Christmas break with Grandma and Grandpa in town means lots of time with cousins! Vikki and I took the kids to help with a community service "Operation Santa" project where the kids had fun handing out candy. I was basically the candy bin guardian, but I had fun watching them serve and think about themselves less and others more. Vikki and Brooke helped inside as runners for the presents.
Biosphere 2 has been on our "to see" list for a few years, so when we had an open day with the whole family available the day after Christmas, we decided to take a field trip!
Christmas was pretty low-key this year, just the way I like it. The kids all seemed to like their bigger presents from Santa. Though after a slip-up from me, it is confirmed that all my kids now know the truth about "Santa." Brandon got a new bike, Tyler got a Kindle Fire, and Natalie got a basket of Frozen movie stuff.
I was surprised and excited to hear that our new elementary school was doing a second grade Christmas program. Not that we needed one more event to attend in December, but at our other school, even the word "Christmas" was practically forbidden so no one would be offended. Everything had to be generic "holiday" or "winter" themed, and grade level music programs were eliminated entirely a few years ago.
We weren't sitting in a very good spot to see Natalie, but you can see her just to the left of the microphone on the far left. She's wearing a red headband.
Although I generally don't care for Santa mixed into a ward Christmas party, I like the way our ward has handled it the past few years. Santa is in another room for an hour before the party and anyone who wants to come early and visit him can do so. This is no plain, boring ward member Santa in a cheap costume sitting in a church chair. They have a full background, Mrs. Claus, and an elf assistant. And they spent almost 5 minutes with each kid, talking to them about whether they had been good, their scouting and schoolwork, their siblings, and of course what they wanted for Christmas. It was great; however, it did make the line very long and slow-moving. The parents just wanted a cute photo and the kids just wanted the treat sack!
December brought two more band performances for Brandon.
They did their first parade! Our city hosts a Parade of Lights each December (we do parades in winter here in Arizona!). We've lived in this area for 15 years and we never attended this parade until now! Theirs was the only Junior High band (and one of only three bands in the whole parade - the other two were high school bands). Brandon learned how tiring parades can be - thankfully it was only a little over a mile. But playing and marching at the same time are not easy! They did a great job. You can't really see Brandon in this video, but he's there!
Then they had a "Evening Under the Stars" at their school amphitheater. Again, it was pretty dark and you can't see Brandon (he was sitting right behind where his teacher was directing of course). They only had a few weeks to learn and practice this song because they were working on their parade music and marching.
Brandon is really enjoying band and I am constantly impressed with his teacher, the music, and how far he has come on the trumpet in just five months.
Natalie started a music-dance-theater performing class called "That's Entertainment!" a few months ago. The classes are ages 3-7 and 7-12. Being age 7, I debated which class I should put her in, but I chose the older class knowing she could probably handle it and it would challenge her more. I knew she loved class, but when we went to her first performance this weekend I was blown away! After the first song, I told Kevin she has finally found her "people." She LOVED being on stage and soaked up every bit of attention!
I won't post all six videos, but here is "Ain't No Mountain High Enough"
This is Natalie's teacher Miss Jenee:
This piano recital was very different than past ones. Since Brandon can play all the hymns, accompanies at church, and is in the Jr. High band, we let him quit piano lessons. I have been teaching Natalie for the past year at home, and she was anxious to start with a "real" teacher so we traded her for Brandon's lesson spot. Brandon enjoyed sitting back and relaxing at the recital, but I missed hearing him perform!
I had no idea how Natalie would react to the recital, but true to form, she soaked in every bit of being the center of attention and LOVED it! When I asked her afterwards if she was nervous, she said she wasn't. I'm so glad none of my kids inherited the performance terror issues I face!
Natalie is 7 1/2, in Level 2, and has been playing for about 1 1/2 years.
Tyler and Natalie were asked to play a duet of "Angels We Have Heard on High." This duet has caused much anxiety in our home. Sometimes it sounded great, sometimes it sounded horrible. I admit to holding my breath when they performed it. Thankfully it came together and was perfect!
Tyler is 9 1/2, in Level 3, and has been playing for about 2 1/2 years (even though he said 3 years). I was absolutely floored when he started playing - he NEVER practices like this at home! Usually it is sloppy and has many mistakes.
I am so proud of these kids and so happy that all their hard work paid off with great performances! All three kids have definitely inherited some amazing musical talent!
We had a low-key Thanksgiving weekend this year, which suits us just fine. We had dinner (at lunch time) with Tom and Vikki and family and then headed over to Jeff and Kristina's house to have dessert with them (at dinner time).
This is the way we roll...ketchup, A1, soda, paper products, no tablecloth, and the kids in a separate room!
Tuesday morning we attempted to branch out and go to another bakery in the French Quarter, but learned the only day it is closed is Tuesday of course! So we went to Cafe du Monde for a third time in four days. It was no big sacrifice - the beignets are THAT good! And we found the only time Cafe du Monde does not have a line...freezing cold Tuesday morning!
Then we tried to go to the French Market, which said it was open at 9:00 on Tuesday morning. Not sure if the website was wrong, or if everyone was just off to a slow start setting up in the freezing cold, but the place was pretty much a ghost town with only a few vendors starting to set up. We were cold and only had an hour to spend there so we took a quick picture and walked through a few stores nearby where it was warmer instead.
On Monday, we decided to get out of New Orleans. We rented a car for the day and drove about an hour outside New Orleans to tour a plantation and a swamp. Our first stop was Oak Alley Plantation, one of the largest and most famous of the plantations in the area. It has been used in several movies. It was literally freezing cold and windy which made walking around the plantation grounds miserable, but at least there were only two other people on our tour! While we were waiting for our tour, we walked all the way out to the end of the path to get the full effect of the 28 giant oak trees that line the path up to the house. It looked closer than it really was, and we learned later it was 1/4 mile each way!
This is it for real:
