28 December 2014

Sofi has been interning at a physical therapy office this trimester.  The office shares a building with Brandan's practice so Brandan and Sofi have been able to meet for lunch every week.

Since almost everyone made Christmas presents this year we set up a craft corner in Becky and Brandan's bedroom.  This out-of-the-way spot saw a lot of activity in December.  In the photo, Gibson is trimming the donkey he made for Helen.

Sofi upcycled a men's dress shirt into a cute apron for Joey.

We invited 4 friends over to make gingerbread houses this week.  We rolled out the dough and baked the houses on Monday.  There was only room for 3 kids at a time to cut out the gingerbread.  The other kids played shark attack while they waited for a turn.  Sofi claims to have permanent hearing loss.

 Everyone returned on Tuesday to decorate the houses.  Becky hot glued the houses together before anyone arrived.  

Tuesday was a saner, quieter experience as each person focused on decorating their house.  Helen thought her roof looked like Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer.

 Gibson stuck a gingerbread man up on his roof so it looked like he was stringing candy lights.

 Abe made a gingerbread castle.  He used his candy to defend the castle.  The giant gum drops are poised to fall and crush miniature attackers.

 Becky frosted the leftover gingerbread cookies with lemon cream cheese frosting-- a new favorite combination.

 Helen, Gibson and Abe have been riding their ripsticks through the house all weekend.  Helen is dressed like a ninja in this photo.

 We drove up into the mountains on Saturday to play in the snow.  With the warm weather, we had to drive farther than usual.  We found a great clearing off the side of the road.  First we built a jump halfway down a slope for a sled run.

 This is Helen cruising over the jump.

Here comes Gibson.

Gibson landing.

 This is Tony, the snowman.

 The forest service had piled brush together in warmer weather.  Now frozen together and covered with snow, the brush piles made perfect forts for a snowball fight: Abe, Helen and Sofi versus Brandan, Becky and Gibson.

 Sofi made a snow duck to keep Tony company.

 This is Becky trying to steer away from Tony as she came down the hill.

 She hit him anyway.

 This is Tony still smiling, unmoved by the collision.  He survived more direct hits.

 Sofi missed Tony. . .

. . . but hit Gibson (not very hard!)

 Brandan and Abe restarted the snowball fight.

 Gib deflected snowballs with a sled.

Gibson: This is the best day this month!

Brandan: Better than Christmas?

Gibson: Okay, it's the best weekend day this month.

 Tonight we had Sofi's Chinese teacher, Zheng Ling and her son, Jerry, for dinner.  Zheng Ling has been a fantastic support to Sofi this year, helping her improve her Chinese language skills and supervising her internship at the elementary school.  We invited her to dinner to say thank you, but we were the ones blessed by her good company. 

 Zheng Ling brought Chinese drumsticks for dinner and our kids practically licked the platter clean.  They were delicious.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!  Here are a few photos from our Christmas celebrations.  The sister missionaries and our friend, Susanne, joined us for our Christmas Eve dinner and program.  Susanne was an innkeeper; Sister D. was a wise man; Brandan was an innkeeper, shepherd and wise man; Sister H. was a shepherd; Abe was Joseph; Helen was Mary and Sofi was a donkey.  Not in the photo are Gibson who was the angel and Becky who was the narrator and photographer.

Gibson took a few photos while we waited for our guests to arrive.

 Here is a tray of pot pies, our traditional Christmas Eve dinner.

 We slept in the family room on Christmas Eve night.  Gibson and Helen woke each other up early Christmas morning.  They wanted to surprise everyone else by dressing up like Santa and an elf and delivering the presents.  Gibson's Santa costume didn't last long, but Helen stayed dressed like an elf for most of the day.

Here's the lovely post unwrapping mess when everyone takes a second look at their presents.

 Each of our kids made gifts for their siblings this year.  Gib made everyone a stuffed animal: a donkey for Helen, a panda for Abe and a pig for Sofi.

 Helen is holding the ceramic snowman she made for Brandan at school.  Gib's koala is wearing the mini Santa hat she made for Gib.  She made a flannel pillowcase for Abe and a heatable rice bag for Sofi.

 Abe made 3-D origami figures: a flower cube for Sofi, a turtle for Gibson and a penguin for Helen.

Sofi personalized pillowcases for Helen and Abe and sewed a cover for Gibson's dragon training notebook.  She also made a little stuffed Gibson doll to give to Koala.

 All of the kids got multi tools in their stockings.  Helen spent a lot of time outside today sharpening sticks.  She whittled a 14 inch ash wand, a bow and a quiver full of arrows.  Most of the day was sunny and warm.

