Our Elf on the Shelf

Our Elf on the Shelf was back for his 3rd year.

His name is Max and he sure had a lot of fun this year.

Tea party with a couple of princesses

looks like he had a hard time pouring some Christmas cereal

in a race with lot of cars

Max thought it was pretty cool that he could play
in a lego house that Jared and Kamryn had built

Max even turned the milk red
Jared and Kamryn thought it tasted better than regular milk

playing master mind with a giant

Jared and Kamryn loved looking for Max every morning, first thing.  Sometimes he was pretty easy to find and other times he was really tricky.  He even brought a few presents this year - like Home Alone 1 and 2 and a fun indoor snowball kit.  We will all miss Max and look forward to him coming back next year.

Helping defend Max in a mini marshmellow "snowball" fight
against all the Christmas stuffed animals

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!