Cousin Gift Exchange

The cousin gift exchange was a big hit this year. Ken and Tracy's kids had both Austin and Preston (also Chad) and got them all nerf guns. These provided entertainment the rest of the evening on Christmas eve with Rob offering $5 for a dart sticking to Granny's glasses, the $10 for the same with Grandpa Paul and $20 to Ken. You can see Austin got right into that. I'm thinking the nerf guns should be a toy we keep at granny's so that all the cousins can play together whenever we are there...what do you think?
Granny protecting the rest of her face as she gets fired at. Notice the beautiful necklace she is wearing. Preston made that for her and insisted she open it before the cousin gift exchange. As we were wrapping it, he said, "I just can't wait to see her face when she opens it. I know she's going to love it."
Alyssa excitedly opening her gift from Kartchners. She loved the shirt and the headband. ...and she loves her Aunt Sherylee...because let's not kid ourselves, we know who the brains of the gift are.
Paul deserved to get shot at as it took him nearly 10 minutes to open his DVD, so that he could save the wrapping paper in perfect condition
Mark playing with his new toy from Paul.

The pinata

In backwards order...due to my amazing blogging skills....the contents of the pinata (super cute hoodies...and treats of course) and then the process of opening the pinata.

These pinata hitting videos may seem boring to some, but considering how many hundreds of times my kids have watched the home videos of breaking open pinatas in Christmases past, I daresay these will be adequately watched to justify their being posted. Granny surprised us all this year by buying everyone hoodies and having them in the pinata. The kids were thrilled. She has super cute taste, don't you think? Good work, Granny!

Christmas Eve, Dinner and Nativity

As usual, we spent Christmas Eve at Paul and Sheron's place. Granny prepared a beautiful turkey dinner which we ate on the fine china. Granny laid down the law this year and insisted the kids organize the annual nativity. They really stepped up to the challenge. They used granny's costumes and a script and decided all the roles. Alyssa narrated. They asked Rob and I to play Mary and Joseph. Paul helped Mark be a shepherd, and Mark actually didn't mind being in the nativity since there was a tie on his bathrobe to chew. Preston enjoyed being a wise man with his cousins. The singing was improved over other years with the hymns on tape joining our voices. I thought it was very nice, and I was glad to be part of it.

If at first you don't succeed.....

So, on the 23rd, I started getting tired of the kids watching tv/movies, playing on the computer and playing video games, so I decided I should get them out of the house to do something active. So, I called the town office and asked when they have public skating at the arena...1-2 p.m., perfect! So we dressed the kids up in snow pants and helmets and mitts and found all the skates and drove over to the arena at 1:00. When we got to the door there was a sign that said "Public skating 1-2 p.m., cancelled, today only." Dang it! Someone suggested we go tobogganing instead. We drove over to the hill, but there was not enough snow (it faces south and we'd had some warmish days).

So Alyssa said, lets go swimming in Lethbridge. So, I checked the Lethbridge pool schedule, and found a pool that had swimming until 5:00 p.m. I packed 2 bags, one for the boys and one for the girls. As we were leaving, I hadn't grabbed the bags, and Alyssa noticed. When I was doing something else, she grabbed the swim stuff and put it in the back of the van. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the pool on the far side of Lethbridge and opened the back of the van, there was only one swim bag...she hadn't realized I packed two. At this point, I nearly cried. I have had some trouble sleeping lately and I hadn't slept well the night before, and my tired little brain could not take much more!

Anyway, we calmed down and decided to go to the Movie Mill. There we played mini golf and after waiting an hour or so, went to the theatre and watched Megamind, which the kids really enjoyed.

The irony is that we ended up sitting through a movie, with, as you can see a lot of popcorn and pop instead of getting active. Also, I spent over $50, instead of $8 (public skating), but I think we made a memory that day!

The Nativity Pageant in Cardston

On Wednesday the 22nd, we went to the Nativity Pageant in Cardston put on this year by the Cardston First Ward. It was a chilly night, but we bundled up well and didn't suffer too much from cold at all. Nativity pageants are special to me as being part of the pageant in Kingston was the essence of Christmas for me growing up. I found myself wishing I could tweak their pageant a little...get Mary and Joseph to wait to come in until the narration says "and Joseph also, " change the placement of the animals so they could be more visible, etc...get the shepherds to act more surprised....I mean no offence to the pageant in Cardston, it's just that it was exactly those types of things that I helped with in Kingston. The angels in the Cardston pageant were quite magnificent. One angel on the top of the tallest roof, and a chorus of heavenly hosts with angel-Moroni-trumpets on a lower roof. One thing they do at the Cardston pageant that I thought was especially powerful, is they have a big projection screen above the stable and at the end when the Halleluiah Chorus is on, they have a short video of Christ's life death and resurrection. It reminds us that the baby in the manger is meaningless without considering the Savior's atoning sacrifice for us.

Holday Bowling

On one of the first days of our holidays, we went to "Holiday Bowl" as a family. It felt good to do a family activity together after a very busy December with next to no nights together as a family.Preston bowling with the between the legs method.
Austin is using "the force" to control the ball as it travels down the lane.
Rob won, but I got vengeance bowling on the Wii at Liz and Christian's where I bowled 165 in 10 pin.
Afterwards we went to Boston Pizza for dinner.

Sometimes we weren't sure if Preston's balls would make it all the way to the other end.

Christmas Recital Duet

This is Alyssa (primo) with her friend, Karah (secondo) performing a duet at a come and go recital in Lethbridge. This piece was quite difficult. They practiced hard, and actually had it pretty good. In this performance some things fell apart in the second half, but I was still proud of the girls. For Karah, who hasn't been taking lessons as long, the music was especially difficult, but she really worked hard.