It's beginning to look alot like Christmas!

I first want to say, Merry Christmas! I am excited for the season but have felt the stress of shopping already. I prefer shopping on line. But since I am back in the USA, I figured I can't stay home when I could just go down the street to Walmart or to a nicely decorated mall.

This entry will be more like a chronological list of the events leading up to Christmas. I hope we can add more traditions each year. So far shopping, baking, eating, singing, and reading and watching Christmas movies are our traditions. Luckily when we lived in Taiwan for three years we had the priviledge of being in a live pageant. (I'll add a picture of that later when I find it.)

But for Christmas 2007, here is our count down:

Sunday, December 2, we went to our stakes Messiah sing along. It was a bit formal and the boys had to sit for over an hour in utter silence or sing along when directed. I loved it. They endured it and hopefully got a dose of the true Christmas spirit. It all ended with a yummy dessert of chocolate or lemon bundt cake.

Our neighbors, Heather and her children- Aiden and Kelsey- came to help us put up our tree on Monday, the 3rd.

December 5- our first snow dump! We got not only our first snow fall but a snow dump! It totalled about 5 inches! The boys enjoyed creating bigger snow balls this time and sledding down our front lawn eventhough they couldn't go to fast. (pictures coming soon)

more school projects and fieldtrips

The boys have been doing a project almost every month- well, Owen is doing a project every month. I think we get December off luckily. Here are some of their works. Of course, I- mom, have been helping them; it has been a joy for me and a good time for some one on one with each of the boys as they have these assignments to complete. I make sure to manage their time so we don't leave everything for the last minute; however, when three projects are due on the same weekend and they all need my help at the same time, it does get a little crazy!

Here is Noah's second project, a Sioux Tipi.

Owen has a monthly book report project but it's not your average book report. It is creative! September was a mobile- (don't know if I have a picture on this) his book was Snow Dog;

October was a costume- (his book was Transformers and this one was a little hard to do - now weapons or anything too scarey was the rule)

November was a research of a state- (Owen chose New York state and I really had to sit with him and get him to think about what he was reading to really learn and know the facts).

The project was a decorated bag with required elements of state flag, bird, etc. and then inside you put objects with a 3x5 card explaining about its significance to the state. Ex: apple is state fruit, book with picture of twin towers attack, yankee baseball cards, etc.

It has been fun working with them on these projects.

Coming soon is a picture of Gray's first big project about minerals- he chose silver.

Payton has one now in December about family traditions. Below are a few pictures of his first fieldtrip which as cold. We ate outside under a ramada and our fingers were like ice! It was fun though and very educational learning about the Native American's and early settlers times. (I thought it was really cool to see this tree and many others that have been freshly cut down by a beaver.)

Mrs. Weisner is in the black coat. She is Payton's teacher aide. Payton is also in his black coat beside her.

Thanksgiving back in New York

We are ever so gratful to be back in the U.S.A. and again visiting family for the holidays. Our drive up to New York was beautiful and a little quicker than before since Pennsylvania has improved on their roads, i.e. route 15.

(I added the clipart above because Payton made one just like it in Kindergarten this year- and Payton has begun reading about this time- Thanksgiving 2007! He is doing super and loves it. He is self-motivated and enjoying it!)

We enjoyed a delicious meal mostly prepared by Grandma Gams. Since I came with a cold I didn't do too much to contribute; plus all the pies were already in the oven! We had turkey and ham, plus all that goes with it! Of course we ate too much! It was delish!

On Thanksgiving day the boys enjoyed their first snowfall. It wasn't much but enough to get excited about, dance, make footprints, play football in and create a few snowballs for a snowball fight!

(As soon as it began snowing the boys all ran outside- forget the coats-

let's play!)

DC temple -Gardners

Autumn time at the DC temple is a garden of beauty.

It was sunny but I don't think that is why Noah keeps hiding his face. We met up with some dear friends - the Gardners- and they took the picture. They boys don't really know our college buddies and their children, but lucky for him and all our boys they had the priviledge of getting acquainted! We had a great time!
A train on a slide!
Monkey bar fun, until you miss and hurt your knee- sorry Megan.
Greg, Tearsa and Scott conversing in the shade!
The best part about visiting with old friends is that you can begin where you left off... of course we all have more children than before but hey- who's counting!

rain doesn't slow us down

It was a cold, rainy day and our fabulous, friends from Severn came up to visit us! Erin and I had a great time chatting while the children played inside and out. Eventhough our basement is still not totally unpacked, it didn't slow them down from having a good time. We even barbequed hamburgers- rain doesn't slow us down!

Innovative Conner entertained himself and the children using the boxes we still have lying around. The packaging is always more fun than those plastic toys you get inside it!

Alena and Payton creating with playdough.

finally a place to sit

Our little house finally feels like home! We have furniture to sit on and my china cabinet survived after I cleaned it with a clorox solution, so I put my dishes in it and set it up against the yellow wall- looks fantastic! I'm so excited! And, I'm very happy that our piano made it through the shipment without being destroyed with mold! I found our piano books this week and have begun to pluck away at it and get the boys to practice too! I love having music in our home! I hope to put up some "words" on the walls (like yours Jennifer Reil), it will add just the right look to the rest of our family room.

school projects and MChat

Don't scroll down for the pictures yet. Let's play a game. Owen has some fun monthly book reports. October he had to dress up like a character from his book and provide at least 6 sentence clues of who his character is. Read the clues and then guess who he is before you see the picture!

1. I am huge, bigger than a house.
2. I am made of metal.
3. I have a twin brother.
4. I work for the good.
5. I am an alien, I don't come from earth.
6. I traveled through space searching for the Allspark.
7. I can transform into a truck.
Who am I?



