Parentheticals

 We always do the Twelve Days of Christmas between Christmas and Twelfth Night (January 5th), so this week we've done a bunch of fun things: Watched a whole bunch of 50+ year old Christmas movies (we're watching one every night; we've done claymation Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman, Muppet Christmas Carol, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas so far, and we'll be watching more this week) Made gingerbread houses (Alison found a clearance kit to make a gingerbread village with 5 houses and bought it for $8; it was very much worth the money) Made Christmas tree ornaments (led by Rea) Made and decorated gingerbread men (actually all shapes - these are in place of sugar cookies because they taste so much better than sugar cookies but can be shaped and decorated the same way) Went to Becky and Chauncey's house and played games Went to Grandma Julie and Grandpa Craig's New Year's Eve party with a balloon drop at noon and hot tubbing and card games Built our New Year...

This week was the end of the 12 Days of Christmas - Tuesday was Twelfth Night. We watched lots of Christmas movies (Muppet Christmas Carol was a big hit) and had eggnog and enjoyed the Christmas season. Our Christmas tree almost stayed alive for the whole time! In order to watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas now that we don't have a VHS player, Alison bought the Ultimate Edition on YouTube. It also includes two other Grinch movies, one about Halloween and one that Alison has decided is about Mother's Day. Neither one is very good, but in the Halloween one, a kid says "I have to visit the euphemism" when he has to go to the bathroom, and we all decided that was hilarious, so we might have a new joke phrase from it. For Twelfth Night, we made our crown cake (canned cinnamon rolls arranged in a circle in the baking pan, one with a crown under it) early, and ate it when Mike got off work at 2pm. Alison thought it would be fun to have most of a day for the King to choose ...

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...

For New Year's Eve, we attended a large family-and-friends party at the Stake Center. The girls had a wonderful time playing and dancing with their best friend Marissa. Timmy and Gideon had fun running around with other kids, and Mike and Alison got to play Mike's Christmas present Small World: River World. Small World is an excellent game and the expansion was lots of fun. We left at 10, which was as late as Alison could make it to celebrate the New Year. Usually we stay at home New Year's Eve and put together a big Lego Elves set. Since we went out this year, we spent New Year's Day putting it together. The kids loved playing with the pieces while Mike and Rea put it together and Alison kept Gideon out of the way. They really enjoyed playing with the final product and it kept them happy most of the day. We did some more Twelve Days of Christmas activities the rest of the week, including inviting the Dalyais over for a hot cocoa party, making gingerbread houses ...

This last week was Christmas. On Monday evening we cleaned up and then we had a living nativity, where we all dressed up and acted it all out. We also had the traditional Christmas eve meal of roast and potatoes. After we put the kids to bed, and were visited by Santa. Rea and Sara were very good at getting the boys to go to sleep, so they were able to get out of bed and visit with Mike before Santa came. Tuesday we had a fun Christmas morning. The kids all liked their gifts, and they enjoyed playing with them. Timmy really loved his dinosaurs - he first made them into normal dinosaur shapes, and then later he made them into dino-monsters. Wednesday Mike went back to work, and it started snowing. Rea was very disappointed that it hadn't snowed before, but what can you do? At least it snowed some time. Rea loved Mike's teaching is over for a while, so he has been drawing a lot of icons for people, and playing a little Nethack. He hasn't played it in years, but it is ...

Being sick over Christmas is no fun! We managed to do many of our traditions, though. Everyone got Gold, Frankincense, Myrrh, and Swaddling Clothes presents. Sara loved her new dolls, Timmy was excited to get a Playmobile nativity set, and Rea can't wait to start horseback riding lessons next month. Alison got a new phone, which prompted weeks of work to get her old phone replaced under warranty and send it to Katie. That should be completed tomorrow, which is exciting. Mike's favorite was his new board game about meteors. Then we tried to celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas (which, if you recall, were originally after Christmas; that works well for Alison, who is never organized enough to do them before). The first few days we got to spend with the Brown and Poulson grandparents, which was awesome. We did a few activities at home, like making homemade face paints and finger paints, but we mostly watched a lot of movies. It's really hard being too contagious to leave t...

After having read a post from last year we decided to interview the kids about this week. M: Tell me about the 12th day of Christmas. S: We played. R: And had a crown cake and opened presents. S: that's all we did, and didn't eat breakfast or lunch or dinner, but be ate dinner but didn't eat breakfast or lunch or dinner but that's what we ate. <singing> "do do do do" and I'm a fairy that waved her dangily wand. R: The thing that any fairy can do is change her self into a princess S: Well, I'm a princess fairy - see her wand? M: How about the Tabletop Simulator R: All I know is it is tabletop simulator and that daddy can move things around in it. S: I know chess! M What about that Princess/Jedi Party? S: I was a princess and I was a princess and there were so many princesses - even a ton of the little kids that - Rea, tell the rest. R: It was fun and we played and had a lot of treats. I wished I could stay there. S: Yes. M: Thi...

Apparently we neglected to post the week of Christmas.  Sorry.  Here's the quick recap: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we went to Grandma Julie's and visited with Aunt Katie's family. Evenings we came home and wrapped presents and were generally excited for Christmas. Thursday we went to Daddy's work for a Christmas Eve lunch. He got the girls special Christmas Cocoa (hot chocolate from the machine, which is probably 98% liquid sugar) with squirts of caramel (for Rea) and vanilla (for Sara). We figure this is slightly more healthy than melting caramels and drinking it, ever so slightly. We got home and he pulled in right behind us - he'd gone back to his desk and his boss had said he could come home. So we cleaned the house for Christmas and had our Christmas Feast: roast beef and potatoes and carrots from the crock pot, and Grandma Poulson rolls. We also put Samoan cocoa in the crock pot to last the whole weekend. Then Daddy read the Christmas story from the bi...

This last week began with sicknesses. Alison stayed home from Church due to feelings of nausea. Alison says that the primary leaders say that Mike does a very good job as a substitute music leader. I will poll the children next time I sub to see if this is true. By evening Alison thought that her sickness was caused by too much cake, so we went to the Poulson family for a Poulson/Brown family dinner. It was awesome. But that night, Rea started throwing up, and threw up all the next day. Sara then started throwing up that night. So if we infected your kids with some throwing-up disease, we apologize. We had planned to do Twelve Days of Christmas activities from Christmas Day until Three Kings Day (January 5th), but the sickness messed with some of the plans. We ended up with multiple Movie Days of Christmas. Rea and Sara were really excited on Tuesday, when they found that Mommy had checked out "Frozen" from the library. The kids have experienced branded Frozen dolls and c...