Christmas in Five Minutes

There’s something magical about Christmas, and every year we take a ton of pictures and video to try and capture it all. We rarely go back and look at the videos again though because it would take hours to get through them. This year Rob decided to put in several hours of work and consolidate the highlights of the day into five minutes. Before you watch this you should know that we like to make up names for who gave the gifts so that they aren’t all “from Mom & Dad.” It’s a tradition that started with Rob’s Dad and we have openly embraced it. (Don’t worry though, if you sent gifts, we didn’t make up names for you. The kids know who really sent them!) So pull up a pillow, and don’t blink or you’ll miss something. Rob did a wonderful job:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG7d5m4UjrA

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Happy New Year!

We are ready for a party! Let the movies, games, pizza and junk food (just eat a couple of baby carrots please…) begin!

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Hogwarts Dormitory

When we moved into our new place, Emma was able to have her own room for the first time. She loves the Harry Potter series and wanted to make her room like the Gryffindor dormitories. So when Nana came to visit she helped me and Emma make some draperies to dress up her room. She had a pillow with the Marauder’s Map and we used that as our inspiration for picking out fabric. These pictures don’t really do it justice, and it’s still a work in progress, but she loves it so far. I don’t have a picture of it, but she has also put a picture of the “fat lady” on her bedroom door and has a list of rotating passwords. It’s awesome.

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A Piano for Christmas

Since we have put off having our kids take piano lessons for way too long, and Rob and I both play a little piano and would like to play more, and since we have the floor space now, Rob and I combined our Christmas gifts this year and got a piano! We’ve heard that the Japanese pianos have the best sound, and would have loved to have a baby grand but they also cost twice as much. So to stay on budget we decided to get the best bang for the buck and rent this upright Kawai for 6 months to see how much it gets used before we commit to such a major piece of furniture with such a big price tag. It has been so much fun, and we plan to sign the kids up for lessons as soon as possible. The girls have all spent some time playing around on it. Hunter thinks playing the violin is enough, but we’ll see…

Rob and I have been playing too, and I have been surprised at how much has come back to me after not playing for years. I still can’t play a church hymn at singing speed, so don’t get any ideas church leaders ;). Our living room now has one piece of beautiful furniture, and eventually we’ll fill in with some places to sit, but for now I am content with hearing the sounds of music ringing through the house.

By the way, I just got a new calling as the Relief Society Meeting Coordinator. It used to be called the Home, Family, and Personal Enrichment Leader, but the name has recently changed. I haven’t had this calling since I was living in a married student ward, so I’m nervous. But I had some great examples in my friends Heidi and Michelle from our last ward, so I may need to call them for some pointers.

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Santa Claus is Coming

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2vYqGdkFd8

Has anyone else been singing this a lot in order to get their kids to behave? This is from Andrea Bocelli’s Christmas Concert. If you haven’t seen it, it’s fantastic and I promise it will get you in the Christmas spirit!

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