Christmas 2011: A Few of My Favorite Pictures

Skyping with Oma and Opa so they could
watch Elsa open their present to her.

The Nutcracker and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Gadzooks..........I am so behind.

I think my blog posts will be in short spurts and snippets to get caught up.

Myles and Aeva were in The Nutcracker at church. Our ward, instead of doing a Christmas dinner, decided to do the Nutcracker using 88 of the primary children.
It was a hoot.

Here is Aeva, one of the party guests,
with "Clara" on her right and another party guest on her left.

Myles was one of the little kid "clowns" that came out
under the lady's dress (Mother Gigogne).

Myles and Aeva had a great time performing in the play.


Here is a small clip of Myles playing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star on the violin.

Aeva is 11 Now!

Aeva is officially 11....
One year left of Primary. She is very much looking forward to being in YW with Rhaevyn.
For Aeva's birthday Oma treated us all to a birthday dinner at Applebee's.
It was a lot of fun!

She got some awesome gifts and was glad that
when her birthday arrived because she was on pins and needles
to open them.
A big sketch pad from Aunti Cullen.

Headbands from Rhaevyn.

A big hymnn book from Chris and me.

She acutally got this last month. We were planning on getting her one,

but she really needed it sooner than her birthday so she could mark the organ

pedals in it.

And the much anticipated present......

The Lego Roadster from Oma and Opa.
They got to watch her open it on Skype.
That was a really special.

Elsa helped put candles on Aeva's birthday pie.

Aeva was so excited she forgot to wait for us to finish
singing to her before blowing out her candles.

Happy Birthday, my sweet baby girl :)

An Afternoon at the Portland Temple

Our Little Organist In Training

Our little pianist decided that she'd also like to take organ lessons.
A sweet lady has been working with her for five Saturdays now. She has one lesson left.
She also goes to the church twice a week to practice and every other Sunday another sweet lady works with her for ten minutes in the morning before church.
Aeva is really excited about this Sunday, Christmas day, because she gets to play prelude before church. She has three songs she is working on. One of them in Silent Night.
Wish all our family could be here to see and hear her, but here is the next best thing.

Dancing Feet.

My camera wouldn't record the full song of Silent Night. I had to keep deleting pictures and making more room, but this is most of Silent Night with a bit of Sweet Hour of Prayer thrown in at the end.

Her fingers get tired pretty quickly, and she is still working on pedals.

But for only 6 lessons we think she sounds pretty good.

A Christmas Tree and Christmas Music

I forgot I had taken pictures of the putting up of our Christmas Tree.
The kids were on pine cones and needles awaiting the day we would put it up.

Oma had sent a pumpkin cookie mix, so we had cookies cooking while we decorated the tree.
They were scrumptious!

Ben had been down visiting just before Thanksgiving.
I forgot that I had taken these pictures.

And for the grand finale.....
Rhaevyn and her teacher played Christmas music her entire lesson today.
She had a lot fun doing that.
I got a video of them playing this duet....

Christmas Bells are Ringing

I hope to post more pictures this weekend.
I think the stomach flu is making its way through the family.
Two down.........hopefully no more to go, but I won't hold my breath.
Hopefully we'll all be well for the Nutcracker performance at church on Friday.
Both Myles and Aeva have parts in the play.
I am looking forward to a little relaxation once the weekend rolls around.

December Has Arrived

with a whiz bang. I am looking forward to things quieting down after the holidays.
We are busy with music lessons, play practice, a recital and the Nutcracker play coming up, and school. Temperatures have dropped and it feels like it could snow. The kids are really hoping it does soon.
We have a few beautiful spiderwebs on our swing set, and Rhaevyn has been going out to take pictures of the beads of dew and frost on them.

Oma sent chocolate advent calendars, and the kids could hardly wait until December 1st.
Here is Myles opening his first chocolate.

Rhaevyn had her YW in Excellence on Wednesday.
She has been working on genealogy and gathering pictures and stories about her relatives, both living and deceased. This is what she put together to put on display.

I love that Rhaevyn does Elsa's hair.
It turned out so cute on Saturday.

Elsa got a hand me down Christmas dress.
It is so pretty, and I made a bow for her hair to go with it.

This is our Gingerbread house we decorated.
We had a lot of fun....each of us adding our own special touch.

Here is our little Ballerina.

She cracks me up. She is quite the performer

and loves being in the limelight.

Yesterday at church she was in the foyer singing

for someone and languidly moving her arms from side to side.
I put on the Walt of the Flowers today, and she was in heaven.