Just Dance! It's a New Year Eve Party!!

Our whole family was invited to a New Year's Eve party....imagine that...all of us staying up to ring the new year in.  In reality all of us didn't stay till midnight, just the older kids, the hosts of the party offered to take all the teen and pre teen age kids home...and we let them!  Thanks Chris!

Anyhow, we had a great night.  We enjoyed connecting with some of our friends, eating way too much yummy food, video games, and lots of fun playing "Just Dance" on the Wii.  Many of the kids would come up stairs from the basement, where the gaming system was located all hot and sweaty from dancing too much!

Connor and Alan Robinette gave us a varied presentation of "Who's on First" by the Three Stooges.

Brianne had fun playing with the older kids....and I learned that she knew how to stack the nesting cups.

More dancing fun!!

...and more dancing...

and even more dancing fun!!

playing dress up....dressing up for the New Year's Ball.

....tired of dancing, now on to playing some games!  thanks for the great time Mattson family...and Robinette fam, and Morgan fam too!!

Ryan and his cousin Josh went to the Institute Building at Virginia Tech for a New Years party sponsored for the youth by the local ward.  He had a great time playing Just Dance too, along with, foos ball, pool (billard balls) and watched movies. Plus he said that he ate his weight in Oreo's...hmmmm, some how I don't doubt that!

Christmas Ornaments for the Year

Every year we have the kids select one new ornament...their new Christmas ornament for the year.  Originally we wanted it to represent something they did during the year, but sometimes choices are limited so it's become what ever strikes their fancy.  However, there is one exception, while are Mt. Vernon, Barry saw an ornament with George Washington praying while at Valley Forge on one side and a picture of Mt. Vernon on the other.  Instantly, he was drawn to it...and purchased it.  Thus we do have one ornament that represents something we did this year.

Ryan--bell with a reindeer on top
Connor--3 dementional snowflake-- every year he tried to pick an ornament that is of a star, however this year he couldn't find one at the store we were at, so he chose this instead...it's similar to a star.
Cailin--red reindeer
Delaney-- white butterflies
Liam-- silver ball
Brianne--golden glitter angel
Barry and I--white snow flake--I realized that when the kids grow up and move on...and take their ornaments with them...our tree will be bare.  So I decided to add us to the getting an ornament (plus every other year or so I get a photo ornament and put the kids pictures in it for us!

Christmas Day

On Christmas morning we started out day off about 6am. This is really quite late compared to years prior. In fact we had to go and wake Liam and Ryan up! We opened gifts and had a great time. It was fun watching Brianne get into the spirit of ripping and tearing paper. She had a great time of it.

After all the festivities of unwrapping the bounties from Santa Claus we got ready for church.  I think Christmas day should always be celebrated on the Sabbath.  Cailin and Vicki performed with the choir.  Cailin did a beautiful job playing an obbligato to "While Sheppard Watched Their Flocks".  It was a challenging piece for her, but she practiced often and performed well.
Barry gave a talk on the New Testament Nativity.  He brought our the importance for us to follow the example of the wise men...to look and learn of him. As President Monson says "Wise men still look for him."  He spoke that we all have challenges and problems in our lives and we all learn how he speaks to us...that we must learn to listen to him and the Holy Ghost's promptings so we can live with him one day.

Afterwards we headed off to Ben and Maleah's home for a delicious country brunch. Ben and family cooked and served breakfast for all the extended family. We were the last to arrive at around 11:30. It was a great ending to the morning. We than headed home.

All Liam kept asking for was the grey spidarman.  I'm not sure what the grey one is, but he loved the costume.

 

Delaney's been asking for a few years now for these kind of pj's. She's ecstatic to finally get them.

Santa brought many legos for the kids this year.  Connor, Cailin and Liam both got a set. They were coordinating, in that they were all of a medieval theme.

Brianne had lots of fun tearing into paper...she doesn't need gifts, boxes and paper are just fine!

Liam was delighted with an assortment of plastic swords to beat his aunt Elizabeth with. We all enjoyed watching Liam chase her from room to room whacking her repeatedly. She of course attempted to put a defense, but to no avail, you just can stand up to a four year old in a Spiderman suit wielding a plastic sword.

Back at home from Ben's house we enjoy time down and the kids enjoy playing with their new toys.  Delaney loves her new Littlest Pet Shop. Ryan has a great book to dig into and Elizabeth helped Ryan and Cailin put music on their new MP3.  Connor's definitely creating with his new legos and watching his new movie/lectures on black holes.

It was a perfectly peaceful, cozy day...just perfect!

Christmas Eve

Our Christmas Eve celebrations begin this year by....

The kids getting to pick out their own box of name brand cereal...any kind, it's their choice.  Elizabeth then took the kids to the park to play for a few hours so we could get some christmas gifts wrapped and ready for that night....thanks for a peaceful and QUIET few hours!! (that was a great gift!!!)

Eating our Bethlehem Dinner of fish, latkes, cheese, bread, grapes, olives and dried fruit....all by candle light

 

Unwrapping our family Secret Santa gifts.  We put a twist on this years gift giving with each other, we had them make their gifts....from the heart, homemade gifts.

Ryan had Brianne and made her a pillow case of soft flannel fabric with little teddy bears on it.  He did quite well, the seams were straight.

Connor had me and gave me some lotion --a prize he won at a Christmas party he went to--not so homemade, but, nice nevertheless.

