December 2011

Merry Christmas! Our little Alyssa is 6 months old and our Tanner is 6. What a year this has been. December has been full! We love the holidays and enjoyed our time together for so many activities. Alyssa has changed and grown the most. She is a little tank and on the top end of the growth charts. She crawls and coos and drools on everything. She's great at sitting up and has very busy hands. It's hard to keep anything out of her mouth but she will melt you with her smile.

 We started the month with the annual Christmas party for the National Guard. This year was lots of fun as Darryl is the Commander, he gave lots of awards and we stayed for the festivities. The food was delicious and served by all of the officers. One of the soldiers was assigned to help me, so I could manage all 3 kids and a meal. We had fun receiving gifts from Santa and playing some holiday games. We came home with so many things it was hard to decide what to play with first. We are so grateful for the generosity to military families at Christmas.
 On our second weekend, we enjoyed the Elk Grove Nativity. It has become an annual activity that draws really big crowds of people to see many donated creche exhibits from all over the world. We had a little family portrait taken while several of the young women giggled and waved at the kids to get them to look and smile. Tanner liked the "I spy" game that had him looking for funny things on the exhibits. Alyssa just wanted to eat them all, and Parker just wanted to run. We had a nice time considering the craziness of our kids. They wanted at least 5 cookies from the refreshment table which contributed to the energy. I think the youth kept giving them cookies.

 Tanner is doing an amazing job at Super Dudes. We were so impressed watching their Christmas show. Tanner did a full bar routine and floor routine. They did a funny little show and it was so popular their team was asked to perform it with the older competition team. He works hard and always comes home so happy and stress free. We are glad he is excelling.

 Christmas was loads of fun this year. Tanner was so cute and excited to give me a painted penguin that he made in kindergarten. It is ceramic and he painted it then the art teacher fired it and glazed it. Tanner was so proud. He is a very loving kid. Parker helped me pick out socks for Darryl. He was excited to see dad open his gift. The kids got pillow pets from Santa and clothes from mom and dad. They were most thrilled with the swim towels and boxes of goodies from Nana and Papa. The rest of the day was very relaxed and fun. We went to church and the kids were squirrely when we arrived, but the meeting was all about Christ's life so it put a wonderful focus on the Christmas day.
 After Christmas was a free for all around our house. We had messes for days that never got cleaned up. Tanner was surprised by our wonderful babysitter Matzil with a chocolate cake and some cute gifts. Tanner dove into eating the cake, before we could blow out candles or open birthday cards. He loved opening the cards from the grandparents because of the dollars inside. He likes to fold up the bills and put them in his National Guard wallet. He is learning to count money, but really has no idea about what denominations really mean.I don't think he considers this his birthday because we have a party for him in the summer. He asks everyone when their half birthday is and gets a little confused when they don't celebrate it like he does.