25 December 2011

Merry Christmas! We have a few photos of our week and lots of photos of Christmas to share. On Tuesday, we went with a group of friends from church to the VA hospital to give a Christmas concert. All of the children sang, most played the piano, 3 played the violin, 1 played the guitar and 1 played the ukulele-- a talented group. The concert was during the veterans' dinner and they seemed to appreciate the music. They applauded louder than any other audience we've seen this season.

Brandan's clinic closed early on Thursday for their staff party.  Brandan called to invite us to come see the big surprise-- his office manager had arranged for an Elvis impersonator to perform at the party.  Several women in the group nearly swooned.  This is the same Elvis who did such a good job in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat this summer and our kids were happy to see him again.

It's not often you can get your photo taken with Elvis and Santa at the same party.

Sofi made a purse for a friend for Christmas this week.  She got the fabric for the body of the owl from a jacket she bought at Goodwill and the rest of the fabric from leftover scraps.  Her project turned out pretty cute.

For Christmas Eve dinner we used the crocheted tablecloth Brandan and Sofi brought back from Ireland this summer.  It's the first time we've used it-- it's almost too beautiful.  

After dinner we had our Christmas Eve program.  Helen was the narrator and an angel for our nativity play.  Sofi was Mary and Gibson was Joseph.  Brandan, Becky and Abe were innkeepers, shepherds and wisemen.

Helen wanted a photo to show her angel wings.

After the nativity play, each person shared something with our family.  Helen and Becky read Christmas stories.  Abe and Sofi played the piano.  Brandan shared photos of the earth from outer space and from the Hubble deep field project and talked about the condescension of God.  Gibson jumped up and down, clapped his hands and yelled, "Merry Christmas!"

  

This is a photo of our family room about 6:30 am.  Brandan and Becky were awake, but the kids were still wrapped up cozily in blankets.  We let them stay up as late as they liked on Christmas Eve, so they slept until about 7 am on Christmas.

Here's the same spot about an hour later as the kids unwrap their presents, stopping to play with anything that catches their fancy.

Brandan ordered a giclee of Becky's favorite painting by Minerva Teichert.  To make it extra special, he built a frame for it out of solid walnut.  We'll hang this in our bedroom-- so beautiful.

18 December 2011

The kids made presents for their teachers this week. We make the same gift every year, but who's going to argue with a swiss chocolate bar wrapped up as cutely as Gibson's reindeer?

Abe played 2 basketball games this week. This is his first year, and he really enjoys it.

This is the 2nd year we've organized the Hull Christmas Concert Series and it was our best yet.  We planned a program: Gibson sang "Jingle Bells,"  Helen played the violin, Abe played the ukulele and Sofi read a Christmas story called "A Brother Like That."  Then we all sang "Deck the Halls."  Brandan was in charge of scheduling appointments (the series part of the concert) and Becky was in charge of packaging a treat.  We played 4 mini concerts this evening and have one more planned.  Our audiences are some of the widows in our ward. It was a fun way to share a present with some women who really don't need anything, except maybe some time.

  

Abe made this copper lantern at cub scouts this week and told us he needs to light it every day until Christmas.  This is an easy request to accommodate as the lantern looks very pretty with candlelight sparkling through the nail holes Abe punched in the sides.

11 December 2011

We decorated Christmas cookies for family night this week.  Helen used tweezers to position sprinkles on her candy cane.

Gibson is learning how to wink.

Becky stitched up Gibson's koala again this week.  This much loved stuffed animal gets sewn back together regularly.

Friday was crazy sock day at school.  Helen rolled her pants up for the photo so you can see her mis-matched socks.  Abe wears shorts year round.  We thought wearing shorts in the winter was an Oregon thing, but during our Thanksgiving trip we learned it's just a boy thing-- guess it shows how tough they are.

Helen's violin teacher was the featured soloist at the symphony's Christmas concert so Becky and Helen went to hear her play.  We enjoyed a fantastic assortment of baroque Christmas music, most of it unfamiliar, but still joyful and majestic.  The evening ended the audience singing Christmas carols, accompanied by the brass section of the symphony.  The night was a wonderful Christmas treat.

Sofi played as part of the annual Christmas recital at the mall.  She played "Angel of Comfort" by David Lanz.

Abe also played at the mall.  He played "Jolly Old St. Nicholas," "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," and "Silent Night."

4 December 2011

We decorated for Christmas this week. Helen helped fill the Advent calendar with candy-- always a favorite job. 

Becky was most pleased by hanging all the stockings together. After a lot of effort she finished Gibson's stocking this year. She also loves our collection of nativity photos-- one from each Christmas Eve reenactment of the Christmas story.

We're remembering the Savior this month with Christmas advent hearts. Becky sewed fabric hearts together with ribbons and attached an alligator clip to each one. We chose 24 scriptures that described the Savior's love, wrote the references on paper and clipped the paper to the hearts. Beginning on December 1, the kids have been taking turns choosing a heart from the basket and we read the scripture together. Gibson clipped the first heart to the Christmas tree and every night after that the new heart is clipped to the previous night's heart to make a garland. Our heart garland will keep growing all month, wrapping around our tree, and we hope our gratitude for the Savior will grow, too.

Brandan and Becky went to the high priests' Christmas party this week and Brandan scored these fluffy socks in the white elephant exchange. Becky chose the gift she brought to take home, because she liked it best. Is it bad manners to pick your own present at a gift exchange?

Helen kept busy Saturday making elaborate structures with circular building toys. She took photos of her favorites, printed them out and made a poster. It's hard to see in the photo, but she outlined each photo in glitter. 

