Christmas Piano Recital

On December 16th the girls participated in a piano recital at church. They both did great and we are proud of how well they are coming along in their lessons. Our friend, Kristan, teaches ten children all together ranging from 5 to 12 years old. She does an amazing job with them and they all love her.

L playing Jolly Old Saint Nicholas.

K playing Silent Night.

Kristan with my girls.

Kristan with all the kids.

Ginger Assault

After winning first place for our gingerbread masterpieces, we decided it was time to get rid of them. And what better way than to shoot them with an air-soft rifle? You can do it from the comfort of your own backyard and leave the mess for the birds and squirrels to clean up . We hope you enjoy the carnage as much as we enjoyed creating it.

L's gingerbread house ready for shooting.

She has it in her sights.

Helping L line up her sights.

After our 5 year old blew up her house, our 8 year old wanted a turn. Her's was even cooler! Watch the video to the end.

 K shooting her house.

 

Total destruction! We all loved it!

We also took out the big house. M started it but I got to shoot my gazebo. I have to admit it was more fun using our gingerbread houses as targets than it was making them.

Gingerbread Building

It has been nine years since we built our last gingerbread house and M thought this was the year to try again. Our last house looked like this.

This year we went a little smaller and only spent a week on our design instead of the several weeks we spent years ago before we had children. We made two small houses for the girls to each decorate and one for us to decorate. I had good intentions of helping out a lot but I was kept busy making cookies and dill bread for friends, shopping for gifts, and wrapping said gifts. I did help out some and I will point out what I made when we get there.

Here are the girls gingerbread houses, made from real gingers:)

Our youngest decorating her house.

Our oldest decorating her house and sneaking some icing.

M found a great gingerbread recipe years ago that we like to use. He mixes up the dough and rolls it out then lays down a pattern for the walls and roof. He cuts out places for windows and doors. In place of the windows he puts crushed up jolly ranchers and bakes the dough. The jolly ranchers melt and then solidify after removed from the oven giving them a stained glass look.

Here is a picture of the house completed and M adding some special features. I made the green gazebo out of icing using a balloon. After it dried we popped the balloon and then M affixed it to the candy canes for posts. After considering different materials, we decided on rock candy for the pathway from the door to the gazebo and for the flooring inside the gazebo. He also used Hershey's chocolate to make little benches.

M had the great idea of making a truck and having it spin out in the "snow". He drew up a design at work and cut out the model at home. It turned out pretty cool.

Here are a few different views of the house. We added lots of details and I love how great it turned out!

Close up of the tire tracks and snow people.

Tree on the side of house and decorated Christmas tree.

Vines for some hominess.

The roof tiles.

Close up of the lights coming from inside and the icicles.

Areal view.

Side view. This turned out so pretty.

Front view.

We entered our house in a contest at church and walked away with first prize. Everyone loved how the house looked and especially thought the flashing lights were great!

L's side view.

L's front view.

K's side view.

K's front view.

While at the 3rd Ward Christmas dinner, which was scrumptious, we stopped to visit with Santa Claus in one of the rooms. The girls told him what they wanted for Christmas. We also got to sing carols and visit with many of our old friends. We had a super fun night!

L told Santa she wanted a puppy for Christmas.

K told Santa she wanted a remote control fire breathing dragon that could grasp things with it's claws. She also wanted the remote to have a video on it so she could see where the dragon went when it was out of sight. She even drew a picture of it for him.

The girls and M had a lot of fun building these houses but they had even more fun disposing of them. Stay tuned for the next post in this series.

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

It started snowing in the evening of December 5th and by Friday the town awoke to find several inches of snow on the ground. The girls had a blast playing in the snow. They built forts, rolled around and even went sledding.

Early morning Friday.

Six inches by mid-day.

Building a snowman.

L throwing snow.

Such a cute pic of L.

Playing with neighbors.

Pictures of snowflakes up close that M took with his new camera.

I had driven to Portland the night before so I could go to a doctors appointment and get my hair done. Although Portland only got a light dusting, it was still pretty slick out. I had my husband's truck and didn't feel comfortable driving home after driving to my appointments or talking to him about how bad the roads were south of Salem. Apparently it continued to snow throughout the day and the temperature never got above 12 degrees.
I stayed at my aunts house until Sunday when the roads were better to drive on but even then, when I got into town the roads were very slick and still covered with snow and ice. I had to drive 30 mph or less on the highways and the residential areas were even more slick.
Due to snow and ice the kids were out of school from Monday through Thursday. It was the worst snow and temperatures in almost 20 years. Usually when it snows here it is only an inch or two and is melted by the end of the day. We NEVER get out of school for snow.
I loved having the girls home from school. We spent time making cookies and watching Christmas movies. But by Friday I was happy to have then head back only because I needed to do some Christmas shopping without them around. It was definitely looking like a white Christmas!

Cinnamon Bear Cruise

Every year my Auntie takes my girls and myself somewhere fun to start off the Christmas Season. This year she took us on the Cinnamon Bear Cruise in Portland on the Spirit cruise ship the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Cinnamon Bear is a radio program that has been on since the 1940's which tells the story of Judy and Jimmy who go to the enchanted world of Maybeland to recover their missing Silver Star that belongs on their Christmas tree. They are accompanied by Cinnamon Bear and meet all kinds of characters, getting into mischief along the way. It is a great story that the girls enjoy listening to each Christmas on our local radio station.

We boarded the boat at noon meeting Captain Taffy on our way and then enjoyed some tasty hot cocoa, blueberry scones, fruit, and cinnamon bear cookies. After a while we were introduced to Cinnamon Bear and told we could walk around the ship and meet the other characters.

Auntie, Mikaelas, Sean, L, K and me.

Captain Taffy

Cinnamon Bear coming in to say hello and take pictures with the kids.

The girls got to meet The Crazy Quilt Dragon and learn to steer the ship with Captain Taffy. They received a certificate and everything. They also listened to Queen Melissa tell an abbreviated version of Cinnamon Bear read from a book.

Crazy Quilt Dragon

Learning to drive the ship with Captain Taffy.

Queen Melissa

Towards the end of our stay we were entertained by Mr. Presto the Magician who showed us many tricks. He even showed us how to perform one of the tricks. He took a white plastic egg with a small hole hidden in the back and held it in his hand so that we could see what he saw from the back. He pushed a red handkerchief into the egg hole without the audience seeing. It was a pretty easy trick for the kids to learn and then use on their friends but then he took it a step further. Once he was done, he showed the egg to the kids and peeled off a red dot where the hole with the red handkerchief had been sticking out. He then cracked the egg open while trying to make cookies but that failed and he ended up with a rabbit instead of dough in the bowl. Such a silly performance.

Mr. Presto the Magician

After the show the girls received a picture of them with Cinnamon Bear and went around to have it autographed by all of the characters on board. They had such a fun time!

K eating her tasty treats.

L with her Cinnamon Bear cookie

The whole cast waving goodbye as we disembark.

I bought the girls each a silver star to put on our tree and a stuffed animal to commemorate the event. K got a crazy quilt dragon and L got a cinnamon bear. If you have young kids at home or grandkids near by, I highly recommend taking them on this cruise. It was a lot of fun. You should also start listening to the radio program. They play 15 minutes of it each night at 7pm starting around Thanksgiving. I know that 99.1KOOL fm plays it here in Eugene and K103 fm plays it in Portland. Both of their websites feature all of the episodes that have already aired if you would like to catch up on this for this year. Such a fun tradition to start with your family.