December

Mr. Snowman says I'm a slacker for not blogging in over a month!

We did some craft projects one day. Tessa had fun decorating herself with pipe cleaners.

The rest of us made ornaments with pipe cleaners & beads. The kids gave most of them away.

Clockwise from the top: Kaleb's, Tessa's, Macy's, Elise's, and Isaak's

Herriman Orchestra Christmas Concert

Tessa likes to try on everyone's shoes. These belong to one of my students. She was even walking around in them and was able to go a few feet before falling.

I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out. I saw the idea in a magazine and it took me about an hour to figure out exactly how to put it together. I made it for my sister-in-law, Jen, whose name I drew in our family gift drawing.

Macy & Kaleb, thrilled to be riding Trax up to Salt Lake to see the lights at Temple Square.

Isaak was just thrilled to be on a "train".

Tessa was thrilled to take a nap. We ended up riding the train for almost two hours, without seeing the lights. When we got close to Salt Lake, we had to stop because there was a car crash downtown that was blocking the train tracks. It took them about 25 minutes of sitting there not moving before they finally told us they couldn't go any farther and we'd have to either ride a bus the rest of the way or turn around and go home. It was 8:30 pm by this time, so we opted to go home. Oh well, at least we tried. There's always next year. (And more bad cliches that make us feel better for not just driving up there in the first place.) :)

Isaak & Santa at our ward Christmas party.

Elise & Santa

The obligatory, "Get me the heck off this weird guy's lap!" photo...

Macy & Santa

Girls waiting to see Santa. Tessa's already worried...

And of course Rob volunteered to provide the breakfast music while everyone ate. He's such a sweetheart and a great pianist.

Later that day I went with my students to play at a couple of rest homes. I put a mom in charge of pictures, so what you see is what you get. :)

Robert & I played "Oh Holy Night" together at the end.

I think the residents enjoyed having us come. We'll have to do it again next year. Elise & Macy were so funny. I only "taught" them one of the five songs we played. But they both insisted on "trying" to play the other songs along with everyone else. They both play really well by ear, and I think they did a pretty good job, even though I couldn't really hear them from where I was standing.