Benjamin is doing that cute headshake thing!  You can’t hear the music in the video, but he does tend to start when he hears music, so I think he’s dancing!

This was Sarah and Kevin’s last week of Mapleton City Basketball.  It was fun for them.  Ten games and a small team = lots of playing time!  In fact, when they didn’t have enough players for a full team, Megan played, too.  So it was a good experience for her, too!  On Tuesday night, Megan played and even then they only had four players until the fourth quarter.  They tied 18 to 18 against a team that had beaten them twice.  Not bad!  I’d say that shows some serious improvement.  I went to their last game on Wednesday night and they won 36 to 25.  Their team also won the Mapleton City Sportsmanship Award and will get a free pizza party.  Holy Cow!  Go Team!

Also on Wednesday night, Megan had her last Activity Days activity and Mariah had her first in the older group – their only activity together!  Funny, huh?  They went caroling.  They both had a great time. 

This Sunday they called me and a neighbor as the new Activity Days leaders.  So I have missed Meg entirely, but Mariah and I will be having some fun times together in the future!  They will release me from being a primary teacher in January.  I really liked that calling.  I loved being able to testify every Sunday.  I know that I have chances to testify all around me, I will just need to . . . what?  Notice?  Create the opportunities myself?  Something . . .

This week Mariah and I had basketball practice twice (at one of which, I managed to bore my team enough that they asked if they could go home!  No respect I tell ya, I should have made them run lines . . .)  Megan had practice twice and Sarah and Kevin had Springville practice once in addition to their two Mapleton games.  January is going to be crazy!  It’ll be January madness – let’s see – January Jostle – January Juke – Jazzy January.  What do you think?

During the quiet days when everyone is at school, I’ve been listening to The Doomsday Book (our bookclub selection for January) and working on the dolls I am making for the three little girls.  I really like doing that.

Actually, I would have gotten more done and it would have been a little more peaceful if Ben hadn’t decided to get all four of his upper teeth ALL AT ONCE!!  There has been quite a lot of screaming around here this week, too.  Thank goodness for Motrin.  Tylenol is useless – just to let you know.

On Monday for FHE, we made chocolate covered pretzels to give as Christmas treats for all the teachers in our children’s lives.  (Everyone seems to be able to help on the pretzel project, so I really like it!)  There are quite a lot of people who serve our children and we are so grateful for them!  We didn’t even include their school teachers!  We delivered them on Saturday.

On Saturday we also took the girls to the dollar store to shop for each other.  Nothing else compares to the way that spiked the Christmas excitement around here!

Megan took the chance on Saturday to celebrate her (quickly approaching) birthday with her friends.  Ice Skating was the order of the day!  Sarah went, too!

They are silly girls and they had a great time!

Today at church, Savannah and I sang in the ward choir for our Christmas program.  It was really fun.  We even got to sing “And the Glory of the Lord” from Handel’s Messiah.  So. Cool. Savannah sang the high A, but I just lip synced.  :)  It was still cool.

That’s a mischievous little Santa Claus, don’t you think?  She’s gathering her toys by taking them from her little brother!  Good thing baby brother doesn’t mind too much, yet!  He actually thinks she is pretty cool!

On Thursday night, Mariah performed in a school Christmas program.  She really didn’t want to go as she had already performed three times during the school day and the boy she had to say her lines with was a “microphone hog.”  Horrors.  I know.  But, she decided she would go and -- happy day! -- the boy didn’t show up and she got the microphone all to herself!  She looked lovely and when Beth saw her in a fancy dress, she insisted that I dress her up, too!  Hey, in this picture, you get to see the new table, too!

Mariah’s program was “Christmas Around the World".  In addition to singing all the songs, her class played ukuleles for Santa Lucia.  I love Mariah on the ukulele!  I also love to hear her sing.  She did a great job.  She was willing to sing a little solo for all of you . . .

Saturday was our ward Christmas party.  Yay!  Savannah and Sarah have been rehearsing for over a month to perform the waltz to the song from Charlie Brown’s Christmas.  The girls in the dance spent Saturday afternoon getting “all prettied up!”  Some of them stopped by our house and I found all these lovely girls in my kitchen!

