holiday happenings

Oh how busy and fun this time of year is -
Office parties {2}, girlfriend parties, couples parties, family parties {5 of them}, neighborhood parties, bunko parties, school parties, school plays, school Christmas sings, pre-school programs, piano recitals...
Whew!

Last Saturday Millie and Sambo performed in a Christmas piano recital at a rest home. It was Sambo's first recital and he was as chill as ever. Not one nerve in his body. We are really proud of him! He would rather be playing sports, but he tolerates piano well enough. Luckily he had a basketball game right before his recital. He was so sweaty hot from the game and he was changing clothes in the car and he was sooooo bugged that he had to put on a "hot itchy sweater." It was funny.

As ever, Millie played great...but if you ask her, she messed up. You can tell from her face after she played that she was not pleased with her performance. She was upset and I told her to look around and asked her if she thought anyone noticed. It was a room full of old geezers who didn't seem to even know where they were, let alone notice a little mistake :) Kudos to her for taking on such a challenging song to play.




Sambo also performed in his 3rd grade play, "Twas the Night Before Christmas." They held auditions 2 months ago and he did not say a word to me about trying out for the play. I went to school to volunteer and his teacher told me that not only had he auditioned, but that he sang a solo! I was dying that he would do that on a whim! He hadn't even memorized the lines.
Well, they must have liked him because he made a part playing an elf named Lively. It was a speaking part, not a singing part :)

The biggest excitement about this play was that he got to {or had to} dance with a GIRL! He "even had to put his hands on her waist and lift her up." He secretly loved it. The video is sooo cute! He did awesome.





Today, we had the great pleasure of attending Quincy Lu's pre-school program. She did the actions so good and sang every word to every song. Cute beyond words. They wore santa hats, then angel halos, then played the bells, a triangle, and sticks. I was fighting tears of happiness and sadness that this would be my last 3 year old recital.






Tomorrow is school parties and the Christmas sing at Ridgeline so I'm sure I'll have yet more pics and stories.

Tonight we held our annual Eagle Crest neighborhood party. More on that later.

Here are some quick videos:
Grandpa and Grandma got there at the very end so we did a couple of repeats for them {they played 2 songs each}. Notice Millie's sassy pants smile because she was so bugged that she messed up.

Picking the Tree

Traditionally, we go to a cute tree farm in Alpine to pick 0ut our Christmas tree. We chose a really good day to go because it was 50 degrees. This year it only took us 20 minutes to find it. It caught Sambo's eye and he was the winner. It's a blue spruce.



We drove it to Taco Time to get some dinner on the way home. The kids tip-toed to our table with no shoes...their boots were sooo muddy from the warm weather.

That night BS got the lights put on. The deal is, if we get a fresh tree he has to put on the lights because we have a perfectly good fake tree downstairs in our storage room. He hates bringing that tree upstairs...there is always wall dings and injuries involved. So for the past 5 years we have had a fresh tree. He is really good at the lights too! It was getting late so there was no time to decorate the tree that night. We made a plan to hang ornaments the next day right after school.

The next day, I went to the bus stop to pick-up the kids and Sambo and Will had made plans for their friends to come play. So I had 4 extra boys...plus my 4 kids...all hanging ornaments at once! Such good helpers! Didn't they do a great job?

Elf on the Shelf

This is such a fun tradition...love this book!

Even more, I love this little elf that comes with the book. We named our elf Buddy. Each day, he watches the kids to see if they are being naughty or nice. Then when the kids go to sleep, he goes to the North Pole to chat with Santa about that. Before the kids wake up, Buddy comes back to our house and finds a new place to observe for the day. With Buddy watching us, the kids try hard to be on their best behavior. If they start getting naughty, all I have to do is point my eyes over to him as a gentle reminder that he is watching, and they shape up in a snap! Love it.

On December 1st, we brought out Buddy and put him on the shelf in the family room. This is where he was yesterday morning...


One of the rules is that he will lose his Christmas magic if he is touched by one of the children. Last night, Buddy was moved but nobody knew who had touched him. The kids were really stressed about if he had been touched and if he lost his magic. Especially Will, he was really really concerned and worried. We decided it was Quincy who moved him and explained that since she is too young to know, it was probably okay.

This morning, this is where we found Buddy:

In Will's stocking! Phew, he still has his magic!!!

Shopping Frenzy

Continued from the last post...

After Thanksgiving dinner and the Horn of Plenty was all said and done, I started to panic because now it was time to start thinking about black Friday. Grandma Judy had tons of newspaper ads and I was so unprepared what I needed and where I needed to go! BS and I sorted through many of them and after much deliberation, we decided to join the other crazies who go to Toys R Us at opening. There were a couple items we needed and they had the best deal.

So we went at 10:00 pm, Thursday night. I am telling you there are no words for the crowd that was at this place! I could not believe it. Somehow BS managed to work himself into the line very discreetly and when he got to the entrance of the store I joined him. Once we got inside it felt like the end of a the world...people rushing, shoving, almost panicked to get somewhere they needed to be. Soon we found out the items we needed were of course, gone. Electronics go fast.

So BS got in the eternal line while I did some shopping. I ran into a couple of girl friends who were totally prepared and organized which was very helpful. They helped me find the best deals and where I needed to be when. Apparently the next release of electronics was at WalMart at 5:00 am. So we made a plan.

We left Toys R Us and noticed that the parking lot at Fashion Place Mall was completely full. It was now midnight. I really wanted to go inside but I didn't dare ask BS to stop. He had already sacrificed so much by going to the toy store! But shockingly he said, "We better check it out and see what the deals are." Holy cow. Not what I expected. Love him.

Long story short - we spent the next 2 hours at the mall doing something like this:
BS gets in the line,
I shop,
He pays,
I go to the next store,
Start again.

He was a total trooper! But I know it was because he could see how much we were really saving! Every store we bought from was 40 or 50 percent off everything!

Towards the end, I went to get a drink and when I came back this is how I found him:


In the Brookstone store in the massage chair :)

We left and he dropped me off at Walmart and when home. I stayed there until 5:00 am so I could get what we needed. It paid off. The early bird gets the worm!

I joined my other friends for a little bit more shopping, and then BS picked me up at 7:30. I went home, slept a few hours, then was back at it again. I spent the rest of the day at Gateway with my mom and brother. We had a great time! And, I've got Christmas pretty much done! Yay!

At one point, BS texted me a picture of the boys and Quincy pretending to be babies...diapers, binkies, and all! Do they play great together or what!