End of the Year 2018

Merry Christmas from the Kings 2018

Another year has flown by, this one faster than the last!  We are still here in Wylie, TX and the kids are growing so fast. 

This school year we have chosen to host another foreign exchange student.  Our student, Benjamin, is from Denmark and is sixteen years old.  He only has two older half-sisters who are grown and out of the house, so coming to our large family has been a big change for him.  He has fit in well with us and the kids love him.  He keeps busy participating in the school theater program, first securing a lead role in the play “Peter and the Starcatcher” and now as a cast member in the musical “Newsies”. 

Westley is now fifteen and in 10^th grade.  He has continued playing the trumpet in the marching band and absolutely loves band and music.  He even submitted a score of music for the Reflections Arts contest here at the school and just received word that his musical composition is moving on to the district competition.  He is learning to drive and Corey and I are learning what will truly turn our hair gray.

Caleb is now fourteen and in 8^th grade.  He also participates in band at school, playing the trombone.  He has recently joined the chess team at school.  He is still trying to get as far with boy scouts as he can until the Church drops the program at the end of 2019.

Travis started football and choir this year.  He loved playing football, and he has found that he really enjoys singing in a choir.  He continues to do well in school and is a social butterfly with friends always inviting him to do things.  Travis turned twelve in September and is in the 6^th grade.

Eliza is eleven years old and in the 5^th grade.  She did cheerleading and I coached her squad.  Our squad cheered for Travis’ football team.  This team and squad were through a recreational city league.  She is also trying out the violin through a program at school for 5^th graders to try the instrument before committing to the program. Here, with orchestra and band, they have to join in 6^th grade and follow it through or they can’t play in high school.  Unfortunately, the orchestra is a new program and is only offered at one school.  She would have to change schools in order to join the 6^th grade orchestra next year.  So we are having her try it out this year to see if she wants to play violin badly enough to change schools.  So far she seems to like it, but she likes her choral music class more (it is once a week where they get to learn about singing).  She is looking at joining choir in 6^th grade instead of orchestra. 

Jonah is now seven years old and in 2^nd grade.  He is doing well in school and has also started taking gymnastics classes.  After we noticed last year how he was always climbing on everything and pulling himself up to places with amazing strength, we thought maybe gymnastics would be something he could accelerate in.  He is doing well and awing his coaches with his strength and he loves it.

Annmarie is five years old and in kindergarten.  She is rocking that kindergarten class!  Her teacher just loves her outgoing and bright personality.  She also started gymnastics in June and the coaches have already fast tracked her to the advanced program.  She’s a natural.  She also tried cheerleading at a clinic that the high school cheerleaders do every year and she loved that.  She has gone around yelling cheers ever since the clinic.  Reading has become a favorite past-time for her as well. 

Nathan is almost three years old (end of February).  I can’t believe our baby is that old!  He is obsessed with robots.  Like most other children his age, he gets excited about everything and becomes super passionate about it too.  Toddlers can be so fun!  He is definitely a bright spot in our family.

Corey is still at the Plano In-N-Out as store manager.  He works hard and long hours.  He is also still serving as the Elder’s Quorum president in our ward and keeps busy with that as well. 

Jenna keeps very busy with managing all the endless piles of laundry and juggling how to get kids where they need to be.  Sometimes she forgets to pick up a kid here or there but no permanent damage done, right?  She was recently released from her calling as Primary Secretary and will be serving as the Relief Society Meeting Coordinator.  She will learn more about what that is soon (she hopes).  She now has six students in her preschool (after losing one this month) and hopes to continue building it in the future.  She also teaches fourteen piano students, as well as three of our kids (Travis, Eliza, and Jonah) and will start lessons with Annmarie in the spring.

We hope that you find joy this Christmas season in celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  We wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Family Portraits 2018

On a whim, and because a coupon was about to expire, I decided to get family pictures done this month. I think they turned out very well.

Eliza Turned ELEVEN!