They did a great job on their dance, too (which I accidentally deleted from my camera!  Horrors!), but I did get this cute shot of them after the party:

 

Cheyenne, Calianne, Bethany, and I, didn’t spend nearly as much time getting ready, but we were pretty cute singing “Up On the Housetop.”  Well, they were anyway!

Megan got to be a reindeer . . .

Mariah got to sing with the other primary children for the last song and Benjamin got to sleep in his Grandpa’s arms for most of the party since Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik came, too!  It was a fun night.

‘Tis the season!  Merry Christmas!

There is not much story about this picture. It just made me laugh when I found it as I was cleaning up breakfast after the kids left for school. Hello?

Anyhow, this week was the week of Mariah’s birthday! She turned ten years old and entered double-digits. Holy Cow!

We went to Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik’s for a family party as usual. My kids love that! Grandma and Grandpa always make a special meal and decorate with balloons and, of course, we have cake! We had great fun watching Mariah open her presents.

And after many efforts to light and then more efforts to blow out the candles, our party was complete!

What a beautiful girl, huh? She sure is getting grown up!

We had more basketball practices this week and music lessons. Bethany, Benjamin, and I have a sweet time together when everyone else is gone to school or work. Already Bethany tries to involve Ben in her play. The other day, Ben took a long morning nap. When he woke up, Beth exclaimed with glee, “Ben! You’re back!” Now that Kevin is working closer to home, he’s been able to come home for lunch a couple of times. The first time, Beth ran into the kitchen before me and said, “Dad! You’re home!” Then I walked in and she pointed to me and said, “This is my friend, Mommy!” What an introduction, huh? This week when Dad came for lunch, she greeted her dad with great enthusiasm again and Kevin asked, “How are you?” To Beth, this must have sounded like, “Who are you?” Because she bowed to her father and said, “I Princess Bethany!” She is so funny!

I’ve also been trying to work on Christmas every spare moment I get. I just don’t get a lot of spare moments!

To get us firmly in the Christmas spirit, Savannah had her Christmas Choral concert on Friday. She was simply radiant. That young woman sure loves to sing!

She sang and danced and she was even chosen to recite a special poem for the performance. She did fabulous. It was so fun to watch her! I will include some videos at the end of the blog if you are interested in getting a feel for the night!

On Saturday, Mariah had her “Big Ten” birthday party. We always try to do something extra special for the tenth birthday party. There were just two friends that Mariah wanted to hang out with on her special day, so we partied it up, together. First, we went to see Tangled, the new Disney movie about Rapunzel, in 3D! It was so exciting!

Great movie, by the way! I really liked it! (So did the girls!)

After the show, we went to the Brick Oven for pizza and ice cream and to open presents!

It was a fabulous ladies day out! Mariah and her friends had a great time! And so did I!

Back on the home front, Kevin had started putting lights up, but changed focus when Jim came over to help him with the temperamental outlets in our bedroom. Savannah saw the ladder and recognized an opportunity . . .

Sarah saw Savannah and the ladder and also recognized an opportunity . . .

I also saw an opportunity and ran for my camera!

I was back inside for several minutes before I realized that although Sarah had come back inside the house, she had not put the ladder back up. That sweet little girl has a definite sneaky streak!

Today (Sunday) we finally decorated our Christmas tree. Kevin bought it Friday night, but we just did not have time to decorate it until today. We’ve been kind of redecorating and moving furniture around. After a month of checking the classifieds almost daily, I found what I wanted for the right price and got my Christmas early. We bought a round table and four chairs for our front room so we can play games, do puzzles, complete homework, or hold study groups (wishful thinking!). It is going to be great!!!!!! I love it. Thank you, Santa!

Anyway, we had great fun decorating the Christmas tree! Our back room is still in a bit of disarray, but it is getting there!

We love Christmas!!!! Happy Holidays!

Savannah is front row, fourth from the left: