Christmas Program, Spelling Bee, and Birthday

     On December 20, we went to Haylee and Mackenzie's Christmas programs.  Haylee's class did the ABC's of Christmas.  They came up with something for each letter of the alphabet and then made a poster of that letter.  They worked in pairs.  Haylee worked with Daniel Cosner and they were in charge of the 'M' and 'N.'  Haylee got to bring home the 'N' poster.  It said, "N is for being Naughty and getting No presents for Christmas!"  Then Haylee said into the microphone, "Was I really that bad?"  She said it so cute.  She has some good acting skills!  'M' was, "M is for getting caught under the Mistletoe with my aunt." Then her partner, Daniel, said, "I'm outta here!"

     Mackenzie's class sang "Up on the House Top."  She learned all three verses and was so excited whenever it came on the radio so she could sing along.  She often sang it at home, to the point that the other kids got a little tired of that Christmas song.  But Mackenzie has such a beautiful voice that I don't know how anyone could ever get tired of listening to her sing!

 

     The next morning was the school spelling bee.  I mentioned awhile back that Haylee had been one of the top 3 in her class so she got to go to the school competition.  She had been studying the words, although I know I could have helped her more.  But unfortunately she got out in the first round.  About half the kids were out in the first two rounds.  Her word was "Aspen," which isn't terribly strange, but it sounds like "pin" at the end instead of "pen."  She spelled it a-s-p-i-n.  She felt better when all the other kids she told which word she got out on spelled it exactly the same way.  She is already thinking about next year's spelling bee.
     The spelling bee was the last day of school before Christmas break!  It was so nice to start our vacation.  While we watched a movie Friday night, I made 3 batches of the white chocolate popcorn treats so we could pass them out to neighbors and friends the next day.  The next morning, I spent an hour or so packaging all the popcorn into bags to take around.  That afternoon, I wasn't feeling very well.  I started to feel really cold.  So I decided to take a hot shower.  When that didn't take the chill away, I asked Daren to check my forehead.  Sure enough, I had a fever.  I took my temperature.  At first it was only 99.8, but a half hour later it was up to 101.6.  I ended up going to the urgent care to be sure that I didn't have an infection somehow related to having a baby the month before or nursing.  The doctor couldn't find any signs of infection and said I probably just had the flu.  Unfortunately that meant that I was going to be sick on my birthday, I couldn't visit Matt and Ami who had just driven into Ridgecrest with their brand new baby, and all that popcorn I had made was going to have to be thrown away.

     Despite being sick, I had a wonderful birthday.  I knew I was getting a laptop for my birthday, so Daren surprised me with a beautiful flowering plant.  Haylee gave me a Christmas ornament with a picture of her in it that she had made at school.  It was a popsicle stick frame and on each corner she had glued a mint candy.  We hung it on the tree and Nate promptly ate all the mints off.
     Since it was Sunday, I was hoping to go to church with Avery for the first time.  But I ended up staying home sick.  Nathan still had a cough and cold so he stayed home too.  I knew I didn't have the energy to take care of him and Avery, so Haylee stayed home to take care of us.  After church, Grandma Poetschlag risked her life by coming into our flu-infested home to bring me my birthday card.  My mom called to say happy birthday.  I wished she could come over but I was completely understanding and it didn't spoil my good mood.  So I was surprised just how happy it made me that evening when they surprised me by showing up.  My mom, dad, and Matt all came over.  It made my day!  They got here just in time for cake.
     I think part of it was that my mom couldn't wait to give my my present.  She had been teasing me that she knew I was going to love it.  She was right!  It is the most amazing apron!  And the fact that she made it for me makes it that much more special. 

     This picture doesn't do the apron justice.  The blues and browns are much brighter.  I promise to post a picture of me wearing it later.  But I was in my PJ's so I decided to just take one of the apron for now.
     The thoughtful gifts, visits, and phone calls made my 37th birthday one of the best ever, despite being sick with the flu!

