Parentheticals

Since last week was finals, Mike hasn't had to teach all week. This means that on Monday and Tuesday, Mike got work done at 11 and had the rest of the day off. He took the week between Christmas and New Year's off because work told him to use up his vacation days. We normally do the Twelve Days of Christmas from Christmas Day to Twelfth Night on January 5th, but this year Rea and Sara are invited to go to Disneyland with Grandma and Grandpa from January 1st to January 5th. So we started the Twelve Days of Christmas early and we'll do our Twelfth Night celebration tomorrow. The activities that we did this week were: Sunday - Read Christmas books around the fire Sunday - Made and drank egg nog Monday - Making ginger bread houses at the library Monday - Visited Temple Square to see the lights Tuesday - Put on the Nativity play Wednesday - Opened presents Friday - Played with Grandma and GrandpaSaturday - Watch Christmas movies Since Mike had all this time off and h

We are starting the 12 Days of Christmas early this year. Usually, the 12 Days of Christmas are supposed to start on Christmas Day, but since The Poulson Grandparents are taking Rea and Sara to Disneyland for their combined 8th birthdays this year, we are not going to have twelve days together after Christmas. So far, the kids made their own peg doll nativities and candy cane sprinkles and gingerbread houses (at the library - Alison's favorite gingerbread house making experience ever), and today we drank eggnog and sat by a fire and read all our Christmas books. We're looking forward to having a picnic under the Christmas tree, putting on a Christmas play, making gingerbread men, going sledding (or dancing the Nutcracker if there's no snow), making neighbor gifts, going caroling, watching Christmas movies, and celebrating Twelfth Night before it's over. We also celebrated the Solstice on Saturday by eating butternut squash (to symbolize the sun) and telling stories ab

Since having come back from California, baby Elizabeth has learned to sit and she is still only nearly crawling. She has made progress - she can take little "steps" with her feet and occasionally her hands - but she hasn't put it all together yet. She took a break to get good at sitting once she learned that. She really likes sitting and using her hands. She gets frustrated when she can't get to something out of reach, so she'll be very happy when she learns to crawl. (Although she's a very happy baby in general.) Monday night after getting back, for our family activity we went to the library to see a teenager acting group from Provo perform a short version of Cinderella. It was a lot of fun. The mice were the kids' favorite characters. The king really hammed up his part, and there was a very funny third trumpeter. We really enjoyed it. On Last Friday and Saturday we had the Plastows over for a sleep over. The kids were good, and they had a fun time pl

We spent last week in San Diego mostly at the beach house. Yay for Thanksgiving! We look forward to this vacation all year. Over multiple days Mike, Gideon, and Rea picked a whole bunch of natal plums and made jelly out of them. The jelly was pretty sour but had a decent flavor. One of the days that we were there, Alison went boogie boarding. She was very brave. We have always been lucky and had sunny weather for all of our Thanksgiving holidays. This year, we had rain for almost half the week. We were so glad Grandma got such a big place this year; we didn't feel at all cramped by the rain. The kids really enjoyed playing with Grandma Julie's Legos for days and days while it rained outside. Grandpa Craig bought some metal shovels that were really high quality and we dug a hole almost tall enough for Mike to fit in standing up. It must have been five feet 6 in or deeper. We also built a very large sandcastle one of the days. We introduced kid Olympics to the fa