Christmas Pageant 2009

It's hard to believe that this year's Christmas pageant has already come and gone.  It was a really cute program.  Three of our kids were supposed to be in it.  Adriana did an outstanding job narrating, along with the other 2 girls her age.  Nathaniel did an outstanding job, as well, as a shepherd.  He recited his lines beautifully in unison with the other little shepherds.  And then there was Gabe.  Hmmm.  He did a great job screaming about not participating.  He was dressed up for a few pictures and then quickly wasn't!  However, he did a great job sitting with Daddy and Grandma!  There's always next year!

Here's a few pictures from this year's!

Adriana...our little Narrator!

 

 

Nathaniel...our little Shepherd !

 

Gabriel...our little Traveler that never ended up performing!!

 

Samuel...trying to read the program!

 

The Shepherds

The whole group...Great job everyone!!!

Grandma Jo came to town...

We just had a wonderful time with Grandma Jo.  Unfortunately, I have been going through my pictures and realized that we didn't take many pictures while she was here.  There was one outing that we did capture with pictures....NYC!!!  My mom and I kept quite busy.  We were able to catch up on a lot, go to a few of our favorite stores together, sew together, and she babysat for us so Aaron and I could actually go out on a date!  Mom/Grandma kept really busy with the kids, as well.  Mom had brought with her the game, "BLINK".  What a hit that was!  The kids couldn't get enough.  They loved to play it...especially against Grandma!!!  In fact, what a great bargaining tool for the kids when they were getting ready for school.  We'd say, "if you're totally ready for school, you can play around with Grandma"!  Worked every time!!!
It was such a nice relaxing visit.  The one day/night that was a little crazy was last Friday.  My mom and I took Adriana out of school to go into New York City.  Wow.  We had a very fun time, but also a huge adventure!  We were going to take the train, but due to a few minor events like missing the exit for our train station and finding another train station only to find that there were no available spots...we decided to drive in to the city.  Oh my goodness!  We parked amazingly close to Broadway...the heart of Times Square!  In fact, when we needed to leave the street we were on was a one way...going to Broadway!  I have never seen so many cabs, people jay walking all over the place in my life!  God is good...we made it home safely and I didn't run over any pedestrians in the city!  ;0)    While we were there, we went to the American Girl Place, saw Fox News station, saw Rockefeller Plaza, the big tree, the ice skaters, went to the M&M store (which by the way is a 3 story store that doesn't have any M&M's in it except for $12 pound bags you can fill against the wall!), and the Hershey store.  We decided to do dinner on the way home after stepping into a couple of restaurants to find that there was over an hour wait at each!  It was a really fun, exciting, exhausting bonding day with Grandma Jo and Adriana!   Well worth the stressful driving!  ;-)

 

Thanksgiving 2009....a rather unusual, yet eventful one!

It's been a while since I've posted.  There's so much that has kept us busy that I've been lacking time to share our family's events!  Thanksgiving has come and gone, and now we are on to Christmas.  Our family had such a nice and relaxing day on Thanksgiving, that I thought I'd share it with you...

Every holiday is different in our house.  Because we live so far away from family, we never know if we'll have visitors for that holiday until shortly before.  Well this year, we actually didn't have any visitors at Thanksgiving...and we won't for Christmas.  As sad as that is, we are so thankful to God for blessing us with an incredible church family and a wonderful area to live!  In order to make a new tradition for our family (as we've been really good at doing since living here) we decided to get up early and go into the city for the parade!  The kids had no idea what to expect!  It was great because we arrived shortly after the parade started (around 9ish am) and we parked in such an area that brought us to the end of the parade route!  It was awesome because where we were standing, the floats would go to our left to be deflated and the bands/famous people would go to our right for pictures/to get out of public eye!  We were actually standing right behind the tv cameraman!  The kids LOVED it and of course, so did Aaron and I!  When we arrived home (around 1ish pm), we made a ham (Aaron and I aren't huge turkey fans!) and our family's favorite side dishes.  We played games, enjoyed our dinner, and did puzzles.  Not such a boring day, after all! 

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

My Montage 12/12/09 at OneTrueMedia.com

Nathaniel's Thanksgiving Play and Feast

The entire morning Kindergarten performed a Thanksgiving play for their families.  Following their play, there was a feast.  However, I'm not sure how accurate the feast was...shortbread cookies, chocolate chip cookies, potato chips, popcorn, muffins...and, some vegetables!  ;0)  It was all very cute!  Nathaniel was a Pilgrim and had a "line" with 3 other children.  They had to say, "We have lots of food".  The other kids had really cute lines as well, along with a few adorable songs.  As you will see in the pictures, the kids were all in one huge line.  The kids on the left (our left) were from Nathan's class and were all pilgrims. The Indians were from the other A.M. kindergarten class. 

Nathaniel was quite "busy" up on stage and made it difficult for Aaron and me to get some really good pictures!  Tonight is his conference with his teacher...I have a feeling I know what we'll be talking about..."Mr. Sociable"!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nathaniel's 6th Birthday....The "Force" was definitely with him!

     Our dear little Nathaniel, who we also loving call:  Nathan or Nay-Nay, is no longer so little!  Even weighing in at 10 lbs. 10 oz on November 10 at 10:59am, he was still a "little baby" to me!  ;0)   Well, on his birthday morning, he woke up and said to me that he felt like a 6 year old!  I then told him that I thought he looked taller.  He agreed and said that he definitely grew over night!  ;0)  We had a wonderful, busy day.  It was actually filled with him going to school...bringing his birthday treat, then coming home and playing with his brothers, and on we went to Adriana's school for her Patriotic show.  For dinner, we went to Chick-Fil-A because that night happened to be the 1 night as a school fundraiser...and of course, our kids HAD to go!!!!!  (Adriana literally had it written in her assignment book as something to do that evening for "homework"!)  Then, home we went to open gifts, have cake, brush teeth, and go to bed!  Phew...I'm still tired thinking about it!
     Actually, his birthday wasn't near as crazy as the weekend prior.  We had around 20 kids over for Nathaniel's Star Wars birthday party.  Now, THAT was exhausting!  Would you believe me if I said that there happened to be a funeral set for the exact time as our party?!?!?!   There was NO way that we were going to contain 20+ kids (mostly boys) in our house!!!!! We ended up walking to the back parking lot area, where our church has a playground and a little open area.  It was there that our "Jedi Master" trained his fellow Padawan learners.  The kids did a couple of obstacle courses and relays!  They then came back to the house and used their "force" to open the garage door.  You'd be amazed how many thought they really did it!  ;0)  Off we went to play "pass the Death Star" (hot potato), and back out for "destroy the Death Star" (pinata)!  We then sang and had cake, "Yoda Soda", and other fun Star Wars food, finished by Nathaniel opening his gifts.  Again I tell you...I was EXHAUSTED by the end of the day!  Despite the fact that it was very much an organized chaos, it was a very fun day!  Enjoy all the pictures!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you, Jedi Master, for a job well done!  We all had a great time...Nathaniel definitely had a wonderful birthday!