I realize that I never posted about Eliza's birthday. That's because on that day, I had made a Harry Potter sorting hat cake, like I had for Travis the year before, and while I was getting the rest of the dinner ready and taking care of things, our dog Willy jumped up on the counter and ate half the cake! We ended up getting her an ice cream cake from the store and I didn't take any pictures of that day. I had always told Eliza that she had to wait until she was twelve to get her ears pierced. Well, then the Church went and changed the age for kids entering Young Men's and Young Women's ten days after Eliza turned eleven, thrusting her into Young Women's a FULL YEAR early (due to her late birthday). Since getting ears pierced was sort of a coming of age thing and so is going into Young Women's, we decided to go ahead and do it this year. So for Christmas, Eliza got a pair of beautiful gold earrings, which she can't wear until after the six week stud period is over. But I took her to Claire's and had it done there. She did well with it and she is very excited to have pierced ears and be so grown up.

Before

After

Favorite Christmas Tradition

One of our favorite Christmas traditions is something we started the year before we moved to Texas. The kids have always drawn names for each other and we used to give them each around $5 to pick something for their sibling but that year I decided they needed to make a gift to give. I have loved their creativity over the years and this has become one of my favorite traditions.

Eliza gave Jonah a painting she made of the Avengers symbols.

Jonah gave Travis a tabletop football game that Dad helped him make.

I helped  Nathan make and paint a popsicle stick picture frame for Caleb.

Annmarie made a paper sword for Nathan.

Westley designed and ordered a shirt for Eliza

Caleb made an American/Danish flag for Benjamin.

Travis made a Christmas coloring book for Annmarie.

Benjamin made a marching band design for Westley.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas morning at the Kings was our usual tradition of opening stockings first and having cereal from the stockings, then opening presents and then eating breakfast. We always have the kids line up at the top of the stairs and march down (something my parents had my family do when I was growing up).  We had a nice Christmas and enjoyed the time together.

More Christmas Fun

We always give the kids an ornament every year at Christmas, and these two ornaments are ones I made for Benjamin (exchange student) and Westley.  I ordered the Texas cutouts from a company that does that and then painted the Texas flag for Benjamin and That Wylie Band symbol for Westley.

Caleb's school had an ugly Christmas sweater day.  Since he didn't have one, he made his own!  He used a plain sweatshirt and cut out a felt tree and pinned ornaments from our Christmas advent calendar all over the tree.  It was very clever and fun!

I drove around the old neighborhood in Richardson where I spent several years of my childhood one night just because.  I took a picture of our old house adorned with Christmas lights, something we never did with it when we lived in it.  It looked good and I still miss living in that house.

Annmarie wrote an adorable letter to Santa.  "Deer Santa, I love Christmas Eve and Christmas and I love you."  I truly treasure these types of things as my children are getting older because this precious time is so fleeting. 

Ward Christmas Party and Christmas Village

 We had our ward Christmas party.  I was released as primary secretary and called as Relief Society activity coordinator at the beginning of December and had to take over doing the ward Christmas party.  I am NOT a party planner; it does not suit my personality at all, so in taking over, I really just took what the previous person had already planned and followed through with it.  I hope I don't have to plan it next year because I have NO IDEA how to do that!  But the dinner looked good.

A local church does a Christmas village in December that was another free event to help bring the Christmas spirit so I took the kids over.  Corey was working.  But we had a good time there doing a Bible scavenger hunt and singing Christmas carols.

Busy Christmas Season

December 9th was Dad's birthday as well as the Feast of Carols AND the In-N-Out Christmas Party.  We celebrated Dad's birthday on the 10th and also went to Westley's high school Christmas band concert that night.  Feast of Carols is a concert that our stake music puts on every year for Christmas.  We have an adult choir that performs along with a children's choir and a full symphony orchestra.  This year, Westley was in the orchestra and I did the choir while Eliza did the children's choir.  We had to get out of there quickly though because the In-N-Out Christmas party was on the same night.  It has been a busy month so far!

Christmas Choir Concert

I love the Christmas concerts that the high school band does as well as the choir concert that the intermediate school choir Travis is in did last night.  It was at the local Baptist church because our schools do not have big enough auditoriums to accommodate all the people.  The Baptist church always has a fun photo op set up in the main foyer so I got a picture of the girls while waiting for the concert to start.