Gingerbread houses

Christmas Day

The morning started at 6:00 am or just a few minutes before. It's so hard for them to stay in their beds!

Here they are in the hallway waiting for us to get coffee and the camera ready! Pure torture!




Ready, set, GO!








The aftermath.....







Onto monkey bread!


Is that you, Santa?

Christmas Eve 2009

We started the evening with the Christmas eve service at church. At the service we are given a gift card for a free meal at a resturant and we are to go out into the community and find someone who is working on Christmas eve and give it to them. This has become a tradition every year and we have a lot of fun trying to find either a fedex courier (Derriks preference) or anyone out on Christmas eve that would much rather be home celebrating the holiday with their family. This year, we gave ours to a lady that works at McDonalds. She was very grateful for the gift!
We came home and had cheese fondue and steaks with the Hubbards. The boys then got to open one gift - new pajamas and slippers!

We then poured the hot chocolate into the travel mugs and climbed into the car to go look at Christmas lights! After that it's off to bed to dream of sugarplums and other sugary items until it's time for Christmas day.

Cookie decorating

We broke the record for decorating cookies this year. Between the four of us, we either ate them or just slapped frosting on them because we got done fast! I had to work quickly to get pictures!

Christmas is in the air

The tree is up, decorations out, and the preschool Christmas program is over. Christmas can officially begin! We decorated the house the weekend after Thanksgiving and then Ashton and I spent last week getting our preschool ready for their big performance last Friday night.


Saturday was the busiest day we have had so far. Ethan and his church choir served breakfast to over 100 people in what is called the "Angel Breakfast." There is a skit, crafts and the choir sings several songs throughout the morning. It was really nice. I love to see my kids sing!







Saturday was "Tata's" (aka Jim) 65th birthday. We celebrated with other families at the Olive Garden.

Next week will be the last week of preschool and homeschool. There is quite a bit of shopping and shipping to be in the next week but I look forward to all of it!

A week of firsts

The boys sang in church last weekend. It was Ashton's first time! He, like his mom, chose to dance instead of sing.

I never got sound when I loaded it, but you get the idea!
Ashton also got to go ice skating with one of his preschool classes.

He also lost his first "teeth" this week. Two of this baby teeth came in so close together that they were almost one big tooth. As his permanent teeth came up on the bottom, they pushed his two baby teeth out at the same time!

House photos

Here's just a few shots of the house.

Costumes

We got all dressed up this year to go to our church to celebrate Harvest hang time. Our church invited foster kids from the community to come and "hang out." There were booths with games and bounce houses, free snacks and a cake walk. Ethan went as Jack Sparrow, Cameron was Anakin Skywalker and Ashton was the Cat in the Hat. I went as a nurse/doctor complete with a large needle to vaccinate against the elephant flu.

Carving pumpkins

We carved our pumpkins Friday night and everytime we do it, we always learn something new. This year it was, after you carve it, you can't redo it. At least, not very well. Cameron's needed constructive eye surgery and we had to redo it's face on the other side.

Halloween Preschool

Here is Ashton at his preschool Halloween parade. They marched around the church offices and then back to their classrooms for a party.

Pumpkin Patch

We all went on a field trip for Ashton's preschool yesterday and got to enjoy the pumpkin patch.

Los Angeles Philharmonic Concert

Ethan got a real treat last weekend and went to see the LA Philharmonic concert with John Williams conducting. He went with Tata and had a wonderful time! Ethan is a big fan of John Williams and the music he has composed. They did some Star Wars music and some music from E.T. We had to buy him a tie for the event and we were all floored at how grown up he looks. Since you can't take pictures inside the theater, we had to take them before they left for L.A.

Where to begin?

Yes, lots has happened for us over the last month. Here's a recap:
Cameron turned eight!

For his present, he received a hamster. Her name has changed three times over the last month. First Cutie, then Lily, and finally Daffodil.








Ethan also bought one for himself. Her name is Rose.


We moved into a lovely house. More photos to come after the boxes are gone.
Ashton started preschool!



He's doing really well and is learning the routine of things. We started our mommy-and-me preschool a few weeks ago as well.





The boys started homeschooling last week. They are doing really well and have enjoyed it so far. I'll post some more on that later.

We went camping last weekend with our class from church.







Such a fun trip! We camped close to the beach and loved hearing the waves crash in as we went to sleep. We're getting this camping-thing down!

I know there are things I left out. I'll try and get back in the swing of posting soon! Love to all!