Christmas!!

I need to make sure I post about Christmas today, because tomorrow is Sariahs birthday! Merry Christmas! We had a great day. Things were a little different because Christmas has been on a Sunday. I have decided I like it best on Sunday. The kids got to open a couple of presents last night on Christmas Eve. They opened their gifts from each other, and then they got some really exciting Sunday clothes to wear to church. Here they are looking good before church on Christmas Sunday.



After we had church, we came home and started opening presents. This year had kind of a lego theme.



Hayden asked for a light saber. Thats all. Just a light saber. He ended up with 3 of them in different sizes. This one is the best because its large and it has a light.



CARS! Cars are awesome. Race tracks that have Lightening McQueen are the best.




There were also a few fairies.



And more legos. Pink legos.




Working on Legos takes a lot of concentration. I love her tounge. Not only is it sticking out, but its been out and rolled most of the afternoon. Sorry this picture is blurry, she kept moving to get more pieces.



Corrine wanted "art stuff" and a saw. Yep, a saw. She got loads of paper and tape. Now I know where to go to find paper and tape.



How many 10 year old girls asked for a saw for Christmas this year?




Jakob got more snap circuits. If you have not seen these, you need to check into them. They are pretty cool. This set is a robot. After Jakob got it built, he spent some time chasing the small dog around the house. She doesn't like the robot as much as Jakob does.







Playing with legos are so much fun. We have several bins of legos scattered all over the floor. Its like Santa barfed pink legos all over my carpet. We didn't get the pink ones for Hayden. Now he is "as big as Jakob".



Keith has wanted a tractor a while now. He looks at KSL almost EVERY DAY looking for one. Corrine decided to use her own money to buy her dad a tractor. What a kid. She was so excited for him to open it!




We MUST eat a lot on Christmas. We love ham and potatoes!



Some times you have to cram a lot of chocolate in your mouth as fast as you can. Mom lets you get away with it because its Christmas.



At the end of the day, the house is trashed. We have eaten a lot of candy. And, we are all tired. But, we MUST KEEP PLAYING. No matter how tired we are. After all, Christmas doesn't come for another 364 days.



MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Gingerbread houses

We went to our neighbors for FHE tonight. We made gingerbread/cracker houses for Christmas. Because we get a lot of practice with apple turkeys, we understand how this game works. Get as much candy as you can on the crackers. End of rules. The kids had a great time! After the kids got done, the grown-ups worked on their houses.













Thank you Brad and Kay for letting us come to your house and eat all of your candy. We will be on a sugar high until Christmas!




Tonight someone 12 days of Christmas-ed us. We have never had that done before. This is our partridge in a pear tree. Pretty creative!!

Busy Weekend

We had a busy weekend! However, its December... so I think everyone has a busy weekend. Tis the season I guess. Thursday evening the kids had their piano recital. I was so nervous. Oh, wait.. its not about me this time.... Ok, THEY were so nervous. They each had 2 songs to play. They each had 1 memorized and needed their paper for the 2nd. Well, I guess Sariah had both memorized, but her teacher used the paper to play the duet part. The duet part made it much nicer to listen to. In the future, we are going to invite her teacher to come practice each day. This is Sariah playing her songs. She has improved so much the last few months.



This is Corrine. She had a VERY hard Christmas song. A couple of months ago Corrine had many displays of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. It was a painful experience for her and I because she was "NEVER GOING TO LEARN THIS STUPID SONG!!!" Yes, that is a direct quote. Sorry for those of you with sensitivities to that particular s-word. For the record... She MEMORIZED it and did it BEAUTIFULLY. I have even caught her playing that very song FOR FUN!!! I know!!




This is Jakob playing his songs. He had two very hard songs. He is doing really well in piano. I don't mind listening to him practice at all. His songs are so fun now.



This is Hayden NOT being good at the recital. He found a piece of paper and made a ball with it. This is him tossing it to himself. His "tossing" got a little wild and the ball had to be taken away. We do not play ball at piano recitals. We sit still, forget we are 4 year old boys, get refined and have some limited culture.



