Tuba Christmas

We met Stan and Peg for brunch at La Madeline and got to enjoy the Tuba Christmas concert in the park afterwards.  There had to have been about 200 tuba and euphonium players (of all ages!) there to participate.  What a treat.

The kids, literally, spent the entire concert on these bicycle statues.

Note the different colored socks... this is Lia's trademark style.

And another one of my clever window reflection shots...

 What a magnificent tree!

Carols and Lessons

Emily had a solo part this year for our church's annual production of Carol's and Lessons.  She is the second soloist in Gaudete.  This video doesn't do her justice... but it will give you an idea.   I like her little military exit too.  Yea Emily!

David's Bedroom Window

December 16, 2011

Bethlehem City

We visited our friends Lowell and Cynthia the second weekend in December.  Baby Jude continues to be the sweetest, happiest baby ever.  He is crawling all over the place.  Emily fell in love with him all over again.

We headed out to Burnet to visit Main Street Bethlehem, where we were able to experience what it would have been like for Mary and Joseph, in the first century, to arrive in the crowded city of  Bethlehem where there was no room at the inn.  Unfortunately, we had to wait for almost 2 hours to get in... and it was very cold!

So we bundled up and stood in line.  These ginormous (Emily's favorite word) blue bonnets were fun.

The kids got to drink hot chocolate.

We hung out... and shivered...

But once we made it inside the gates, it was all worth it!  Here is Emly at the well.  We were able to visit the jail, the cloth dyer, the jewelry maker, a traditional Jewish home, the very full inn...

Everything was lit by torch and candle-light.  Roman soldiers were everywhere.  Lia thought it was a little bit scary!

The candle-maker...

And real camels!  As we made our way through Bethlehem we could see the star of David and as we made our exit we walked by the cave where Mary and Joseph were huddled with baby Jesus.  There was such a crowd of people around that I couldn't get a picture of the live Nativity but it was beautiful and we were able to enjoy hot chocolate again before we headed back to Austin.  I hope we can go back again!

Christmas Card

The Methodist church near our house has a beautiful Christmas tree in its lobby.  My hopes were to get a picture of all three kids together... but they didn't cooperate as a group.  Luckily, they were pretty smiley on their own so I took the best and made a collage.  This is the first Christmas that I have been ahead of the game.  Last year, my Christmas cards went out as a Valentine greeting.  Maybe I'm getting better?

St. Nicholas Day

St. Nicholas day was such a hit last year that the kids didn't need much encouragement to put their shoes out before they went to bed.  Lia put out two different shoes... isn't she silly?  If you look closely, David wrote a letter to Santa and left it in the fireplace. 

The next morning, December 6th, the kids were very excited to see what St. Nicholas left for them.  Here they are checking out their loot!

Lia loves the chocolate coins and they all love hearing the story about how St. Nicholas secretly dropped gold coins down the chimney of a poor family so the daughters could have dowries and marry.

St. Nicholas of Myra, Pray for us!



Playing Shop

Emily's Math Assignment

The kids stayed busy with their school work right up to Christmas.  Emily has been working on a money unit in her math book and I really liked the enrichment activity.  We made "shop" cards to create a pretend store where we could go shopping and Emily could practice making being cashier and making change for her sibling's purchases.  The kids had a ball going through the newspaper ads and selecting all sorts of things to buy.  We glued each item on a square piece of paper to make up our shop inventory.

Lia kept a little purse handy to put her money and "treasures" in.  She is eagerly picking out something she wants here.

I would have liked to use all real money... but I just don't have stacks of cash lying around!  So we used real change and I printed out some play money for the bills.  Here is our register.

Here is David trying to figure out what to buy.  They usually start out with $40.00... but they get more cash if they run out.

Here is all the stuff Lia bought:  Candy Land, squinkies, Christmas lights, a gum ball machine, a Bop-It game, pizza rolls (she was hungry), and a strawberry shortcake toy.  Do you think this is what she would really buy if I set her loose with cash at Walmart?  By the way, from a math teacher perspective, I love that Walmart always has such wacky prices like $14.86.  It is easy to make change for $9.99, especially if you pay with a ten dollar bill.  But goodness, $20.00 - $14.86 makes you think!  The kids wanted to play this every day for a while and it was fun to watch Emily improve every time.

And David picked The Smurfs video (he affectionately calls it the Squoosher Movie), peanut butter and avocado (he was hungry), Christmas Lollipop decorations, a baby walker (???), and what he called boy jewelery.  So silly.