Piano Recital

Brooklyn started piano lessons this September. So far she LOVES it. She is playing the piano every day, and always remembers to go to her lessons (which is good, becuase I have been known to forget things!)Last night was her recital at Beacock's Music and she did so well. She played "We Three Kings" and "Away in a Manger". She practiced at home speaking LOUD so that everyone could hear and she practiced her curtsy. Grandma and Grandpa May came and Cody was even good for most of the evening.

Crazy Hair Day & Nathan's Nativity

Friday was crazy hair day at Brooklyn's school. A few days earlier Brooklyn drew me a picture of how she wanted it. This is what we came up with!

Olivia and I went to Brooklyn's class for their Christmas Party. The girls made some fun crafts. Then we all headed over to Nathan's pre-school for his Christmas pageant. He was a Shepherd boy. He is such a cute boy! All smiles as usual. His class sang some cute Christmas song and wished us "Feliz Navidad!".

Festival of Trees

A favorite family tradition of ours is to go to the festival of trees. This year it seemed like everything was going on in the same week. On Wednesday we had the Festival of Trees banquet, then a Relief Society progressive dinner on Thursday, Friday was Casey's office Christmas party, Saturday morning we took our family to the F of T then went to my parent's to help film their Christmas movie, then dropped Brooklyn off at a birthday party, picked her up and went to my Mom's birthday party to make gingerbread houses!
The F of T banquets was so nice. It was unbelievable how much they were auctioning the trees off for! Some were posted for sale at $25,000! We were just there for the food. And it was so good! We could cut the steak with a butter knife! Yum!
On Saturday at the F of T the kids enjoyed taking care of their bear at the bear hospital (we are getting quite the bear collection, we're been going for 6 years x 3-4 bears each year = 18-24 stuffed bears! We might have to start giving them away!)and getting their faces painted and some crafts. Cody's favorite part was watching Providence Hospital's music video to "Down" by Jay Sean. He was mesmerized! He watched it through 3 times!

Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving activities began with candy apple turkeys. We invited a neighbor over on Monday night and created them at Callie's house. This is one of Casey's family traditions and the kids love it. Then on Wednesday, Ashley and I went over to Callie's and we had a pie party. We made all our pies for Thanksgiving. It was so fun! Ashley made apple pie in a bag, I made 2 cranapple pies and a strawberry raspberry, and Callie made some mile high strawberry pies and a banana creme pie. A friend stopped over and we had a blast visiting and baking! Plus on Thursday morning I could just relax! No frantic pie making! What a concept!
On Thursday we went bowling with my parents, Callie & Brandon, and the missionaries. It was really fun. As usual I got a lot of gutter balls, and Olivia got a double strike, much to Brooklyn's displeasure. Brooklyn had a little melt down about not winning, she gets a little to competitive sometimes. Then we headed over to my parents for Thanksgiving dinner! My mom made some yummy cranberry sauce with kind of a citrus flavor and the "Beautiful" pie, Callie made yummy rainbow jello, and Ashley made 12 layer salad. Cody was awesome, he was just happy in his highchair, and our other 3 kids feed and serve themselves, so Casey and I had a very relaxing meal! Then we watched a movie and ate pie.

Soccer Finale

Brooklyn played her last soccer game of 2009 on November 21st. Her team played in the Kohls Cup. It was a very cold day and they had 4 games. Casey was gone on a camp out and Callie was busy for the second game, so I had to bring Olivia, Nathan, and Cody by myself. They were not happy. It was so cold and muddy. But Brooklyn had fun and was able to play some other positions than goalie. We went home and got cleaned up and went to her Coach's house for a team party.