

Alex is the narrator and a wise man complete with a present. His towel kept falling when he was trying to read.

"Adoring baby Jesus." By this time Mary (aka Olivia) had ditched the towel draped over her head because it kept falling off. She still had the skirt that Jared insisted she wear over her jeans on though.

Piano Recital Time Again

I know these pictures are so exciting. What can I say? The kids did good, but most of all they were happy and want to keep practicing and learning. Aunt Margaret, our piano teacher, served all the students and moms a very yummy brunch first. Then her students all played various Christmas songs.

In the first picture you can see Caleb eating a strawberry. He stayed in the back and continued to eat through the whole recital. He is ALWAYS hungry. Ask anyone who knows him well. He is always eating. He does eat very slow though. It took him the whole time to eat his one plateful that he got when everyone else got their food. He is like the Hobbits in Lord of the Rings and thinks he needs "first breakfast, second breakfast..."

Caleb found the camera

Saturday Shots

Our little Jon Schmidt

Luke turned Jon Schmidt on me today and played his Christmas recital piece upside down. He did pretty darn good. He said his head hurt after wards. He said he tried to do it with his hands crossed but that was way to hard.

Favorite picture

Olivia took a bunch of random pictures on Thanksgiving day. This was my favorite one. This is little Miss Serena, Matt and Becky's daughter. She is so cute. I want to adopt her.

I love my kids, I love my kids...

We've acquired animals on the our land for the kids. The kids are having some good experiences learning what it's like to be responsible for animals. Translates this means I am too. One of my more "favorite" jobs that I've learned about is breaking ice in the animal troughs. I can't even begin to tell you what an enjoyable activity it is to break several inches of ice each morning in 10 degree weather.

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving. We had our annual family Turkey Trot, hosted by the Kent's. This year we also ate dinner at the Kent's. (They were busy). We ate lots of yummy food. We also had a Connect Four party for fun afterwords.

Caleb

Runner's take your mark.... Alex and I walked this year.
Olivia ran.Grandpa oversaw the runners. Who was going to win??? Paul won the short course and Steven won AGAIN on the long course.
Post run: Debra and Emily.
Some of the little ones getting ready for some food.

Lord of the Ring Mania

Alex came home from work today and our two little TV's had Lord of the Rings playing on them. If you were to check our four CD players (in each of their rooms) they each have a Lord of the Ring book on tape in it. Alex said it's Lord of the Ring mania right now in our home. Dinner questions revolve around the plots, why characters made the decisions that they did, and what something might mean. Right now the kids are running around with swords and they are hobbits. I guess we love the series.

Strawhead!

Lately I'm starting to be able to leave my kids home for short periods. For things like funerals, visiting teaching, errands, etc. They've done really good. I've only left them when I've been in town though.

Tonight I a Relief Society meeting. They were all well and happy when I came home. When I saw Olivia she told me her fingers hurt. I took one look at her and told her that was the least of her worries because she had straws strewn throughout her hair. I told her I assumed there was some special reason for it. She grunted. I asked if she'd read that in a book. She said sort of. That's all I got out of her. I did get a picture though. I'm assuming this is some 17th century hair do and she substituted straws from I'm not sure what.

I found this picture of Jared on the camera. Doesn't he look happy?