OPTIMUS PRIME (Our boxes sure are coming in handy!)


Another bug project for Noah! He did this last year in first grade, but it was so fun he doesn't mind doing it again. (Of course, mom helped with these projects because she never had this much fun in elementary school!)

Noah chose to do the bee fly! Can you tell? Isn't it a perfect resemblance!

Every Friday I have started the tradition with our boys that we do a group chat- MomChats. We record in a journal how the week went, making sure we write down important or significant things we would like to remember and reflect on. Every week goes by so fast! It is a good way for us to appreciate what we have learned, done, etc. I usually make sure we have a special snack. This picture is a little bright, sorry. The boys are enjoying shaved ice with cotton candy syrup! Yum! -Thanks Grandma for the electric ice shaver kit.

burnt lip

Owen had a weird growth on his lip last month. It would bleed when he ate because his teeth or the food he ate rubbed against it. We took him to see the doctor and she thought it was some kind of wart! So, they chemically burned it. It looked bad for a couple of days, then the blackness peeled off revealing what seemed to be the same wart problem from before. However, it didn't really bleed like before and after 4 days it was completley gone. Yipee! It would be terrible if he had that the rest of his life. No girl would want to kiss him on a date!

The Monkey Tree

Guess who is in the tree?



The boys love climbing their trees. This one is in our front lawn and they all were in it. They even had the neighborhood children join. What funny monkeys!

The fourth on two

Well, here it is, our baby knows how to ride two wheels! I can't believe it! Not long ago I said, my baby is out of diapers. We have had no diapers for 3 years now and now we are in a new stage- no training wheels! I just can't believe it! Time sure flies by!

Payton was determined to learn how to ride two wheels since his neighborhood buddies have already learned. He didn't want to wait until spring! I didn't push it or even encourage it like I did with his brothers. I didn't even have time to teach him, assist him. He talked about it for two weeks or more, asking me to help him learn. His friends, Aiden (5 years)and Michael (4 year-old) learned in three days. Finally, Payton couldn't handle it any longer. So, we went out after school in October- before Halloween- and practiced. It was harder than he thought. It was a cold day and not great for an extended time of practicing so Payton got tired and frustrated fast. After three times up and down our short road he stopped. The second day was even worse than the first. Payton was upset with himself. It wasn't fair that it took his friends a short time to learn. We practiced 10 times. (I reminded him to be patient, it will get better after day three, it was only his second day- he is competitive, Im sure he wanted to learn quicker than his friends did it!) The next day I asked Gray to assist him outside. Gray said he went about five feet without any help! We skipped a day. Then he wanted to get back out there. Greg helped him this time. Payton was so close to getting it but still teatering too much to get far. Later that fourth day Payton told me, "mom, come see what I can do", he got on and took off without me holding him but for 5 seconds. I told Greg, "wow, I didn't know he could do it already! you didn't tell me"- Greg said, "He wasn't doing that great this morning with me." So, sometime from Saturday a.m. to Saturday p.m. he decided he knew how and just did it. (He was out with his older brothers in-between the time with us parents. I guess that made the difference. Sometimes having siblings is such a blessing! It's times like these that make it all worth it!) So 4 days and he found his balance. 4 more days and he knows how to turn very well. Just amazing!

- sorry for the lengthy details. I just had to record it for myself to remember.

The pumpkin patch- not

Pumpkin patch? Okay, well, it's more than what we saw in Asia.

Our adventure to a pumpkin patch to pick a pumpkin wasn't all that I had hoped or remembered. I guess we went to the wrong one. It was mostly a farm store that has rows of pumpkins for customers to choose and buy. They only do hay rides on Sunday and this is the only way to get out to the real pumpkin patch. I guess we could have gone someplace else, but time was running out and we really just needed to buy them so we could use them to decorate our front porch and eat the seeds!

A couple days before Halloween we carved two of the pumpkins. Owen and Noah really enjoyed this but Payton and Gray disliked the smell so they chose not to carve theirs. We may still carve theirs but use a drill to poke wholes into it to make a fun pattern.

Hope you all had a fun, safe Halloween. We did.

The Saturday before, we went to a neighborhood party and a trunk-or-treat at the church. Gray was a scarey, skeleton faced monster, Owen was a muscle man, Noah was Skeletor and Payton was Batman. (Our neighbor Sarah is tinkerbell. She is the same age as Noah eventhough she is about the same height as Owen. Owen looks funny here, like he is going to sneeze from Sarah's fake flowers.)

above at the neighbors -Tiffany, Steve and Anna's party

The is the night of Halloween. Michael is Jango-fat, Payton is Spiderman, Anna is Ariel, Owen is a painted face goul, Aiden is the red Power Ranger, Noah is the muscleman pirate, Sarah is tinkerbell. Gray couldn't find his skeleton mask from the other night so he ran home and changed into his Raven's jersey and shorts. He was a very, cold Raven's fan. He had the older children literally running from house to house collecting candy. He met up with another friend, Tyler, and had a great time. They all had a great time!

I was at home, sick with a cold and ready to pass out candy but no one came! Well, not no one. However, for the whole night we had two groups of 8 and then later one little girl on her own with her dad. I was over prepared. So, for a while, I left the big bowl of candy on the driveway with a note ("take a handful") and I joined the boys. It was good I did. They were all enthusiastic about this major event- their first door to door trick or treating night!

I love my van!!!

We took our bikes to the park. Can you believe how nicely these 5 bicycles fit in our van! I love the extra space in our new van!