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!)