On the First Week of Christmas...

On the first day of Christmas, Chris and Maya both came down with the stomach flu. Maya bounced back after 12 hours but Chris continued to have stomach pain all week and missed 3 days of school. When he wasn't lying on the couch with stomach pain, he was busy putting up our Christmas tree. Since he was under the weather he decided to reuse our fake tree instead of chopping a real tree down this year. Chris doesn't like us leaving the tree lights on all the time. He's afraid we are going to run out of electricity before Santa gets here.

On the second day of Christmas, we got about a foot of snow. We actually got 2 feet of snow but the day before it had warmed up and rained. On the top of the ridge where it never got warm enough to rain, people got up to 3 feet of snow over two days. We also lost power for a few minutes several times during the storm.

On the third day of Christmas the sun came out. It was so beautiful outside with all the new snow. It looked like a Christmas card. Nothing like fresh snow to get you in the mood for Christmas!



Maya has quickly learned about Santa Claus. She tells Grandma about all the toys Santa is going to bring her when she see the toys advertised on TV. At our house she looks through catalogs and puts an M on all the toys she wants with a marker. Right now she is sitting on her potty chair with a toy catalog.



Today we are going to watch the Nutcracker. It is a local favorite production that has been reborn every year for probably about 20 years now. Every year the director adds something different so it's always fun. For example, the year the kids had a visiting circus school and learned how to juggle and ride unicycles, Jill worked a circus theme into the Nutcracker. The boys enjoying watching their friends who are in the performance. The high school boys are cast as King Rat and his army, Russian dancers, Matadors and Spanish dancers. In fact, our high school football coach's son thinks that performing in the Nutcracker ballet is what football players do after football season is over!



The performance is is our high school auditorium which is a world class auditorium used for lots of community events. And then we have the Nutcracker Fair. The high school gym and commons area is packed with local artists and merchants hawking their wares, so you can pick up some unique gifts while you are there.



Chris micromanaging Maya as they decorate the tree.

Chris putting the tree together in his pajamas.

Chris and Riley learning to make gravy on Thanksgiving.

Chris is learning to play goalie. Maya is helping to defend the goal while I take shots on Chris. At first she just stood in front of the goal. But when I learned how to do lift shots to get the puck past her, she started charging me and trying to take the puck from me!