Here's Abe with his own gravity-defying creation.   ~   Our favorite Christmas Carol of the season is Zee Avi's slightly ominous version of "Frosty the Snowman." The lyrics are the same as the traditional carol, but the tune she sings is in a minor key-- sure convinces us that the snowman has melted! Look for the song on itunes.

27 November 2011

Our kids had a week long vacation for Thanksgiving. We took advantage of the long break to visit our family in Idaho and Utah. We stopped first to visit Rob and Amy's family in Nampa. Amy made us a delicious dinner and the kids enjoyed playing together.

Our next stop was to see Sarah, Joe and Zina. Sarah made all the kids a cute stuffed animal out of wool and let the kids pick out fabric to make clothes for their animals. They all liked deciding what their animal should wear. Sofi sewed hers together by herself. Gibson named his dog "Jingle Dog."

Joe had to take the shoes off his horses for the winter. Brandan and Gibson went along and Joe gave Gibson a ride on his horse, Duke. This was Gibson's first time on a horse and he was pretty anxious about it. 

Next stop was Grandma and Grandpa's house. Grandpa got out a bunch of loose parts for the kids to play with, including a tow chain and some shot puts which the kids put together into a sort of race course game.

We spent the rest of the week in Utah. Kaylee and Helen made a snack mix together.

Gibson put an olive on every finger while waiting for Thanksgiving dinner.

We went to The Leonardo together with lots of cousins. The Leonardo is a new art/science/technology museum in Salt Lake City. It's full of hands on projects, set up so all ages can sit down and create something. Some favorite activities were creating a stop motion cartoon, trying to use prosthetic hands and painting with computer screens.

 

After the museum, we rode around the free zone on the train on Salt Lake. We made lots of transfers which made the kids happy. The photo shows Dallin, Abe and Logan sharing a seat.

20 November 2011

Grandma and Grandpa Hull brought our boys driedels back from their trip to Israel this summer. Both Abe and Gibson like picking dreidel for family night-- makes a good activity and treat at the same time.

   

Helen likes grouping her candy to make it easy to count.

Our home teacher, Andy, stopped by this week with a load of fire wood, split and ready to burn.

Andy is clearly a few years older than we are, so it is a little humbling for him to bring us so much wood, representing hours of hard work. We're very thankful for the wood and for his thoughtfulness.

     

13 November 2011

After a little over a year of playing the violin, Helen has grown too big for her 1/10 size violin. We traded it in this week for a 1/8 size. We've bought both of Helen's violins from the same violin maker. His hand crafted instruments cost more than lots of cars, but he also sells used instruments to beginners. The music teachers all like him because he outfits student violins with top notch strings and makes them sound wonderful. Rather then rent violins, he sells them outright and then buys them back at a price determined by the condition of the instrument when you need a bigger one. If you take good care of your violin like Helen does, it's a good deal. John's shop is fun to visit because of the beautiful instruments he has displayed.

The soccer season ended last week and with the blink of an eye, Abe has switched to playing basketball. He's playing in a junior league for the first time this year.

We celebrated Helen growing to be 4 feet tall this weekend. Our tradition is to have a movie night with candy. It seems like we just had Abe's 4 foot party last week-- time goes by so quickly. Helen picked "Barbie's Perfect Christmas" to watch-- this was probably her only chance to pick out a Barbie movie for the family to watch.

Abe, Helen and Gibson gathered some branches Brandan pruned from our maple to make a lean-to fort in the backyard. 

Here they are inside the fort-- a cozy fit. We've had some beautiful weather this week.

6 November 2011

Our kids had one more chance to wear their Halloween costumes this week as they went trick or treating Monday night. Brandan dressed up as a pirate for work and kept his costume on. Abe got impatient waiting for everyone to get ready and left with a buddy so he's missing from our group photo. Becky told all the trick-or-treaters who came to our house, "If you see a pink hippo, tell him to go home." and Abe showed up about 15 minutes later.

We had more trick-or-treaters this year than ever. We usually get 40-50 kids. This year we had about 200 before we turned out the lights around 8 pm. After using up the Halloween candy, we cleaned all the candy out of the pantry and then our kids gave away candy out of their trick or treat bags. They all ran to the door to pass out candy whenever the doorbell rang-- just as fun as trick-or-treating themselves.

Tuesday night we went to a concert given by Johannes Moller, a fantastic classical guitarist. We enjoyed his own compositions as well as his interpretations of traditional guitar music. You can watch a nice selection of his music here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij3iQ0wO6NY 

It's been a wet, cold weekend, but Brandan took this beautiful photo of sunlight through our maple tree earlier in the week. Hopefully we'll get some more sunny days before winter sets in for good.

30 October 2011

Abe and Helen's school celebrated Halloween on Thursday with parties, a parade during school and a carnival after school. Brandan, Becky and Gibson went to watch the parade. Gibson wore his Superman costume.

Helen is dressing up as a bride this year. This may be her poofiest dress yet. She loves her costume and beamed a 1000 watt smile during the whole parade.

Abe dressed up as a pink hippo. 

Gibson fell asleep in the car on the way home. His muscles made a good pillow.

Sofi was one of about 40 kids who signed up to participate. They each made an outfit out of garbage. Sofi's lovely ensemble consisted of a vest made from plastic packaging, a skirt made out of newspaper and a matching headband. The trashion show made a fun assembly, but the top prize went to a teacher who wore a costume made by one of the judges. Really? 

The middle school doesn't celebrate Halloween, but they did end Red Ribbon week with a trashion show.

We had our first freeze this week. We're still enjoying warm weather during the day. Helen patiently clipped the bean vines from their supports as we cleaned out our vegetable garden for the year.