This is the kids with their piano teacher, Sister Fox. She is so nice and we all love her so much!! Thank you for being patient with us!



Keith got this old table from his mom. I have wanted a table with more rounded corners. The table we were using was rather LARGE and we have a small kitchen. With the wood stove, it was rather tight. I wanted a black table so Keith and the two big kids sanded and refinished the old table. I was being a bit of a control freak and didn't want the nice black table in my kitchen until I had some black chairs to go with it. So, on Friday, we went to IKEA and bought some cheap black chairs. I say cheap because they will probably break soon. However, we have decided that we will not actually own any nice furniture until all of the kids have left the house. Since the youngest kid isn't even here to start destroying things... we have a while to go. I love the new to us black table. Keith and the kids did a great job!!




On Saturday morning, Sariah had belt testing for Tae Kwon Do. I was very nervous. I mean, she was. She was testing for her green belt. This is a very cool thing for me. I mean, her. Because I have 4 kids taking TKD, they ended up being in 3 different classes. This means that 2-3 days a week, I sit in the car for just over 2 hours each day. Then, we have about a 20 min drive to and from. It is NOT so much fun. Because Sariah has passed her testing, she moves up into the class with Jakob and Corrine. This is awesome because I get almost a full hour back out of each TKD day. I ment to say... this is awesome because Sariah is progressing and I couldn't be prouder.

This is her doing her form.



This is her sparring. Its the funniest thing in the world to watch. I have to admit, its my very favorite part of TKD. I don't know how the Master does it with out laughing out loud at the kids.



This is Sariah getting ready to break her board. She is having WAY to much fun destroying things. Should we really be teaching her how to do this?? She LOVES TKD. Thank you so much Master (uncle) Kim.



We also had the Schramm family Christmas party on Saturday. I got a few pictures... but I didn't really like any of them enough to sit and wait for them to load. The kids had a blast at the party. I got to hold a 2 month old baby. She is the cutest baby and I just kept lovin' on her. I realized its been a while since I held a 2 month old baby. Im way out of practice.

Christmas Letter.... sort of

Since the Christmas cards went out, I guess I had better have our Christmas letter ready. So, here is my pathetic attempt. If I had to pick one word to describe our year, it would easily be CHANGE. Not hope and change.... just lots and lots of CHANGE.

In March, we drove to Michigan to visit with Mike and Julie and their family. This is a change because we have never gone in March. Its pretty safe to say, we will never go in March again. The driving out and the driving back was a horrible nightmare. We still shudder. Our first major change was we got a new family car. We love the new family car, but it was a change we didn't see coming until we were on the side of the freeway just outside of Chicago. We LOVED seeing Mike and Julie. Next time, we skip the drive. Its the only way to visit with them.

Keiths parents got in a car wreck in May and Keiths dad had to stay in the hospital until August. In August, he passed away. This was the hardest change to deal with. It was a very strange summer for our family. The only good thing is, that we got to have Mike and Julie and their family stay with us.... a couple of times. The kids were in HEAVEN!

Another big change was Keith and I both got released from our callings in September. Keith got released as a ward missionary and I got released from the RS presidency. We both got called to be the ward preparedness people. This is a fun calling for both of us. At the same time, we got put in charge of the ward Christmas party. As soon as we can get the Christmas party finished, we can really start to focus on preparedness.

The last big change is that we found out we are expecting a baby! We got this latest news the first of November. It took us a couple of weeks to get over the shock of this change. This piece of news prompted more change. The kids all swapped bedrooms to make room for baby. This change is also prompting Keith to figure out how to get all 5 kids in the truck. I figure that will be his problem. My problem is trying to make it through the day with out throwing up. Its the simple things that help you appreciate change.

2011 the year of CHANGE. We want to wish you all a Merry Christmas! We hope you have a great December and find time to feel our Saviors love and his influence in your life. We are especially grateful for our knowledge of the gospel this year. Knowing that our Heavenly Father has a plan for each of us has made this year of change a little easier to accept. Merry Christmas and may we all have a boring New Year!

Love,
Keith, Camille, Jakob, Corrine, Sariah, Hayden & Baby