Orchestra Concert

Courtney had her Christmas orchestra concert.  She loves where she sits because she is next to her best friend and they share a stand.  They are a really good orchestra.  I think it helps that many of them took early morning orchestra for 2 years before they started at Lava Ridge.  This is their third year playing together.

 She and Sammie got to introduce the first song together,

Cabbage Countdown:

Winter Wonderland:

Polar Express:

Linus and Lucy:

Sour Pop Rocks

Courtney got some Santa Sour Pop Rocks from somewhere and decided to share them with Ethan.  If you don't know this already it may be important for you to know that Ethan will eat anything that is sitting around.  He once drank cooking oil because it thought it was apple juice and it was just sitting around.  So when Courtney asked if he wanted some pop rocks he was quick to say yes....he didn't know they were sour!

Here is what it sounded like..

Here is what Courtney's sounded like...

Soccer Pictures

It was time again for soccer team pictures.  We have the BEST photographer who does an amazing job and is so patient with the crazy girls on the team.  This year we went to Tonaquint Park and they posed on the bridge.

We got there and, while the girls were having individual pictures taken, the ones who were finished played in the leaves.  They had a blast throwing them and making a heap to jump into.

 What a cute bunch of girls!

Playing in the leaves.

 Courtney is starting to do the "Calvin and Hobbes" thing now.  Ugh!!  She makes faces all the time!

When the pictures were finished the girls wanted to throw leaves and have the photographer take their pictures.  She was so nice that she did it!

Geckathon Awards

There was an awards assembly for the Geckathon participants.  It wasn't a huge deal but it was fun to see all the kids who participated.  They gave them a beautiful certificate and then their shirt.

 She moves too fast!

 What a great time!!

Pink fingers

Bryan bought some gift cards to a car wash across town.  I dropped Courtney off at soccer practice and then went to wash the van.  It was one where you could wash it yourself with the bubble wand and sprayer, or you could go touch less and drive through.

I decided to wash the van myself since it was so dirty!  The bubbles in the bubble wand were pink and smelled like bubble gum. I thought it was cute until I finished and I had pink stained hands and pink all over my white sweater!

 Luckily, it was just soap so it washed out of my sweater but my hands were pink for a while.  Next time I will use the touch less wash. ;)

Decorating

When we arrived home, Courtney decided it was time to start decorating for Christmas.  So we started getting the boxes out.  I moved the living room furniture around so we could try the tree in a new location.  Bryan put up the tree and got the lights hooked up and then I spent a couple of days getting everything else out and ready to put up.  The kids lost steam and didn't do too much but it ended up looking festive.

Thanksgiving in Denver

We woke up really early on Wednesday (23rd) and drove to Denver.  The roads were great and we didn't have any problems.

Here is what we saw when the sun came up:

 

Thanksgiving morning we went bowling.  This is tradition and so much fun.  We were shocked when we got there because usually there is a line but there wasn't this year.  It did get busy when we were leaving.

This was Ethan's typical "waiting for the ball to hit something" pose:

 I actually did pretty well!

Courtney had so much fun with her little cousins.

 Dinner was wonderful and we sat around playing games, watching movies and watching football.  It was a great holiday!

On Friday, we went to the movie "Magical Creatures..."  It was a good movie and we had a lot of fun watching it.

On Saturday, we went on a hike.  The view was beautiful and it was great to be out.  Courtney loved helping Clara.

Ethan on his perch...

On Friday night we noticed that the weather was going to be really bad on Sunday for our planned drive home.  After watching it for a couple of days we decided it would be best if we left on Saturday afternoon instead.  We were bummed but it turned out to be a great decision.  Our van wasn't prepared for the bad weather and Sunday was pretty bad in some areas.  We arrived home around 11 p.m. on Saturday.

It was a fun holiday and we loved seeing everyone!