Holiday Happenings

Lots of fun holiday events to post about and catch up on:

Kamryn and Jared playing snowball game

Brooke and I both helped at Jared and Kamryn's class holiday party.  Brooke helped with the memory game center and I helped at the craft center.

Brooke helping the kids play Christmas memory

Jared and Kamryn playing break the ice

Jared and Kamryn playing bingo

That evening we went to our stake's event of a live nativity.  Its an amazing production and it really helps bring in the spirit of the real meaning of Christmas.

Ruth Brown and Desiree Roberts
Desiree is the mastermind and organizer of the live nativity

Taylor was one of the shepherds and was out in the cold for an hour

I love this photo of Joseph and Mary

 Being there and watching the scene with the shepherds, wiseman and the holy family I could really feel the spirit and what those that were actually there might have felt.

Jared and Kamryn all bundled up and GOOFY

Desiree and John Roberts - thanks to them
for an awesome event

 The next day our church youth group went to visit a kindergarten class for a Christmas activity. We've done this for several years and our youth love it.  They read stories to the kids and play with them and then give them gifts.  Brooke was able to come with us too this year.  We love these kids.

Group shot of our youth and the kindergarten kids

On Friday we went to Gardner Village to find all the elves again.

We went last year and had so much fun that we went again.

Jared and Kamryn did a great job finding all the elves

Kamryn trying on fun hats

Brooke got in on it too

Christmas Recital

Every year Kamryn's dance teacher plans the greatest recitals.  They always have a fun theme and the dances are all great.  This year was no exception.  Kamryn's dance class did Groovy Christmas.  Kamryn did an awesome job!  She has really become a confident performer.  Her dad was suprised how comfortable she was on the stage.

It was extra fun this year to have Susan's family there too because Katie is in dance now too.  She is in the 3 yr old class and they are always SO cute.

We always try to get there super early so we can be first in line to get the best seats.
Kamryn spents some of her time reading.

We asked Katie if she was excited and this was the reaction we got.

super cute "belle" dresses

Poor Jared has to hang out with us for hours waiting for the recital to start.
He at least gets fed yummy food and plays on the ipad.

my groovy Christmas gal

cute cousins

doing her dancer pose

after the recital
they both did GREAT!

Kamryn with her dad and the beautiful flowers he brought her

She looks so grown up

happy dancer

Kamryns book club

Kamryn is in a new book club.  We volunteered to host for December.  The girls all read The  Best Christmas Pageant Ever.  They all loved talking about the Herdmans and answering trivia questions from the book.  Then we did these sticker nativity scenes and they even added some Herdmans touches, like a ham.  We decorated scratch paper ornaments and then decorated lots of sugar cookies.  It was fun to listen to their conversations. (Jared even joined in for the fun)

2nd Grade Store

2nd Grade Store Day

In the 2nd grade they just finished a big unit on learning all about money - coins and what they are worth, etc.  They also have a reward system where they earn coins (plastic but real looking) for all the good things they do.  And of course they can lose coins for being naughty.  The end of the unit is a big store day.  Each student has their own store and they bring whatever they want from home to sell.  They can also make up a game that other students can play at their store.

Jared and Kamryn were so excited for store day.  They did all their preparations all on their own - decided what to sell, made up their game and made their own store signs.  I was lucky enough to be able to help that day and I even got to be the banker.

The inside row opened their stores first while the other half of the class shopped

Kamryn's game was to guess where the smallest hidden Santa
was in the bigger nesting Santas

Jared with the cool glasses he bought

Jared at his store.
His game was to see how high you could stack the legos in 30 seconds
The record was 19 legos

Kamryn at her store

Kamryn trying out a cool maze game made by one of her classmates

Kamryn's teacher shopping at her store

Kamryn looks like a real shopper with her bag on her shoulder

Jared LOVED that someone was selling Pokemon cards

I LOVE these 2nd graders!

Granddad's Birthday

Our family tries to get together each month for dinner, 

usually on Fast Sunday.

This last month we all met at my parents 

to celebrate my dad's birthday,

on his actual birthday.

We had dinner and then played some games.

playing the "plate" game

This was pretty fun and everyone could play.
If you'd like to try it, you can find it here.

Susan giving the directions for the game.

showing off their drawings

My brother Paul won with a score of 20

After the plate game we played charades, 

one of my dad's favorite games.

Most of the kids had never played 

so we had to explain how to play.

And they loved it.

Jadon taking a turn at charades

I'm not sure what Jaxon is acting out

We all had a good time and it was fun to play games together.

