December Fun

We haven’t been very good about writing on the blog much the last few months, so I thought I’d do a little update from last month.  In December we had lots of fun with all the Christmas activities.

The three youngest boys and I enjoyed a playgroup trip to Powers Farm Market to walk the path to their nativity display.  We had never been there in the winter before, and realized afterwards that the lighted path would probably have been cooler at night, but we still had fun. 

And on December 15^th we got to go to Kolby’s first cub scout pack meeting (or is it den meeting – I’m still getting used to all this scouting stuff, and can’t really keep them straight).  Kolby earned his Bobcat award, and the boys started getting ready for the upcoming pinewood derby.  (I guess they traditionally give the boys their Bobcat award upside down – they put the patch into the thing on the shirt upside down, and the boy is allowed to turn it right side up once he has done a good turn for someone).  Kolby sure loves scouts!

We also enjoyed the ward Christmas party.  It was especially fun because this year they asked everyone to make gift boxes for people at a shelter, and the boys each got to help with making a special gift box, and wrapping them too.  The children also sang some songs during the program at the party, and Kolby was asked to be a wise man.  He was so excited, and wanted to choose a special gold ornament from our tree to take as his “gift” to baby Jesus.  For some reason I had it in my head that Kolby was supposed to be a shepherd, and I was planning to just wrap a towel around his head and one around his body or something for his costume, but then I realized he was to be a wise man, so we had to take it up a notch.  I was pretty pleased with what we pulled together about an hour before the party – with a couple of pillow cases, some Christmas ornaments borrowed from the tree, and a couple ribbons from the wrapping paper box.  He made a pretty cute little wise man – and he insisted on wearing his costume throughout the entire party.  And all the boys participated in the singing, even Courtland who is still in the younger nursery class at church that didn’t practice with the bigger kids. 

We also had a fun time at the annual “Christmas in Palmyra” night at the Joseph Smith home.  They had historical games and stories, caroling, and yummy cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate.  It was a really nice night – and much warmer than last year, so they had more activities.

Michael and I finally got the chair rail up in the part of the kitchen by our back door.  When we first moved into the house I removed the chair rail with plans to take the wallpaper off the walls, paint the chair rail white, paint the walls, and put the chair rail back up.  But when I took it off the wall, I found that the chair rail was not wood, but something more like Styrofoam and it broke into pieces as I took it down.  So, the walls have been bare of wallpaper and painted for all this time, and we finally got around to putting up the new chair rail.  The cutting took a while, with all the little angles around the back door and windows, but it took a lot less time than our wainscoting project in the dining room that we did over Michael’s Christmas vacation 2 years ago.  The chair rail we put up was actually some recovered wood that I had found on the curb sometime last year (I think it may have actually been molding for door frames originally).  But there was enough of it, so once we got it painted it looked great.  So with the reclaimed wood, I think this was our least expensive home project ever, totaling about $3 for a tube of caulk. And a friend lent us his nail gun, which saved lots and lots of time (we’ll have to get one of those someday).  Anyway, one more little house project crossed off the list before this house is ready to sell.  

Camden was so excited for his turn to bring the Curious George stuffed animal and books home from preschool for the weekend in December.  He introduced the George from school to our George, and had lots of fun with them.

And Camden had his preschool Christmas concert about a week before Christmas.  Michael was on his vacation, but unfortunately Courtland was sick the night before, so Michael and Isaac went to the concert and brought back pictures and videos to show us.  

I was excited to get my hair cut a couple days before Christmas too.  I really like how it turned out – it’s long enough to still pull back in a ponytail if I want, but I think it looks really nice when I leave it down straight, or curly.  It’s always fun when it turns out nice. 

And I just wanted to share some pictures that I took of the berries on the burning bush outside our dining room window when it was raining a few days before Christmas.  I love that they stay red for so long.