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.