Christmas Activites

The kids are finishing up this week with school and I am enjoying a bit of time at home.  A couple extra days off of work turns out to be well needed and just a couple things are getting done around the house.  The younger kids are having a fun week of christmas parties and all things christmas.  The older two are working hard at finals and counting down the days.
We did make it out to get a Christmas tree...not at the corner lot down the road but we drove out to the tree farm.  Of Course there were no trees bigger than 4 feet but they did have plenty pre-cut to choose from, including a 300$ tree which did not come home with us.

I am finding it pretty nice to have some time at home and not planning how to cram all the Christmas celebrations in before loading things in the car.  Not having to celebrate our Christmas early makes things a bit more relaxed.

The big musical this year was by Andrea's class-5th grade....last one before moving on to Middle School.  Andrea worked hard with the choreography this year.  She came in from recess atleast once a week with some girls to work on it. There are a couple clips from the songs-she has a very talented class of singers!

Andrea Musical part 1
Andrea Musical Part 2
Andrea Musical Part 3
Andrea Musical Part 4
Andrea Musical Part 5

If you have the time....Link to the entire musical...Songs make more sense if you know the story!

Two performances-one during school and one in the evening.

Cookies and snacks are always the goal for the big kids in the end.

Andrea has also been doing well at Basketball-not always too excited about getting to her games but once on the court she is pretty tough.

This past sunday was out traditional lessons and carols service.  It is a big production with full orchestra and choir.  This year they added a small childrens choir and some speaking parts for older kids.  Becca did  a great job reading and the younger two sang in the kids choir.

These are links to the kids singing-they had a professional opera singer teach them and made the world of difference in how they learned their music.  This town is so sports focused and seeing a little push for the arts/music was just wonderful.

Kids Choir 1
Kids Choir 2
Kids Choir 3

A couple updates before the holidays

So soccer is over...for the most part but we did end up with a couple chilly days towards the end of the season.

 This cracked us all up...we were waiting in the car-keeping warm and we watched this guy walk out to the fields carrying his portable heater!! 

 Just happy for the sun-James didn't want his hat until we got to the fields, he wore it the entire game

Last game in OK city...Brayden said there was ice on the ball.

Andrea's team ended the year with a late year end party so they could make it a christmas party.  Lots of laughter and silliness-such a great team and wonderful coaches.

Brayden finally found a class and some time to move up in his Reffing status.  He moved up to U8 for the 2019 year.

You never know when the snow is going to come here in Tulsa.  This year it was two weeks before thanksgiving.  Kids were so excited....not for the fact that it all came during school so they didn't get a day off.

 Becca was first out of the house early in the morning...first to see the snow flakes

 More of a dusting by the time the other kids were off to school.

 Trying to dig out cold weather/snow clothes was a total pain-for about one hour of play.

The snow man was the only thing still standing the next day.

Ron bought a new mountain bike and finally took a weekend to explore some really nice mountain bike trails in Arkansas-bentonville

 Hoping we can all make it there sometime and the trails looked great and much better that the turkey mountain trails the kids try to ride.

We are now on to basketball season.  Both Andrea and James are playing.  James' team has some new boys and was split into two teams which has been a bit hard for James.

James was Habamock in his class thanksgiving play.  They gave it at school and then did a shortened version at school for kids with special needs.

James Thanksgiving Play
James Thanksgiving play
James Thanksgiving play

Becca had her Christmas Band Concert.  These two girls are great friends and their flute section was the best!!

Becca's Band Concert

Becca's Band Concert

Andrea got to go on a field trip to the Tulsa Glass Blowing School.  So fun and interesting-the kids were all concerned about being too hot with all the ovens.

We are now full into Christmas...although a little stop to celebrate a very special birthday.

The lights are on the house seeing as we plan to stay and celebrate in Tulsa this year.  Ron's project is the tree lights-programming them to music.

Family Christmas at church...a bit of silliness

ORU christmas Concert which we missed most of but made if for Citizens Way which was AWESOME.  Even more special was hearing Becca sing Bulletproof with them and the lead guy walked right by us.

A visit to the philbrook museum to see all their christmas decorations...a bit of a disappointment as there were no art Christmas trees this year.  A random art paper collage with paint overlay....inspinred by some artist which I can't remember