The Bits: November 25th Through December 18th

From November Bits right through into mid-December!

Hanging the lights!

Tommy, Nana and Papa are home to us again!

Zac and Ben auditioned together for Ramantics singing "Say You Won't Let Go" by James Arthur.  I'm glad I got to listen to all the practicing because the auditions were closed, so I couldn't be the one weird mom in the audience whooping for her kids at tryouts, darn it.  Ruby also clearly enjoyed the sweet melodies they made.

Youth group ice skate night at the AFA.

Colorado Springs Creche Exhibit and Live Nativity: a favorite tradition of ours to start the season!

With inspiration from Luke (who made these in class), instructions from Mom (who has made them before), and a pair of helping hands from Dad (to hold the socks while Tommy tied the knots), Tommy made these cute little snowmen for his 2nd Grade Goods and Services Fair!  They sold out in 15 minutes.

Bravo to the MRMS 7th grade musicians for their fantastic winter concert in the RHS theatre!  Josh switched from alto to bari sax after the last concert "because our band needs one!" and has been having a lot of fun with his new instrument.  Thanks to Josh for some of the fun "behind the scenes" pictures.

When Adam goes to pick up the little boys from school....  She sat there just like that the entire time he was gone.

It cracked me up that somehow, over the heads of the congested crowd at the Barnes and Noble fundraiser night, Luke saw my camera phone peeking up for a picture and smiled for the camera.  He must have just known to look for me, because I'm always there and always taking pictures.

Fifth Grade Exhibition Day!  I am not surprised at all that my little Naturalist chose to be part of a group, the Pollution Preventers, that presented on pollution.  Their best advice: reduce, reuse, recycle!  It was such an exciting day for the 5th graders of AIES to share their knowledge of what an IB learner is through this huge group project.

So grateful to be part of such an awesome group of PTO colleagues and to celebrate our first semester successes at our holiday luncheon! 

Youth Temple Day for these sharp looking fellas.

These two are in a love/strongly-dislike phase right now ("hate" when referring to people, is banned around here), weighted heavily toward the strongly-dislike side.  It's been really irritating to constantly referee them!  But then there's moments like these that remind me that we are going to get through this and find friendship still waiting on the other side.

Origami scorpion pose by Luke.

Neighbor and friend gifts: done!

Luke and Cooper have been having a set Friendsday Wednesday play-date for the past several weeks, swapping houses every-other week.  It's been fantastic!  This creation is from Luke's last visit to Cooper's.  He took 2 bites and was done!

The 2017 Holiday Choir and Handbell Concert at AIES was great!  I missed not having a choir member last year (it's for 4th and 5th grades only).  He said he thought it was going to be a little rough, but I thought they sounded really good.  Bravo, Luke!!  Zac and Ben had half-days for finals week, so Zac came along with me.  I'll add that having your cool 17yo brother come to your school gives a 5th grader some serious cred. 

The ward Christmas Breakfast was delicious and really fun.  Luke and Tommy got to sing in the children's choir and Zac played Joseph in the Nativity play.  We really love our ward family! (Glad to get a photo with one of my favorites, Lisa Barker.)

Josh had his very first USA Swimming swim meet for his Falfins team at the Falfins Holiday Open.  The nice thing about it being his first is that there were no expectations--and he had so much fun!  Now he says he's ready to set some goals and work hard to meet them.  Hooray, Josh!

Our nightly Christmastime read!  I love this story so much--from the language to the message, even if I have to interpret it throughout the whole thing.

The birthday uke has arrived at last--all the way from Hale'iwa, Hawaii.  It sounds as good as it looks on my guy!

Adam is always so excited when the kids are on break!  Not.

Tommy's 8th Birthday Nana and Papa New York City Adventure: Part Two!

New York City Days Three and Four as told by Tommy.

In the morning, we walked in Central Park.  I love that there is a big park in the middle of the city.  It was really crowded in New York a lot of the time, because it's a huge city and because it was Thanksgiving, but the park wasn't too crowded.  It was kind of cold outside, so people were inside.  We went to the American Museum of Natural History that's in the movies.  The museum was really cool!  We got to see dinosaur bones; one of them was a small T-Rex.  We also saw a meteorite that was collected from Mars.  Then we had lunch and went to Broadway!  We saw School of Rock the musical.  A lot of the actors in it were kids like me, but they are really good at music.  They played real instruments in front of the crowd.  It was cool!  After that we went to the Lego Store.  It was Black Friday and the line was SO long.  But there were cool lights to see while we waited.  Last, we went back to our brownstone, and went to the pizza place we ate at the first night in New York.  It was that good!  I could have eaten there all the meals.  My favorite was the four cheese pizza.

Our last day was only a part day.  We had to catch an airplane in the night.  We took our bags to a place where they could wait for us while we went on a boat to see the Statue of Liberty.  It was originally brown copper-colored, but the reason it is green is because the copper was in air and it turned green.  The Statue of Liberty is actually walking, not just standing because her right foot is behind her like she's taking a step.  We saw the place where the immigrants went in when they came to the island, it felt kind of sad and kind of hopeful.  After that we went to Wall Street and saw the Bull and the little girl standing up to the Bull.  I liked them both but there were A MILLION people!  We also saw Ground Zero again.  That place made me feel a little mad because there are parts that they aren't taking good care of, but it was so pretty.

On the train to the airport, Nana put one of our bags out the door at our stop, and when Nana came to help me, the doors closed and our bag got left outside.  We had to go to the next stop, get off, get on the next train going back to that stop.  We hoped our bag was still there.  That time we stood right by the door so we would not miss getting off!  Thankfully, our bag was still there!  I spotted it across the station!  We weren't too late to our plane, so that was good.  And we flew home safely, and it was late at night when we got home.
 
It was a great trip!  I won't ever forget it!  I am grateful that my Nana and Papa took me on this trip.  It was the best time ever!