A Little Bit of Magic....

Or maybe better said, A Lot of Magic.  Just before Christmas, Patrick, Maddie's boyfriend, taught Maddie to play a card game called Magic.  Since Allie and Gabe are loyal followers of Patrick (literally and figuratively), he taught the game to them as well.  They immediately loved playing the game, and begged him to bring his cards every time he came over.  After such a success, Patrick decided to give them their own starter deck for Christmas.  Over the past month, their love of the game has increased so much, that the small deck of started cards was no longer enough.  They went to the store and purchased 3 more decks of cards to use.  They have happily spent the past few days spreading out their booty, dividing the spoils into individual decks and playing to their hearts content with the different cards and their uses.

Awarded: Best Use of Flax Seed

Okay, okay, so the real award was the Best Use of Roses.  It was awarded to the Miracle Gro Float in the Rose Parade this year.  But I say the Best Use of Flax Seed because that is what Allie and I put on the float.  Yes, the day after Christmas, Allie and I headed out towards Pasadena (we actually passed it and went to a warehouse in Irwindale) and helped to decorate the Miracle Gro Float for the Rose Parade.  It was very interesting.  The float had a basic design, but every inch of the float had to be covered in something organic.  We were assigned the edges of the wheelbarrow.  We had to cover the edges in flax seed.  First we had to paint the edges with glue, then apply the flax seed.  I don't know how often you have worked with flax seed, but it is very small, light and slippery.  It was very difficult to apply to the bottom of a wheelbarrow!  We basically had to fill our hand with flax seed, then mash as much of it onto the bottom as we could.  Most of it fell off, and by the end our hands were covered in glue!  It was quite challenging, but it came out fabulous and the TV camera men zoomed in on our great flax seeds!  The flax seeds are the brown edge under the pumpkins.

Christmas

It was Christmas....need I say more?  All right, I will elaborate a little.  For the first time, we had a Christmas Eve program at our house.  We each were assigned to prepare a party game to play.  We played name that tune, charades, a pudding eating contest, a funny question game, and stinger, a game where nearly everyone died a gruesome death.  We topped off the evening by singing the Hallelujah chorus, then eating parfaits.
Christmas morning was off to a slow start, but was very satisfying.  We all enjoyed opening presents.  Our best present was not a gift, but a presence.  We were thrilled to be joined by Jeff's parents, younger brother and sister on Christmas Eve and morning.  It was fun to share this special day with them.  Later on in the day, Jeff's older brother and his family joined us for more presents and family time.  It was a good holiday.

Sleigh Bells Ring.....Are you Listenin?

Luckily, the business of life slowed down this week and we were able to enjoy more of the season.  We decorated our gingerbread house which had sat neglected for two weeks, read Christmas stories every night, bought and wrapped presents.  But the highlight of this week was Christmas Caroling.  Ever year we invite our friends and neighbors to carol around our neighborhood.  We usually do it a little earlier in the season, but we unable to this year.  As a result, our numbers were a little diminished, but the fun and the spirit were the same.  It was an unusually warm day which added greatly to the comfort of walking around in the dark!  We sang to our usual houses, then went across the street to carol to a couple of children who were beckoning us from their window.  They were thrilled that we were coming and even joined in to sing with us.  We all came back to the house for hot chocolate and treats.  It was a great holiday tradition.
 To add to our musical enjoyment of the holidays, Allie performed in her first band concert.  It was very well done considering most of the students have only been playing these instruments for 4 months.  They played a medley of simple songs, then launched into the sounds of the season.  Allies favorite was White Christmas.  My favorite was Ruldoph the Red Nosed Reindeer.  While one section of the band played a solo, the rest of them put on their "antlers" to be reindeer.  It was very fun to see their excitement.

 

Holly Jolly Visitors

This week we were please to have my sister and her two sons come and visit us.  Her husband was travelling to Florida for a few days, and she is 8 months pregnant.  So I told her to come and visit me!  We would help take care of the boys and she could have a break while we all enjoyed being together.  It was a perfect fit......except, I wound up being very busy.  The first day she arrived, it was more like she was taking care of me, as I was stuck in a meeting and she took Jayd to volleyball tryouts, fixed dinner and prodded my children to complete their homework.  I made up for it the next morning by taking the boys to basketball with me so that she could sleep in until 10:00.  On Saturday, we all went to Allie and Gabe's piano recital.  In the end, it was a great visit.  It was so fun to have the boys around with all of their exuberance and excitement.  We love hearing the little things that they say.  They loved Toby, our lizard, he was a favorite toy.  We hope they will be able to come back soon, maybe with a baby brother!

Part of the Club

Jayd would like to play club volleyball.  That is where the real action is.  We had a little taste of it last spring when he played on a club team for about a month.  He loved it....but the price tag was a little too high for our budget.  So when the coach of Jayd's highschool team approached the team with a proposition to form a club team for a minimal cost, we jumped at the opportunity.  Jayd liked the coach, he knew and liked the other players, it was a good fit.  It is a bare bones club, no practices, just 6 tournaments.  Most of our players are playing in a division that is higher than their age group.  The purpose was to get the playing experience that the highschool volleyball team could use to progress in the off season.  We actually didn't expect to win any games.  However, we have been doing far above expectations.  We are not ranked very high, but are doing well playing against our competition.  Yesterday we won two matches and lost one, and at the previous tournament we won all three matches.  Jayd is having a great time playing.  We are grateful that we have had this experience.

Thanksgiving

For the first time ever, we had a real Thanksgiving dinner at our home this year.  The kids had the entire week without school, so we spent some time working, playing and preparing for the big day.  We rearranged our living room to make enough room for us and our good friends, the Buscos, to fit at one big table (okay, 2 tables strung together).  We had a great meal with enough food for two meals!  I need to work a little on my portion assumptions!  After we had stuffed ourselves full, we went over to the park for a friendly volleyball game.  It was so fun to play with our friends.  We all did silly things and laughed and worked off a little turkey.  After the volleyball game it was time for pie.  We had a selection of 5 pies!  We all enjoyed the traditional apple and pumpkin pie as well as lemon and chocolate pies.  It was a yummy finish to the day.  We had a great day celebrating all of the things that we are thankful for!