22 December 2013

Sofi was inducted into National Honor Society this week.  Her school had a nice honors evening planned 2 weeks ago, but the event was canceled because of the snow.  Instead, all the honors students and about 5 parents met in a crowded, smelly classroom during lunch.  (The lunches were probably the source of the smell.)  Three cheers for Sofi and her good grades!

 Becky thought about getting creative for teacher gifts this year, but December is not a good month for creativity.  Our kids decorated Lindt candy bars as reindeer, snowmen and Santas.  The best part of this activity is they have done it so often, they hardly need any help.

 Abe set up an assembly line to make reindeer.  He kept adding more people to his list-- his school teacher and aide, the high school intern for his class, the principal, the librarian, the office workers, his Primary teachers. . . Abe spread lots of Christmas cheer this week.

Helen got a trophy this week for having 500 Accelerated Reader points at a school assembly.  

We had Gibson's Four Foot Tall party on Saturday.  We celebrate this milestone in our family by watching a movie (Gibson chose Planes) and eating treats.

 We're coming to the end of our Christmas Concert series.  This is the third year we've played mini concerts for some of our good friends.  Our calendar filled up quickly.  We brought a keyboard along this year which added more music to our program.

 Our concerts have all been a little different, but they follow the same general idea.  We began with Sofi accompanying on the keyboard while our whole family sang "It's a Marshmallow World."  Abe played the guitar.  He played some combination of "We Three Kings," "The Friendly Beasts," and "O Come, O Come Emmanuel."  Helen played "Away in a Manger" and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" on the violin.  Abe played "Carol of the Bells " on the keyboard.  He added "The Holly and the Ivy" when there was a piano available. Helen played one or two Christmas carols on the keyboard.  She learned about 10 Christmas songs this year, so she just played whatever she fancied at the moment.  We ended all of our concerts by singing "O Holy Night" while Abe played the guitar.  Gibson surprised us tonight by playing "Joy to the World" on the keyboard as an encore.  We started these concerts as a family service project, but our kids have left every concert this year with unexpected treats and surprises.