30 December 2012

Here's a photo of our bulletin board at the end of our Christmas advent.  We read scriptures and hung pictures of witnesses of Christ's birth.  Over a third of the pictures were from the Book of Mormon-- a reminder of the strong testimony the Book of Mormon bears of Jesus Christ.

Becky told Sofi she could go to see the movie Les Miserables if she read the book first.  The unabridged translation she got from the library was 1200 pages long.  She spent a large part of this week reading.  Sofi slogged through the first 100 pages, finally got into the book after about 400 pages, fell in love with the book after 1000 pages and cried for half an hour after she finished the book.  

Here are Sofi and Joey at the movies.  Brandan and Becky were a little jealous of how well Sofi knew the story, including the backstories of all the minor characters.  We should have assigned ourselves to read the book, too.  Maybe we'll try to finish the book by the end of 2013.  We were happy to piggyback on her accomplishment to see the movie, though-- it was a powerful story of redemption.

Saturday was Helen's 8th birthday.  We've had a lot of snow in the mountains the past 2 weeks and it was a great day for sledding.  A giant snowman greeted us at the snow park.

Gib loved this short run-- he probably slid down it 30 times, arms outstretched like an airplane, big belly laughs all the way down.

The other kids liked going down the biggest hill without sleds.  It was steep enough that they could slide down in their snow pants.  This is a photo of Helen and Sofi going down together.

Here are Helen and Gibson playing in a snow fort.

Here is Abe with a giant snowball.

Many families at the snow park had started fires.  The sunlight made pretty patterns as it filtered through the trees and smoke.

After we got home from sledding, Becky and Helen hurried over to the church to help at a friend's wedding reception.  We served cake and bussed tables.  Helen said, "This is so much fun!" about 50 times.  It reminded Becky of one of her favorite songs, "When We're Helping We're Happy."

When we got home, Abe was just about finished with the 1000 piece puzzle he's been working on for a couple of weeks.  The puzzle was too big for our card table so we put a large piece of cardboard on the table so the puzzle would fit.

Helen postponed her own birthday celebration to help at the wedding.  We had birthday cake before bedtime.  Happy birthday to our sweet, smart Helen.  Helen has a strong sense of who she is, what she likes and what she wants to do.  She's looking forward to getting baptized on February 2.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Our Christmas Eve dinner table always looks beautiful.  It's fun to make a fuss on this special night.

We acted out the nativity on Christmas Eve.  Brandan's medical assistant, Susanne, joined us for dinner and was the narrator for our play.  None of the kids wanted to be Mary and Joseph this year so Becky and Brandan filled in.  Helen was the angel, Sofi and Gib were wise men and shepherds.  Abe played all 3 inn keepers.

Our Christmas Eve dinner is about the same every year, but we tried a new dessert this year-- raspberry/mango mousse swirl.  The pink and yellow swirls were very pretty and tasted delicious.

Becky made a few small homemade gifts this year: pajamas for Brandan and Sofi, a hanging bedside organizer for Abe to keep his Book of Mormon and book light in, crocheted hats for Helen and Gib and a collection of felt mustaches for Gib.  None of the gifts took very long to make, but they all were uniquely suited to each person and very satisfying to make.  

Here's a close up of Gibson's minion hat.

We had Christmas dinner at our friend June's house with a total of 12 people.  We all brought food to share and enjoyed a delicious dinner and storytelling.  It was a wonderful afternoon.

We spent this evening playing Apples to Apples.  Sofi gave our family the game for Christmas.  It's a fun game that all ages can play together.  The kids were having such a good time, they kept extending the number of cards you had to collect in order to win.  We've enjoyed being together today and are looking forward to a long break with lots of family time.

23 December 2012

We decorated some sugar cookies for Christmas.  We used some leftover paper plates from Halloween.

Here's Helen with her cookie.

Tuesday was a snow day.  We got about 2 inches of snow and school was canceled.  The kids didn't even get dressed before they started playing in it.

Even though he didn't have school, Abe still had to go to the orthodontist on Tuesday.  He got his braces off.  This photo is his last one showing his braces.  He had green and red bands for Christmas.

Here is his after photo.  The orthodontist also gave him a bag of sticky candy and a gift card to Barnes and Noble.  Abe only had braces for 4 months to correct his cross-bite.  He may need braces again when he is older, depending on how his permanent teeth grow in.

Sofi and Joey set up the TV in a closet to watch the latest Batman movie.  They had a pretty fun snow day, too.  They also played in the snow a little bit and made sugar cookie dough to eat-- just the dough, no cookies.

Most of the snow had melted by lunchtime.  The kids played in the snow as long as they could.

Two Young Women in our ward organized a Christmas concert at the VA.  They invited all the kids and teenagers in our ward who play musical instruments to come.  Sofi played "Still, Still, Still" on the piano, Abe played "O Christmas Tree" on the piano and "Angels We Have Heard on High" on the guitar and Helen played "Carol of the Bells" on the violin.  It was nice to hear all the kids from the ward play-- they take lessons from several different teachers, so we don't all see each other at recitals.

While visiting Sarah and Joe at Thanksgiving, we planted paperwhite bulbs in glass jars.  Besides being a pretty decoration, watching the flowers grow has been a fun science experiment.  The paperwhites got very tall very fast.

16 December 2012

This is a photo of Gibson enjoying Christmas cookies and a glass of nog for family night treat.

Wednesday's date was 12/12/12.  Sofi celebrated the same way she celebrates most holidays-- major, minor and invented-- by making treats and taking them to school to share with her friends.

Helen is making felt kleenex holders for gifts for her teachers.  She stitched the holders together herself.

More Christmas gifts:  Brandan made homemade lavender bath salts for the support staff at his office.  He made over 40 jars to give away.

Our ward Christmas party had the theme "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" this year.  It was a great theme and a fun party.  The highlight was a play put on by the Young Men and Women.  Sofi and her friend, Joey, narrated the play.

It snowed here a little on Saturday and Abe made a tiny snowman.

Abe's class has been studying the life cycle of salmon.  They hatched salmon eggs in an aquarium at school and have been watching them grow.  On Saturday it was time to release the fish into the Rogue River.

It seems cruel to dump the fish into a cold river in December, but the fish had been gradually acclimated to cold water in their tank before being released.  Each of the kids got a scoop of fish to let loose in the river.

Gibson got to release fish, too.  You can see how small the fish in his cup are.  The fish are at the sac fry stage of their development.

Becky and Helen went to see The Nutcracker on Saturday.  This was Helen's first time to see The Nutcracker and she was delighted by it.

We started our annual Hull Christmas Concert Series on Saturday.  It's going to take us a few evenings to visit everyone on our list.  For this year's program, Gibson recited a snowman poem from memory, Helen played "Carol of the Bells" and "The First Noel" on her violin, Abe played "We Three Kings" on the guitar, and Sofi read a Christmas poem.  We ended our mini concert by singing the carol "The Friendly Beasts" together as a family, accompanied by Abe on the guitar.  Brandan baked a loaf of bread to leave as a gift along with a copy of the poem Sofi read.

9 December 2012

Christmas celebrations are in full swing around here.  Our Christmas spirit got a big boost from decorating the Christmas tree Monday night.  Helen put the star on top of the tree.

We're partial to homemade gifts around here.  While we were visiting for Thanksgiving, Grandma Linda showed us the ruffly scarves she knits.  Sofi is making a scarf for a friend now.  She tried knitting it for a couple of days, then switched to crocheting which she finds a little easier.

Abe and Helen helped Brandan hang lights outside on Wednesday.  Becky thinks our outside display is tasteful.  The kids think our lights are boring.  They'd like more color, more flashing and maybe an inflatable snowman or two.

Thursday was St. Nicholas Day, one of our favorite holidays.

Abe was the first one downstairs and the first to dump the candy out of his shoe.  He missed one chocolate, though, and only found it when he was trying to put his shoes on to go to school.

Abe's guitar teacher, Steve, has quite a collection of stringed instruments and can play all of them.  He was headed to a performance of traditional Chinese music after Abe's lesson this week, so he demonstrated the Chinese guitar for us.  This instrument is called a pee-paw.  We do not know how to spell it.

Abe played Christmas carols at the mall on Saturday.  He played a duet of "O Christmas Tree" with his teacher, Teena, and then played "Deck the Halls" and "Jolly Old St. Nicholas."  Later that night, we had the missionaries for dinner and one of them wowed our kids with his dramatic style of piano playing.  He inspired Abe to work harder.

2 December 2012

Friday was college bound day at the elementary school.  The school encourages all the kids to start thinking about attending college by wearing T-shirts from their favorite colleges. Abe wore a BYU T-shirt under his U of U sweatshirt.

Gib made himself a beard and mustache to wear.

He also made Becky a mustache.   She only wore it for a little bit because it interfered with her peripheral vision.

For our Christmas advent this year, we are opening an envelope every night.  Each envelope has a picture of a witness of Jesus' birth inside.

We're putting the pictures on our bulletin board.  Only 23 more pictures to go!