Christmas Cookies and Crafts and A Whole Lotta Love!

Monday was goodie baking day!
Rhaevyn made gingerbread men and sugar cookies. I thought I had gotten a picture of what she had made, but apparently this is the only one that got saved. 

 

Her cookies were so good! I decided to try some new treats this Christmas season. I made Chocolate peanut butter and caramel pretzels. I think those were a hit. Everyone that we took those to really enjoyed them.

 I also tried these s'more treats. Although they tasted divine, they didn't stay together and were a mess to try and eat.

Meg enjoyed licking the spatula!

We had a really fun time baking and dropping all the goodies off to be enjoyed by others.
I got all my Christmas cards in the mail by Thursday. The cards may not get to their destinations before Christmas, but at least they were in the mail before Christmas. I made a few more cards, and I had fun making tags for some presents.

I think they turned out cute if I do say so myself.

Aeva got her first birthday gift before Christmas break. Her seminary teacher brought in her favorite cookies, sugar cookies, and he had the class sing all the versus to A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief. She thought that was the best thing ever!!!!
Thursday was Aeva's birthday. She opened Rhaevy's present in the morning. Rhaevyn got her one book in the series called Yotsuba&!
It is Japanese, of course, and follows the everyday  life of a four year old girl. The kids say it is pretty funny. She was really happy about this present 😁

We spent time playing Apples to Apples as a family, and then we all went to eat at Red Robin for Aeva's birthday thanks to Oma and Opa.😊

Waiting for our order:

After Red Robin we came home and Aeva opened the rest of her presents:

Elsa gave Aeva her chopsticks since Aeva uses them a lot. I thought this was very sweet because Elsa is a stickler about other people using her bowls and eating utensils.

Oma and Opa sent Aeva a very nice present 💲 😀

 Myles made this cat out of socks for Aeva.
 
And the pièce de ré·sis·tance:

 I've been searching Goodwill stores and second hand bookstores for Harry Potter Books since Aeva decided she wanted her very own set. She was a very surprised birthday girl!

 

 
She chose Neapolitan ice cream for dessert and was able to blow out all of her 17 candles.

 

 

 Rhaevyn has been working on these slippers. The bishop's wife hired her to knit them for her granddaughters for Christmas. There were definitely a few times Rhaevyn had to put these down and walk away because they just weren't cooperating. In the end they turned out super cute, and she got paid pretty good.

Rhaevyn helped Elsa with crocheting a chain:

 Elsa  dressed Meg up the other day. They were being fancy shmancy girls.

Myles and Chris worked on various gadgets this week which consisted of wires, magnets, and batteries. Meg enjoyed making this multimeter make noise.

Friday was a very busy day!

Chris and I had our eye appointments. He is going from not wearing glasses to now wearing bifocals. He tried on a few frames:

He settled on these frames:
they are black with a really pretty cobalt blue hue.



After our eye appointments I dropped Myles and Elsa off at Sister Lee's house. Most of her kids are in town for Christmas, and they have a Christmas tradition (apparently a British Christmas tradition) of playing a game called The Bran Pie. They really wanted Myles and Elsa to come and be a part of it this year. They had a blast playing it, and Myles finished up my Christmas present while there.
Friday afternoon we had some friends of ours drop by a present for Meg. They stayed and visited for awhile. Their son KK (his first and last initials) is in Meg's sunbeam class.

Today at church she was crying because she wanted to go out with Chris while he walked Elsa to the restroom. The minute she saw KK she got the biggest smile and went and gave him a big hug. They are best buds.

Friday night was spent with our wonderful friends which consist of my best friend and her family, her parents, and her in-laws. We feel so blessed to be included as part of their family. The kids love it when we all get together.

Dog pile!

These two are a year apart and love it when they get to see each other.

These two are a year apart as well. They are hilarious together.

On to the subject of quilts:

My friend gave me this for my cutting ruler. Her mom was getting rid of it. I am super excited to use it, and I hope that I like it. Maybe I won't have to worry so much about slicing any fingertips off when I cut fabric now.

 

 

My second quilt is done at the quilters. I cannot believe how beautiful it is!!! I'm so happy that the colors look so good together since it was all scrap fabric.

Church was wonderful today. We had one talk and the rest of the hour was all music. When we came out of church to go home this was happening:

After about an hour it looked like this outside:

And it is now 3:30 pm and still coming down. I hope it stays at least for tomorrow so we can say we had a white Christmas.
A friend of mine from church had wanted to have the kids over to make cookies and play with her doggie, a Jack Russel Terrier, whose name is Louie. The only one that wouldn't let her forget about this plan was Meg. So, she and her family took Meg home after church today. She played with Russian Nesting Dolls, pet the dog, and picked out some yummy jam and a candy cane to bring home. I had prepped her beforehand that there would be no cookie making, but she could definitely play with the dog. Louie, in the end, ended up doing his own thing, but Meg had fun with the nesting dolls.

