December Highlights

So much great stuff has happened in the past two weeks! Here are some of the highlights.

Eli learned to crawl at seven months old!

All of our other babies learned to crawl at 10 months, so I'm not sure I'm ready for this yet. I imagine he'll be walking by 9 or 10 months....ready or not! In the first week of his newly-accomplished skill, he has tumbled all the way down the stairs, crawled off my bed after waking up too quietly, and fallen off the couch. He's bumped his head on everything imaginable, chewed on pennies and Lego's, and gotten stuck under the coffee table about 10 times every day. Time to baby-proof!

Landon's Jr. High basketball team won their first two games! They ROCK!

Jeremy is their coach. (Since it's a charter school, there's no funding for paying a coach, so Jeremy volunteered.) I'm sure I'll have lots more to post about this in the next two months.

Landon also performed in his choir Christmas Concert.

He had to join the others on stage half-way through the concert because he had a basketball game that night, too. But he slipped into his spot with ease and helped bring a little life to the tiny "men's" section.

Sadie performed in her first ballet!

(Sadie is the one in the back, center.)

We thought we would try ballet this year, and what do you know, she loves it! Her dance studio put on a fantastic production of "The Little Match Girl" last night. We were so proud of our princess.

She was a "peppermint" in the little Match Girl's dream about candy,

and an angel, after the poor little match girl dies from exposure to the elements and passes to the next life.

We sold our digital piano.

Landon has become more advanced at piano, so he really needs to start using a real acoustic one. We looked on the Internet for a decent one for the same price that we sold the digital for. But there wasn't much out there.

Guess what? Some generous ward members gave us one for free!

They own a piano moving company and many times their customers will give them their old pianos because they don't want to deal with the hassles of selling them. So they shared one of these pianos with us! We are so grateful. It's in great condition. Not even a scratch. It tuned up nicely and looks lovely in our living room. And we were able to use the money from our old piano to buy a lot of our kids' Christmas. What a blessing. A big hug goes to the Thresher's, who incidentally are expecting twins soon!

Last but certainly not least...
Bennett's preschool class had a visit from
Jolly Old St. Nick Himself!
Eli and I had to stop in to witness the whole thing. It was so exciting.

"Hmmm...interesting. A weird looking guy with white fluffy stuff all over his face. And he's giving me this little stick."

Bennett had this whole thing eaten within minutes after walking in the house after preschool was over. 'Tis the season!