Cailin had Ryan.  She decorated a jar with pictures of dragons decopagued  on it. The jar was for him to keep his knicknacks or pencils in on his dresser.

Delaney had Liam and she made him some playdough (clever idea because he really likes to play with playdough)

Liam had Connor and gave him a decopagued jar with science pictures and sayings on it like, 'Science Rocks' and "Geeks Rule" 

Brianne made a jar for her dad, which started the whole decopagueing thing...she put her hand print of paint (yep that was messy fun!) with a picture on the side of a jar.  The jar is a nice addition to our computer desk...and we now have pencils and pens at hand when we need them while at the desk.

Barry had Cailin,  she got a special date out with Dad for soup and salad and the opportunity to get another Warriors book for her collection.

I had Delaney and I made her a flannel pillow case (lavender with daisys on it), for her bed.

That was fun and I think we'll do it again next year.

We ended the night with reading the scriptures about the birth of Christ from the Bible and Book of Mormon.

Mount Vernon

 

On December 21 we headed up to Washington D.C. for a Christmas visit to Mount Vernon. We have been studying the Colonial times in history. We decided to visit the home of the first president, George Washington. George Washington was a great man, not only for the general and president he became, but also for the courage it took to go against the system of slavery that he had been raised to believe was just. In his will he freed his slaves upon the death of Martha. He was the only founding father to take this step.

George Washington had a great interest in exotic animals. He had a camel brought to Mount Vernon. During our trip to Mount Vernon, A camel named Aladdin paid a visit. The children were quite taken with him.

With Mount Vernon on the Potomac river, George Washington was wise to invest in a boat dock on his estate. Supplies for Mount Vernon came up the river to the docks, were unloaded by slaves and delivered to the estate. In the spring, slaves used large nets to pull fish from the river. The fish was salted and used to feed the residence and slaves who lived at Mount Vernon.

George Washington relied heavily on the black smith to make and repair tools, and shoe horses. The original shop did not survive the years, when Mount Vernon was restored, a replica was built over top of the original foundation,

This volunteer is known as a historical interpreter.  She and the blacksmith present demonstrations of how everyday business and chores were carried out. BELOW - This rather suspicious character was found lurking outside the slave quarters and green house entrance. Vicki thought he was cute, so we decided to keep him. He sure does eat a lot!

 

The Mount Vernon main house was built to over look the Potomac river. The view from the porch is fantastic. Along the porch are about fifty chairs connected together. It is a pleasant place to set and soak up the history.

Towards the end of our visit we began to understand that we had only seen a fraction of all that is presented at this beautiful estate. We also had a better understanding of the amount of labor that must have been involved in keeping everything up and running. There is a greatness about Mount Vernon. A sublime sense of order and beauty.

A Christmas Experience at The Washington DC Temple and Visitor's Center

For the past few months Barry and I have tossed back and forth the idea of taking the kids to see the Christmas lights at the temple.  We always strive to keep Christ the center of our celebration and we really wanted to share the spirit of the temple with them.  Life threw a few unexpected punches....our van had been having problems and these problems were becoming more and more pronounced.  In the end, after my Dad did some research in helping us find out if the van could be fixed, (mechanics were never able to find the problem when we would take it in and we recently paid out $500. and it still didn't run well.)  All in all, we decided it was time to get another vehicle. However, this transaction took the money we had set aside for the trip.  We threw caution to the wind and went anyway... thank goodness for savings...right?!! (Besides, we already paid for our hotel accommodation-- $44. a night, we couldn't give that up!)
 Even though I was nervous about using savings money for something that was clearly not an emergency, I'm sooooo so glad that we did.  It was an amazingly fun, family bonding, spirit filled trip.

Don't let Connor fool you, he had a great time...he just HATES photos and will act stiff and morose just to make a point!

We enjoyed looking at many wonderful trees decorated by various wards from the surrounding area.  We watched a live musical performance by a classically trained husband/wife duo who was accompanied by their son (and others) on the piano.
The kids loved watching "I'm a Mormon" videos in the "home" area of the visitors center. Brianne has many of the couple missionaries crooning over her.  We also liked to look at the many nativity scenes they had on display from many different countries. We played a fun game quizzing everyone on which continent each country was located.(..and I learned we need to keep working on geography.)

After the concert we took a walk around the temple.  Barry led our family in an impromptu Family Home Evening lesson on the temple steps.  We sat and discussed  the importance of the temple to us, families and the Lord plan.  Although it had been rainy much of the day, when we got there the weather was warm and the rain had stopped.  Our bottom ends were a bit soggy, but who cares, the spirit was so strong and we loved being there.  We continued to walk around the entire temple grounds and sadly left for the hotel.  Once there we continued to have warm family moments reading scriptures and enjoying hot cocoa.  This truly was was wonderful night....I'm sooo glad we came!

Touching the temple doors.  I believe it was either Pres. Hrinkley or Pres. Monson who said, "When we touch the temple, the temple touches us."  We got to share our testimonies with the kids about the temple and our love for them and our Savior.  

In the theatre waiting for the live musical performance to begin.
Hey, could it be, a smile coming from Connor?

The visitor's Center was covered in beautiful colorful lights..  As we entered the parking light we couldn't keep from  ooohh -ing and aaahhh-ing over the amazing lights display.  The kids very much noticed that the temple itself didn't have many lights, and they what few there were on trees, were white.  Barry explained to them that the temple has it's own light and beauty, it doesn't need anything more to make if spectacular...it has a beauty of it's own.