The Christmas season is always a time to reflect on one's blessings and remember to be grateful. We are grateful for our little family and for the love of extended family who do not live near. We  feel truly blessed to live with such beautiful surroundings her in the PNW and to be surrounded by such wonderful friends who feel more like, and are considered, family. We are thankful to know that we have a Heavenly Father and Savior who bless us so abundantly and love us so perfectly. May each and everyone one of you have a very blessed Christmas and a very happy new year 💕

Stringed Instruments and a Birthday

 I'll start at the end of our week and work backwards. Myles had his cello recital last night. He has been practicing so hard on getting his piece perfect with no mistakes, and he even had it memorized. He practiced and practiced on introducing himself nice and loud. It is a lot easier to have those things all come together when you are just doing it in front of your family. The minute Myles stood up in front of 50 people he said his hands got clammy and shaky. He opted to have his sheet music instead of work off of memory. We still think he did a great job. Sister Lee, her husband, and her daughter Alayna came to hear him. That was really special for him. He's not happy I have video footage to show of his performance because he doesn't think he did well. He played Mouret's "Rondeau", or as many might know it, the opening theme from Masterpiece Theater years ago. He tunes his cello first before he starts his piece.....

 The recital was really wonderful. Myles went first which I think was a good thing. He was able to enjoy the music played by all the other students without stressing and being so nervous. It was good for him to see that even the students that have been taking lessons for a while and playing really hard pieces make mistakes too. His teacher has been expressing to him that it is okay to make a mistake; the important thing is is to just keep going. I love that there is  such a wide variety in ages.......from kids, to teens, to adults in their 70's. There were cello and violin students performing since Myles's teacher does this with her husband who teaches violin. Several students had a family member accompany them, and Myles is thinking maybe next time he could do something at his recital with Aeva or Rhaevyn. 

 Saturday morning Chris and I went to the temple. It was such a nice way to start off our Saturday. I'd like to see this nativity at night some time. I've seen pictures, and it looks so beautiful at night with the lights and the water.

 

 

 Friday night was Rhaevyn's NW Symphonic Pops Christmas performance at the retirement community. I went, but Chris took the rest of the  kids to the Ward Christmas party since Aeva was part of the nativity. They had a great time and so did I :)

 Meg's first picture ever with Santa

  Aeva the angel

It is always so much fun to go to Rhaevyn's performances. Here she is with Charlotte, the concert mistress (She has been a great mentor for Rhaevyn) and with Charlotte and Jim (another violinist). Jim is very sweet and always says he forgets I'm the mom because I don't look old enough to be Rhaevyn's mom. He never fails to tell me, when I see him, how much they all are so glad to have Rhaevyn come and be a part of their orchestra. He says he hopes she will keep coming until she moves away.

 

Here are just two of the songs from Friday night: 

It was hard to get footage of Rhaevyn, but you can see her to the left of the older lady in red.....

Friday  afternoon Myles was, can you guess????, at Sister Lee's house. He made another gnome, and he made a present for Elsa. He has been sewing up a storm, and all by himself too!

 Friday while I was running some errands Meg decided she wanted to be a tiger. She has blue stripes all over her body that did not wash off completely. This is just what her arms look like, but she has stripes all over her torso and legs. When we were at church yesterday I looked down all of a sudden and noticed that she had scribbled a beard and mustache onto her face with pink and purple ink. Luckily Chris was able to wash it off completely.

 Friday afternoon Molly got groomed. We all love how soft she feels and how pretty she looks after her wash and cut.

 Friday morning Meg had her well child check. We opted for one shot instead of two (I had originally told her she wouldn't have shot this time around), and she had some blood work done. I'm happy to say that she is a healthy growing girl! After her blood work she was super excited to go upstairs and see the huge Christmas tree. She was running towards it, and I had a hard time keeping up with her.

 

Can you tell Friday was a busy and crazy day for us???

Lastly, Meg turned 4 this week!!! I feel like she can't possibly be four already; she was born just yesterday wasn't she????

She was so excited about her Minnie Mouse pajamas, socks, and book that Oma and Opa sent.

 

 She had lemon blueberry cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. She found sprinkles in the drawer and decided she wanted some on her cupcake.

 

 Meg helped make her cupcakes and Rhaevyn made the frosting.

 Birthday Eskimo kisses and hugs for my sweet little spitfire

Meg got a lot of stickers for her birthday. Both Elsa and Rhaevyn got her stickers. We use stickers to help Meg with reverence at church on Sundays.

 

 And she got new undies, which she was very happy about.

 No time to mess around; she went straight for the scissors to cut the ribbon off.

 Myles is really loving to draw just like his older sisters...............

 

This coming week we get to celebrate our Winter Solstice girl, bake some Christmas goodies, and hopefully send out Christmas cards. I ordered the cards and have become one of  "those" people........................yes, our Christmas card includes a picture of our dog, Molly :) What can I say, I needed one more picture and it was easier for me to just use a picture of  Molly. We are all excited for Christmas day, but it is coming way too fast. I'm not ready for Christmas time to be over yet. Hopefully this week will go really slow :)