Good Weekend

We had our ward party on Friday night. It was a lot of fun. It was a luau, so we all wore Hawaiian clothes. It was about 20 degrees that night, so trekking across the church parking lot with flip flops on was rather unpleasant. I had just finished sewing Regan's new Christmas skirt, so she wore that. She looked adorable. The party was lots of fun. There were tons of people there, great food, and a really fun show. We loved watching the hula dancing. My boys had a hard time watching. I think they were a little embarrassed. Regan loved it. Turner and Cooper danced along. It was pretty cute. After the program, Santa came to visit with the children. My older kids took my younger kids over while I cleaned up our spot. Pretty soon someone came up to me and asked if I knew what Regan had done. Noooo, what has she done now? "She pulled off Santa's beard!" I had to hold it in so hard to not laugh out loud at that one. We all wished we had the courage to do something like that when we were little, right? Well, leave it to Regan to do all the things we only dared dream about. She said, "It wasn't Santa at all! It was only Brother Cannon!" But it didn't shake her faith. She still believes!

When we got home that evening, Hayden got a call from a friend that he was having a bunch of friends over that evening, so I dropped him off at the Clark's. He got home at midnight and had had a great time. I laughed when he told me that a couple of the girls had had "cold hands" and he helped them out by warming up their hands with his warm hands. Wow, he totally fell for it! So he is no longer a member of the virgin hand club! :)

Saturday morning was Hayden's violin recital. We slept in until about 8:30 and then got everyone dressed and fed. Porter stayed home and babysat the four younger kids so Dix and I could go the recital alone. It was fabulous. It was such a good recital. There were about three kids who were really, really advanced and played amazingly. Hayden did a really good job himself. And then there were several kids who played at more of a beginner level. It was so fun to hear everyone. I really enjoyed the recital a lot. Probably because I didn't have to wrestle with small children. We don't have a working camera or video camera right now, so we called Grandma Hoho on our cell phone when Hayden was starting so that she could hear him play. I didn't talk to her afterwards, so I'm hoping that she could hear it well enough. Hayden is just getting ready to learn Mozart's Concerto in A major, which is I think in Suzuki Book 9 or 10. I have to go buy the books tomorrow. He has progressed so much the past couple of years. He really enjoys it, which is such a blessing. I love hearing him play.

When we came home, the kids were watching Elf. So I camped out with them downstairs and watched the movie, laughing really hard at the scene where Buddy pulled Santa's beard off! At least Regan didn't tell Santa that he smelled like beef and cheese! While we were watching Elf, Dix went shopping for the final Christmas present for our kids. We are officially done. Later in the afternoon I went to my parents to make the salad for my dad's birthday dinner and I ended up staying there until everyone else came. We ate a delicious dinner of baby back ribs with dad's famous BBQ sauce, baked beans, cornbread, salad, favorite salad, and an Asian noodle dish. Yummy. We did birthday cake and then we had to hurry home so I could take Hayden to the dance. It was in Elma, about 45 minutes away, so Donna and I drove up together with 6 teenagers. After dropping them off at the Stake Center we toodled around town a bit and had fun together. The kids had a great time and were really chatty on the way home. It was a formal dance so it was really fun to see the kids dressed up in their nice clothes. We got home right around midnight.

We slept in late this morning. We didn't do baths last night, so we had to shower everyone this morning, and somehow didn't run out of hot water. The miracles never cease. The last showerer got out at about 10:15 and we were backing out of the driveway at 10:35. It started snowing on our way to church and continued on and off all day. It is actually a little warmer now, so it will probably start raining during the night, but Seminary is cancelled for the morning, just in case. The kids are all praying for snow. If we get even a half inch of snow, it will frequently delay school because the roads get really bad here and we don't have snowplows. So the kids are praying for delay because that way they won't have to make it up in June!

Tomorrow will be a busy day for me. I am having my first piano recital. I also have an appointment during the day and have some errands to do. So it will be a busy day. So I should get some sleep. Guess I'll sign out!