Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was celebrated with Brett's side of the family in Dublin.  We were joined by Caitlyn and Austin with their precious daughter Avery (11 months old) as well as Jeanne and Bruce and Marilyn (James' mother).  The long traditioned spider that dates back to the mid 1980s was gifted to Haley this year (Griffin had it last year).  It will be interesting to see who gets it next year and whether it survives Kona.

Joy made the Happy Birthday Jesus cake featuring a surprise in the middle of the cake.

Caitlyn, Austin, James, Wendy, us (back), Jeanne, Bruce, Avery, Marilyn, Grammy, Poppy (middle), Griffin, Rachel, Haley, Bryce, Garrett (front) all L-R.

Surprise middle, a red velvet cross.

The kids table...we get our food first, and we finish first...when are the presents?

Bryce rips open a present...legos!

Is Avery going to like her Leap Frog learning house?

Serving up the spread, yummy.

Building some of the legos before the operation can be shutdown.

Haley, you have been honored with the Christmas Spider!

Daddy, all I want for Christmas is to fly!

Book Club Christmas Party

Because our ladies meet once monthly to discuss a book that they are mutually reading, we get to have a party to celebrate that bond.  This year we wore ugly sweaters, played a game called fish bowl (featuring 4 nouns submitted by each player), shared exemplary food dishes, and exchanged white elephant presents.

The participants:  Rex and Alli, Morgan and Stephen, us, Ali and Nate, Gina and Andy.

Our Ugly Sweaters were officially labelled that when purchased at Menards in Wisconsin!

Last year, we received three Honda hubcaps, so we turned it into a snowman and brought them back this year..isn't it cute.

Christmas Piano Recital

The boys first Christmas piano recital was at Centenary Church.  Garrett played two songs:  Fantasy of Deck the Halls and Carol of the Bells.  Bryce performed the classic, O Christmas Tree.  Griffin, who led off for our trio, smiled through his whole performance of Angels We Have Heard on High, because he was watching all the hammers hit the strings inside the grand piano.  Grammy and Poppy enjoyed hearing the boys perform as the recital was moved from its original date due to the high winds and heavy rain.

CrossPoint Kids

Grammy and Poppy joined us to watch the boys sing in front of the whole congregation for the kids musical presentation at church.  It started with Garrett's group singing and then Bryce and Griffin's classes joined in for the large group presentation.

This picture is after the performances...untucked shirts and other evidences are proof to that.

The whole group from the upper deck.

Ground level view from first service, thanks Scott and Jill for saving us seats.  Bryce is in top left hand corner.

Garrett with his tweenage class.

Griffin is in the middle toward the top.

December School

Our theme of the month for science was blood and the amazing, complex, and life-giving properties that God wove into the blood system.  We learned about blood typing and even found out what type Jack was after he volunteered.

The kids participated in the Mini-Memory Master day at CC.  All three of our boys did very well with their first half of the year memory work and so to celebrate we went to Chuck E Cheese and played games there.  After earning 300 tickets, we came away with a few fun dips, a laffy taffy, and a small box of nerds.  Good thing it is all about the fun and not about the prizes.

Dessert is one of the best ways to learn about anything.

Blood typing experiment.

And now we will make you bleed...are you ready?

Candy:  one of the best ways to demonstrate all the components of blood.

Game stations themed to warm the kids up for Mini-Master Memory day.

Skeeball is always a favorite game.

One of Bryce's favorite games to play:  Sea Wolf.

We set up a Pearl Harbor scene on Dec 7th and made a historical video to honor Uncle Aaron's birthday too.

Christmas Family Fun

We had lots of little adventures that took on a Christmas theme this month.  We traveled to Del Osso to ride the trikes, take a picture with Santa, and tour the lights on board the train.  Brett also received the call while we were there that the research center was going to be closed.  But that didn't dampen our Christmas cheer.  We caroled with a large group of  friends in a dear friend's neighborhood after having a family dinner out at Dickey's.  Sitting in the middle of the crosswalk in the middle of I St for the Christmas Parade was another memorable moment.  We selected our Christmas tree in the pouring rain and set it up while watching another depressing football game from this season.  Joy and the boys attended a docent guided tour of the McHenry Mansion decorated for the holidays.

It's not as cold as I would expect if we were really in the North Pole.

I don't think we are too big for the train, yet...

This year we rode in the caboose and got to face backwards.  As you can tell, we had to fight for our seats.

How many times did we instruct them to jump ALL at the same time...at least one of  our children was listening.

This one looks pretty good...now Daddy you need to secure the tree to the top of the car with more than one small anchor point...Nah, I will drive slow, it is raining too hard to really spend a lot of time securing the tree.

It made it!

Three cats coexisting, we are still working on it.

Out in front of the McHenry Mansion, waiting on our tour.

In the middle of I St, with the arch in the background, watching the parade.

Some of our favorite features of the parade are the obligatory Star Wars characters.

We can have dinner at a separate table with Alec and Issac and let Mom and Dad talk to Steve and Carrie!

Graffiti themed Santa sled:  Santa would be stylin in this one.