Winter Music Program

This past Thursday Tyler and Zoe had their Winter Music program. Let me start by saying, it was packed!  They have all grades perform on the same night, which included 50+ preschoolers.  After the preschool kids sang The Snowy Pokey and a snowflake song (can't remember the name of it) the gym cleared significantly and we were able to sit in the front row. Zoe's class and the other first grade class sang Shalom and March to the Nutcracker (according to Zoe) was performed on Kazoo's! It was very cute and Zoe was really into it.  I can't remember all of the other songs, but I did record the second graders singing O Kwanzaa.  There were a variety of other winter songs, but not a single "Christmas" song!  

So let me vent a second about that... I was so excited because I can remember as a little girl in elementary school always have a school performance at Christmas time.  And I can even remember singing Chanukah songs.  But this is the first time my kids have ever had "Winter performance." And I expected more of a variety than We Wish You a Merry Christmas.  And we did!  We had a Chanukah song, we had a snowman song, a snowflake song, a candle song, a Kwanzaa song, Winter in America song, December in our town song, but not a single song about Christmas!  That is rather frustrating to someone that actually celebrated Christmas!  Ok, so now I am over it.  The 4th and 5th graders combined and sang 4 songs total.  Tyler was a featured soloist for the Candle song.    

After the performance, they had cookies and juice and then I took the kids pictures.  

They looked so cute all dressed up!

Cake decorating

I am sure you have all seen the Betty Crocker cake decorating commercial on the tv.  Well, let me start by saying advertising REALLY works on my kids!  They want everything they see on tv.  So, Zoe asks me if she can PLEASE get this cake decorating kit.  I would never have actually call the 800 number to buy it, but we were at Wal-mart with Mike and Lynette and Zoe found it.  Not thinking just how much work it would create for me, and it was such a bargain at $10, I bought it.  That night, and everyday after that for exactly three days, she asked if she could make a cake.  I finally gave in and help her make a cake.  You're probably thinking, what's the problem?  Betty Crocker cake mixes are so easy!  Yeah, well Brett doesn't eat cake mixes from a box if he has a choice.  So being the good wife and mother that I am, I made a chocolate cake from scratch!  I forgot to mention, I also was trying to put in a water filter under my sink, so my water to my kitchen sink was off!  My list of woes goes on, Zoe wanted a round cake, just like the one on the box, problem is, I only have one round cake pan, so it took me twice as long to get just the cake baked!  The icing was another fiasco but when it was all said and done, Zoe had a great time decorating her cake and she can't wait until I make another cake!  I told her Grandpa Roger is going to be here for Christmas and his birthday is the 26th so she can make his birthday cake!! Oh and did I mention Grandma Judy will be here to be helper next time?  

A bit of advice...don't buy the Betty Crocker cake decorating kit for your kids, you can borrow mind if you are feeling like torturing yourself!

A good friend of mine reminded me of the messy kitchen, please don't think my kitchen wasn't a total disaster!  It was!!  And without a working sink!  

Christmas Tree Farm

We enjoyed going to Whispering Pines Christmas Tree Farm last year with the Yonkers so much that everyone wanted to go back this year.  Even though we have an artificial tree, and Mike and Lynette can't have a real tree in their apartment, I thought we could go and get a wreath for our front door.  We were still able to enjoy the drive, and the free hot dogs, s'mores and hot chocolate.  

There was no snow on the ground but it was plenty cold for all of us.  

Dru too this picture of me with our wreath.  I was so excited, it smelled so good.  I put it up on our front door and 4 short days later discovered that it was completely dead!  Last year it lasted until well after Christmas, but that was before we had a storm door to act as an oven door for our poor wreath.  Oh well, lesson learned, now we have a fake wreath too! 

Dear Santa,

All I want for Christmas is...

my two front teeth!  Love, Zoe

A lot to blog about...

Ok, so it is official, I am not very good at updating this thing.  I am sorry to those who are faithful readers and checked nightly only to be disappointed.  Rest assured, over the past week I have taken lots of pictures with lots of things to blog about.  So get ready to be overloaded.

Uncle Mike and Lynette joined us for Thanksgiving dinner.  This is me trying to get the only picture taken on Thanksgiving as they were heading out the door.  Don't look too close, you will see the kids eating powdered doughnuts.

One a recent trip to Costco, Dru not only kept entertained with the samples, but danced and played the drums.  On the way home we took pictures of each other.  Don't worry, I wasn't driving and taking pictures!

While Frank and Vicki were visiting, we were able to get through many home projects.  The two major projects were a much needed new kitchen sink.  And our leaky toilet repaired.  Look for a blog to come about that fiasco! 

  

Thought I would throw in a picture of Roxy, she thinks she is human!  Although in this picture we think she looks like an elephant, you know how they climb up on a little stool, she loves to sit on the step stool. 

Zoe and I went to Hockey game last weekend.  Zoe loves to sport her Stanley Cup Champions Anaheim Ducks jersey!  She tried so hard all night to get the camera man to put her on the jumbo-tron.  And she finally succeeded!  The second picture is her showing off her wild moves on the scoreboard!

      

My friend, Amanda, and I have a serious addiction....flower clips!! Over the past couple of months we have spent a lot of time and money on making hundreds of flower clips.  You might ask, well how many flower clips do your girls need?  Yeah, we ask the same thing.  We have finally decided we need to do something about this habit/addiction.  Yesterday we set up a display (and a really cute one at that!) at Curves to help support this habit!  We didn't sell a ton, but our crowd was less than desirable.  We hope to find a local craft show to take them to. This is our display (I told you it was cute) and our even cuter model!

      

Lastly, the girls room is really lacking in the art department.  And artwork for the walls is just so expensive.  So I bought some blank canvases and let my kids create their own artwork for the walls.  The kids enjoyed painting the pictures to hang on the wall.  Look for a future post about the finished product!