December

I've kind of fallen off the blogging wagon ever since I "misplaced" my camera over Thanksgiving vacation in Tahoe. I'm not ready to say that it's "lost", but at this point in time I don't know where it is. Luckily we still have Cooper's camera and now Uncle Jon is here and we've started also using his.

We've been doing some fun things these first few weeks of December.

• Cooper had a dance "show" at school called "Turn the beat around" where he was part of the first grade number dressed as "Cat in the Hat". The kids did a great job for how few practices they actually had. The first rehearsal was on Halloween day, with all the students dressed up in their costumes. Cooper would come home and practice his dance moves, the whole time chanting to himself "group one, group two, group three, heel toe, heel toe, clap clap clap, hip hip, kick a chair" etc, etc. So cute! Here he is all dress up, ready to go onstage.


• Ward Adult Christmas party at the church


• Relief Society Progressive Dinner


• Enrichment craft night that turned into hours upon hours of hard work and dedication. You scrap booking mommies are no lightweights.


• "(name removed for anonymity) Academy" Christmas party where the kids decorated sugar cookies, played on the trampoline and made an art project with Aunt Alli. When Grammy saw the cute poinsettia decoupage that Cooper and Catelyn brought home she said they needed to be framed they were so cute. Here's a picture of Catelyn decorating her cookies.


• Helping out in Cooper's classroom once a week. I go in on Thursday mornings to help Cooper's teacher Mrs. B. Sometimes it's copying in the office and sometimes it's helping the kids finish an assignment, and sometimes it's preparing art projects for the kids to make. I am so grateful that my mom is available and willing to watch the girls while I go in to help Cooper's class. It's something I'm so glad I have the opportunity to do. Here's a picture from November at their Thanksgiving party. They were holding hands and saying what they were thankful for before their feast.
Cooper's teacher calls the moms that help out in the classroom "Super Moms". One of my super mom tasks was to make the "pilgrim collars" that the pilgrims are wearing in both these pictures.

• Singing time with Catelyn and Lydia. Once a week there is a "Mommy and me" type of singing class that a couple of ladies in the ward teach for the preschool and toddler age kids. Catelyn and Lydia love it. I tell you, Catelyn is so musically talented. She can pick up a tune like no body's business! Lydia really gets into it too and claps and sings along.


• "Night of Nativity" at the Lincoln ward building. There are hundreds of Nativity sets on display and they have special musical numbers all night long. Catelyn walked around the room with me asking "Does this one break?" at every single nativity set. With the exception of maybe three, the answer was "Yes, don't touch."


• Breakfast with Santa. We invited our neighbors to join us and all the kids had a great time. The cub scouts had crafts for the kids and there was a fun singing time while the kids waited for Santa. As soon as Santa came in the room Catelyn made a bee line straight for him and was the first one to sit on his lap. When he asked what she wanted for Christmas she said "A candy cane!" Lucky girl. Cooper was less enthusiastic about sitting on Santa's lap but was very willing to write Santa a letter and give it to him. Santa was very good and asked Cooper to tell him about the letter and before he knew it, Cooper was sitting on Santa's lap.

Lydia, not so happy with Santa. She was fine until we put her on his lap...

• Decorating for Christmas! The kids helped put ornaments on the tree and Cooper even got to go up on the roof with Papa to put the house lights on.
  

• Helping out in the yard and kitchen. All of the kids are great helpers. Cooper loves to help Papa in the garage or yard and Catelyn loves to help cook in the kitchen.

I think that is a pretty good update of our happenings. The last thing I will add is that Lydia has started potty training. It went very well for about 3 days and now she's lost a bit of interest, but here she is with her first "pee pee in the potty" reward. A "pop-pop".

• I forgot to mention the Ugly Christmas sweater party that I went to last week. It was a white elephant gift exchange and there were some rowdy presents under that tree I tell you. My friend Jody blogs about it here.