Happy Birthday, Dad!

Corey's birthday was on a Saturday night.  We had lasagna, one of his favorites, and, of course, his usual banana cream pie.  Happy birthday!

HOA Christmas Party

Every year that we've lived here, the HOA has done a Christmas party. It usually consists of food and hot cocoa, Santa coming, a train ride through the neighborhood, a bounce house, and visiting with neighbors. It's never very well-attended though, which is too bad, because it's always a lot of fun. These pictures are terrible--my phone takes terrible pictures when the lighting is bad--but it's all I got. Nathan was willing to sit on Santa's lap, so that was cute.

Double Digits!

Eliza turns ten this week. We are celebrating her birthday early in the week because the boys are doing temple baptisms the same night as her birthday and won't be home. I took her lunch to school (Braum's--her choice) and made her a Miraculous Ladybug cake, which is what she's really into right now. She's not a little girl anymore, and it's kind of making me sad.

Also, this week was her 4th grade choir performance at the school's "Santa Night".  We went to hear her sing and participate in some of the activities.  We never stay to see Santa though...too long of a line every time.

Allen Creche Festival

Every year the Allen Stake does a creche festival where they have all different nativity sets out for you to walk around and view, plus performances from local groups and performers.  It's always very well done and free.  It's usually only a Friday night and all day one Saturday.  We have enjoyed going to it for the second year in a row.

Setting Up Christmas

Getting Christmas set up involved moving one of the couches upstairs to our room to make space for the Christmas tree and, of course, Travis climbing up into the alcove above the front porch and putting the little tree up there in the window. 

Kimono Pictures

In Japan, when the girls are three and seven years old, and when the boys are three and five years old, they get kimono pictures done. Sammie, Sakura and Lily are all seven in the coming year, so they wanted to get the pictures done. Elliott is five and Danny is three so they also had them done. Because they were doing the pictures, Kaori also invited Paige and I to have Autumn and Annmarie do it, even though they aren't quite the right age. It was fun to watch them get all dolled up and they sure turned heads walking around the Dallas temple grounds in their kimonos.

Thanksgiving and Big Brothers

I caught the picture of Westley reading to Annmarie and Nathan today while I was making dozens of rolls for Thanksgiving.  I made twelve dozen rolls.  Whenever I make rolls for just my family, I make 4 dozen and usually have about a dozen left.  Since Thanksgiving is everyone except for Jordan's kids, I figured I would need to triple it.  And having leftover rolls is always good.