 We had the elders over for dinner this afternoon.  They skyped their families for a couple of hours and then we played games and ate dinner.  The elders have suffered from an abundance of sweets this Christmas and passed on dessert.  We ate our allergy friendly Buche de Noel after Brandan took them home.  Now we're off to bed with lots of happy memories of the day.

21 December 2014

Abe's basketball team scrimmaged another team for halftime entertainment at a high school basketball game this week.  Abe's team won the scrimmage and Abe scored a basket!  Abe is wearing a white T-shirt in the middle of the photo below.

At 7:30 am on Friday morning, Abe asked if he could borrow an ugly sweater to wear to school that day since it was ugly Christmas sweater day at school.  We don't own any ugly Christmas sweaters.  We actually don't think any of our sweaters are ugly.  Becky and Abe hot glued some decorations to a felt Christmas tree and pinned it to the front of a sweater.  Abe even made it to the bus stop on time.  Brandan also had an ugly sweater day at work, but he just wore a sweater.

 Sofi has wanted to hike to the top of Tablerock and watch the sunrise for a long time.  However, she doesn't like waking up early.  It occurred to her this week that now would be the time to do it, since the sun doesn't rise until 7:30 am.  She only needed to wake up at 6 am to make it to the top.  Four of her friends joined our family on a rainy, foggy Saturday for the hike.  We were above the fog when we got to the top, but it was too cloudy to see the sunrise.  We'll just have to try again!  In the photo are Josh, Gibson, Carson, Joey, Ireland, Sofi and Helen.  Brandan, Becky and Abe also came on the hike.

We've finished 4 of our concerts for our annual Hull Christmas concert series and have 3 left to go.  This year our program goes something like this (the kids change it around a little each time we perform): Abe plays My Little Drum on the keyboard, Helen plays God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen on the violin and whichever piano piece she feels like, ideally Gib plays the cello, but yesterday he thumped out Joy to the World and Jolly Old St. Nicholas on the keyboard, Sofi plays something on the keyboard and then Abe ends with The First Noel, which we all sing along to.  Yesterday we visited 2 of our friends who are in a skilled nursing facility while they recover.  It's too bad they'll be there for Christmas, but kind of neat they both ended up in the same spot and can visit each other.  Sofi played and sang a Christmas version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.  Our friend told us later she heard the nurses humming the song for the rest of the day.

 Helen made a snowman face out of her waffle this morning.  One of the nicest things about church at 1 pm is leisurely breakfasts.

14 December 2014

This photo is from last week.  Abe and Steve played The First Noel together at a guitar society meeting.

 Steve's grandchildren recently counted his instruments and found he has 113.  Besides the guitar, Steve played an armadillo shaped instrument from the Andes and the instrument in the photo which is called a "tar" and is from Persia.

Sarah sent us the instructions to make Christmas ornaments out of pipe cleaners and borax.  Gib made this star.

Helen's class is studying salmon.  They hatched a tank of salmon in class and planned to release them during Christmas break.  However, the salmon grew faster than expected and they needed to be released sooner in order to survive.  Gib, Helen, Addi and Becky met lots of other parents and students at the river Thursday night just before it got dark.

 The kids scooped the salmon out of the tank with dixie cups.  Salmon this size are called fry.

Here's Helen headed to the river with her salmon.

 And here is Gibson.  The fish will live here for a couple of months, growing bigger before they swim out to the ocean.

 We had three Christmas recitals in a row on Saturday.  Helen's piano teacher had her students play at the mall.  Helen played Carol of the Bells, Joy to the World and Silent Night.

 Abe's piano teacher also had her recital at the mall.  Abe played My Little Drum, the Vince Guaraldi version of The Little Drummer Boy.

Abe also played We Three Kings in a trio with Ean and Celeste.

 From the mall, we drove to the VA for Sofi's recital.  Sofi played Dance of the Reed Flutes from the Nutcracker.  The piano at the VA was a bit battered, especially compared to the shiny new piano at the mall, but the audience was attentive and appreciative.

 Sofi's piano teacher invited our other kids to participate.  Abe played his Christmas songs on the guitar and the piano.  The veterans especially liked the guitar music.

 Helen played Carol of the Bells on the piano and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen on the violin.

 This is happy Helen after she finished.

 Gib played Jingle Bells.  This was his first recital and he played like an old pro.

 Sofi's friends, Joey and Carson, also played at the recital.

 Becky tried to get the kids to pose for a photo after the recital.  You wouldn't think it would be such a hard request.

 That's better (only about 25 photos later!)