Gingerbread Houses

All the parents were invited into the kindie class to help with gingerbread houses. But, I woke up feeling like death, so sadly I had to enlist the help of some of the other moms to be me for Camille. Thankfully, Camille wasn't upset, and in fact was very excited that Aspen's mom helped her.

They used whipping cream cartons for the frame- brilliant! Except that I didn't know we needed to bring in a whipping cream frame until the night before, so Ben got to make a late night run to the grocery store. Not my favorite part of kindergarten thus far.

Then, since I had such a horrible Friday, I knew we couldn't go to the Messiah Sing Along- a wonderful event that we were really looking forward to. The girls were really sad, but I appeased them by telling them that they could do their gingerbread houses instead. That worked.

Ben, of course, was in charge- so there are no pictures of them actually building, but here's the end result. We once again used the kit from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. I don't care if it is the easy way out- there are some things that I am OK with cutting corners on, and this is one of them.

I still think they turned out cute,

Claire's is on the left, dad's on the right.

Camille's house kept falling apart, so she came up with this idea herself- she stole it from kindie. She found a box roughly the size of her house, and built up the frame. Even though it isn't quite right, I love that she used the skills she had learned and came up with a resourceful solution to her problem.

Audra's on the left, Camille's on the right.

This was supposed to be mine, but since I was out of commission everybody worked on it.

Christmas Around the World

The girls participated in a Christmas Around the World Fair. It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun. The girls loved that we didn't do too much other school as we prepared for this.

There were 22 countries represented. Each country had a craft and a food item, as well as a 2 minute presentation. Claire chose Australia, and Audra chose Germany.

It was a little stressful, but it was wonderful. Now I'm glad it is over!

Dance Recital

Every week Camille has said that she doesn't want to go to dance. And then when we go, she has a great time and wants to do dance again until the next week.

But, she was very excited for her dance recital and she was as cute as cute can be with her performance.

Isn't she the cutest here:

Don't the boots work perfectly with this outfit?

I asked her if she wanted to stop dance lessons, and she was very angry that I suggested it. I guess she will keep on dancing!

Volleyball

It's been a couple of years, but Audra really wanted to do volleyball again, so we signed her up. Then, somehow, I ended up coaching the team. It is through the YMCA, and luckily the time commitment is minimal and the intensity even less so. I told the parents, "I have coached many things before, but never volleyball, so we will see how this goes." Luckily, none of the parents seem to care too much that I don't really know what I am doing.

But, most importantly- Audra is having a really good time. It's a great group of kids, and her dear friend Ella is on the team, so that helps. So far, they are 3-4, but they have a chance to break even at 4-4 this Saturday, so hopefully they can pull out the victory.

Audra has really improved on her serving- she's the one server I can count on to always get the ball over the net. And, her bumping skills have improved as well (but really, in this league- whichever team is able to get their serves over wins the game).

Claire's Note

In order to "Honor her mother and Father" as Christ did, Claire wrote both Ben and I sweet notes and put them on our pillows as a sweet surprise when we went to bed.

"Dear Mom,
I am so lucky to have you as a mom! I love you so so much have a reily good rest of the week. Love, Claire."

It definitely brought a smile to my face!

Christmas Fun

Christmas Spirit

Even with the decorations up and most of our shopping done, it still doesn't feel like Christmas as the weather has been quite warm- 60s and 70s.

But, yesterday was a Christmas party at the HR Mansion and our ward Christmas party, so we started to get in the mood for Christmas a little bit.

The girls even got to visit 2 Santas in one day- what could be better than that?

The church party had a Polar Express theme- here's Claire with her ticket to go on the train!