More Bragging

to be fair I wanted to brag a little on Jared too.
On Thursday I was at Kohls with Jared, Kamryn and Taylor looking for a gift for my mom.  I was looking for something specific and the kids were kind of just messing around while I was looking for this gift.  Then all of sudden Jared holds up this box and says "is this it mom?"  It was exactly what i'd been looking for :)
Then when we got home I just set the box on the table in the kitchen and it was even in a bag.  Soon after that my dad came over to watch Amazing Race with us and unexpectedly my mom came with him.  I didn't even think about her gift sitting out on the kitchen table but Jared did -right away.  And he ran in the kitchen and put it away in my room.
I have great kids!

I just have to Brag!

I just have to brag a little, okay A LOT!  About something very sweet that Kamryn did today.
It was the 2nd grade store today (more on that later) and all of Kamryn's class had a great time.  At the very end the kids were able to buy raffle tickets from their teacher for 4 cute plush animal hand puppets and 3 cool hats.  One girl used all of her money (pretend money of course) to buy 40 tickets.  Kamryn bought 13 tickets.  Well the very first number pulled out was one of Kamryn's tickets - her face was beaming and she was so excited to get to pick the very first prize - she chose a cute elephant.  It went thru all the numbers and the kids who's ticket was pulled out were very excited and some kids were sad they didn't get to choose a prize.  The one girl who bought 40 tickets and happened to be one of Kamryn's friends, hadn't any of her numbers pulled - until the very last ticket and it was one of her numbers. But she was still sad because the only thing left was an XMen hat and she really wanted one of those cute puppets.  I quietly mentioned to her mom that Kamryn would probably trade.  So this girl quietly went up to Kamryn and asked her if she would trade.  She hesitated for a minute and then said sure.  It was so nice.  And then she gave the hat to Jared.

Layton Christmas Party

Every year we look forward to going to Paul's company Christmas party.  The last several years its been at the barn at Thanksgiving Point.  Definitely the nicest barn I've ever been in.  Its always a good dinner and we enjoyed sitting with some of his current project team.  We didn't win anything this year - they always give away great presents and I always hope to win.  It was fun that the very first name called was the superintendent on Paul's job, he was sitting with us and had just said he's never won anything.  He won a camera and his wife wants a camera for Christmas - lucky for him she wasn't there so now he's set.
The photo booth is always fun, as you can see.
And then there is always great entertainment and this year was no exception.  We had Gerard Senehi, a mentalist, flown in from New York. It was amazing, interesting, freaky/spooky.  You can check him out here.

A Narrative Poem

I had an interesting sub assignment yesterday (and today and tomorrow too).  I am rotating through all the classrooms at my kids' elementary school, 30 min at a time, while each teacher meets with the principal - kind of a PPI, if you will.  So I started out in 4th grade yesterday morning and they were working on writing narrative poems.  We went over what it is and read a few examples and then they were supposed to write their own poem.  So I challenged them to finish their poem before I could write my own narrative poem.  Only 2 students finished before me.  I was pretty proud of myself - especially since I hadn't written a poem since I was in school myself.  I share it now:

I was born in Utah
in the year of 1967
I was a cute little girl
that came straight from Heaven.

My name is Lisa
I was named after a star
on a TV Show
In California that is so far.

I am the oldest of five
3 girls and 2 boys
I learned to play the piano
and I loved to play with toys

I grew up to be a mom
with 5 kids too
I love them all so much
no matter what they do.

Answer to Prayer

Two nights ago I was catching up Justin's photo blog of his mission.  I like to keep it in chronological order and I needed to put a couple of memory cards on the blog.  I went looking for the memory card he sent in July.  I remember we were at the cabin when we first looked at it on my computer and then hadn't seen it since.  I looked all over for it - in the safe place I've been keeping all of his memory cards, not there.  In all sorts of other places it might be - not there.  I was really starting to get stressed about it.  It wasn't backed up on my external hard drive.  I hadn't ever put that specific memory card on facebook - my other backup place.  I was getting panicky - what if I'd lost the memory card and all those great photos on it.
Finally I dropped to my knees and pleaded with Heavenly Father - please help me find that memory card.  And I was specific in my prayer - "please put a thought in my mind of where I should look."  As soon as I was done with my prayer the thought came to my mind "look in your camera bag."  I hadn't looked there but right when I had that thought I was comforted.  I found my camera bag and inside there is a zipper pocket and I opened and in there was a memory card.  I put it in my computer and it was Justin's missing memory card.  I was so relieved.  I said my prayer of thanks and slept well that night.
Answers to prayer are real.