Jammies

     We really haven't had to buy any clothes for Nathan.  I think I bought him a sweater (to coordinate for family pictures last year) and a pack of undies.  Everything else has been given to us by friends and family passing outgrown clothes down.  Nathan has gotten some really cute PJ's passed down and he LOVES them.  He is so cute about how much he loves his pajamas.  I decided that I should get some pictures of him in some of his favorites before he outgrows them.

12-11-12

12-13-12

12-15-12

12-16-12

12-18-12

 

1-1-13

1-4-13

     These last 2 are from 2013 but I thought I'd include them in this post anyway since they fit here.  Grandma Bobbi gave Nathan these motorcycle jammies when she came for Avery's blessing.  He was so excited when he got them.  A little later I went to put him down for his nap and as I was about to walk out the door he yelled, "Mom! I need my motorcycle shirt!"  So I went and got his new pajamas and dressed him in them.  Then he smiled and snuggled into his blanket and went right to sleep. :)

Winter Concert and Visit From Jeff

     On December 13, Natalee sang in the Monroe Middle School Winter Concert.  She has really enjoyed being in the concert choir.  We could see this was going to be a long term thing so we bought her her very own choir shirt.  The concert was wonderful!  In one of the songs, a few of the kids played the tambourine and Natalee was chosen to be one of them.  She played it perfectly.

     A few days later we had the excitement of a visit from Jeff.  The most exciting part of his visit is that he was interviewing for a job on the base and he got a tentative offer!  They can't give him an official offer until he has his degree and he graduates in April.  We are so excited for Jeff and Amber and their family to be moving here.  Amber is coming early with the kids to get Breyer started in school and we just can't wait to have cousins here!
Jeff and Avery:  (Jeff is silly!)

My Pictures of Avery

     I tried taking pictures a couple of times of Avery.  I wasn't terribly thrilled with my first attempt. I wanted to do some cute little naked newborn ones of her, but every time I got her naked she woke up.  I think it was too cold.  A few of them turned out sort of cute.  But I don't expect anyone to ask for my copyright release if I take them to get developed.
These were taken Nov. 30, when Avery was 11 days old:

     The next pictures I took after my mom took those fabulous family pictures of us.  We didn't do any individual ones of Avery since she was too young to sit by herself.  So I borrowed some cute baskets from a friend and dressed her back up in the same outfit.  As a disclaimer, I'd like to say that I knew the lighting wasn't very good for these pictures when I went out to take them.  It was already a little too dark.  But I didn't want to wait another day because I was hoping to use one of these pictures in our Christmas card and I wanted to get the cards ordered right away.  We were buying them from Costco and I wanted to make sure they were going to be ready by the time we drove through on our way to Audrey's baptism so we could pick them up.  I didn't love how they turned out though so I ended up using one of my pictures from Nov. 30.  Maybe with the help of Photoshop we could make these useable. (I think I just issued a challenge to my father!)
     These pictures were taken Dec. 5 and Avery was 16 days old:

 

     I also took a picture of Avery on Dec. 4 with her beautiful blanket made by my friend Cassie's mom, Doreen Patrizio.  She has crocheted one of these beautiful blankets for every one of my kids and they are treasures.  I wanted to make sure to get a picture of Avery with her new blanket.

 

Christmas 2012

     We had a most wonderful Christmas this year!

We were visited by the cutest Christmas carolers:

Natalie, Emily, Alyssa, and Amanda Workman

Unfortunately I had to go to Wal-Mart on Christmas Eve (crazy!) but if I hadn't I would have missed this awesome group of kids from the high school band just out playing Christmas music for the fun of it.  They didn't have a guitar case or hat out or I may have thrown in a dollar or two. :)

I don't know the others but the one on the far left is Zach Winegardner, the other assistant organist in our ward.

     We stayed up late Christmas Eve to put the finishing touches on Kelsey's Christmas present.  I had gotten the idea to convert an end table into a toy stove from Pinterest and I really wanted to do that for Kelsey.  Daren ended up helping me a lot with it so I really appreciated him for that.

Finally done and it was only 12:30am!

     We got to bed late but I could still hardly sleep because I was so excited for the next morning.  I felt like we got everyone something that they would be very excited about.  Natalee had asked for a pink BB gun, which is what we got her.  Haylee wanted an archery set, but I was pretty sure she was going to love the camera we got her.  Mackenzie wanted a flute but that was pretty much out of our price range.  We decided to surprise her with a second parakeet-the "purple" one she had been admiring at the pet store. (It is actually mostly a blue and white but has a light purple area on its back.)  I knew Kelsey really wanted her own kitchen because she had been playing with one at a friend's house and said she wished she had one.  We also got her some toy food and dishes to go with it.  Nathan was getting a basketball hoop and I just knew he was going to love it because he has so much fun with balls.  We got Avery a couple of toys that she will really love in a few months, and I made her her very own fleece blanket.
     I woke up around 6:30 and noticed the light was on.  I panicked for a second that I was going to miss the look on their faces.  It turned out Natalee was the only one awake.  All the other kids were still asleep.  She had already peeked at her stocking and was reading a book.  Actually, their stockings this year were pretty empty.  They were disappointed and they let me know it. :)  I probably shouldn't find ingratitude amusing but sometimes they say the funniest things when they are grumpy. I think Natalee and Haylee were grumpiest because they knew it was just me and not Santa.  But in my defense I did have the flu the last few days before Christmas this year and that's my usual "figure out the stockings" time.  But they were very happy with their gifts so they stopped griping about their fairly empty stockings. :)

Nathan got a dinosaur pillow pet.

Daren was so worried that Mackenzie was going to be disappointed about not getting a flute that he made one for her out of PVC pipe.

Haylee was so surprised and excited by her camera!  I love that I caught this look on her face. :)

Daren almost surprised me with this loom set.  He will not leave receipts laying around next time.

Daren bought himself a gun for Christmas this year.

This is the fleece blanket I made for Avery.  If I'm lucky she will end up loving it as much as Nate loves his doggie blanket.

Nate's gift is almost as tall as he is.

Once the box was unwrapped he went back to playing with Kelsey's toys while his sisters worked on getting it out and setting it up for him.

Once it was out of the box he loved his basketball hoop!

He was so excited every time he made a basket.

Mackenzie immediately fell in love with Violet.

As usual, we had the kids draw names for each other.  Kelsey bought Haylee these glow in the dark stars to put on her ceiling.

Mackenzie knew Natalee loved her Peace sign necklace so she gave it to her.

I got my first (and only) Vintage Pearl necklace.  It says "Blessed Mommy" on it and has two tiny feet stamped in the middle.  I submitted some cute pictures of my necklace to them and they used one of my pics in their blog so I won a $25 gift certificate!

We found this blank white tea set and knew it was perfect for Mackenzie.  She has wanted a tea set and she loves art!

Stripes and Violet became fast friends and nothing makes Stripes more unhappy than someone taking Violet out of the cage.  He was a fairly quiet bird until he got a friend. :)

Grandma Moffitt made this adorable apron for Haylee.

My mom started this quilt for my grandma years ago but stopped working on it for a long time (I think when she got called to teach seminary?).  She surprised my grandma with it this year and it made her cry.

     We ended our wonderful Christmas day with Nate trying to climb the Christmas tree (?) and tipping it over crashing to the ground.  We ended up losing some ornaments.  We had several glass bears from a set my Grandma Moffitt gave to Daren and I early in our marriage for a Christmas gift.  Unfortunately we lost almost half of them.  I think there were 12 and 5 were broken in the fall.  I was sad because they were a special gift from my grandma.  But I'm grateful we still have some of them and I suppose this is another first we got to experience from having an adorable, rambunctious boy in the house. :)


The star and many ornaments on the ground.

Broken bear (and other glass ornament) parts on the recliner.

Poor scalped bear. :(

Mackenzie made her tea set look SO adorable!