Jingle Bells!

We have a tape of Christmas songs in the Suburban (are we the last people in the world to have cassette decks in our cars?) that we listen to every time we go anywhere. We've been in the car a lot lately, so one of the side benefits is my kids have learned all the Christmas songs! Today Cooper was walking around the house all morning singing, "Jing Bells, Jing Bells, Jing all way, oh fun HEY!" and on and on and on....

And when we did scriptures tonight, Turner insisted on singing Frosty the Snowman. Maybe he thought it was Family Night, I don't know. But he led us and sang the whole first verse...and then we all got a little confused and I skipped to the end. But he corrected me. Hey, what about "the traffic cop hollered STOP!" I guess we need to work on that one.

I spent several hours working at the school this morning. It was a lot of fun. I was helping with the Passport testing. The kids each get a map and have to memorize the names of different countries each month. There are five levels, and the number of levels that they memorize depends on their grade. So Regan only memorizes level 1 and Landon memorizes 1, 2 and 3. Those students don't know how lucky they are to have a professional Geographer testing them. :)

When I came out of the school I noticed that the truck had been replaced with the Suburban. I thought that was curious, and was surprised to see the truck in the driveway when I got home. I was happy to see a huge box in the back of it, which contained (drumroll please) a new range! Last night the timer on our oven started beeping and flashing an error code on the clock and it wouldn't stop. Dix had to unplug it. We tried to fix it this morning with no luck, and looked up the error code on the computer and it looked like it would probably cost about as much to fix it as to replace it. So Dix called the landlord who met him over at Lowe's and they picked out a nice smooth top range. I'M SO EXCITED! No more bread that is burned on the bottom. No more having to only use one burner because the rest of them don't work. No more waiting for 20 minutes for the water to heat up! So I guess tomorrow I'll initiate it by baking bread!

I was only at home for about an hour before it was time to start the running. As soon as Landon/Regan got home from school we packed up our bag and went to Timberline to watch Hayden's swim meet. Dix went to Komachin to watch Porter's wrestling meet. As soon as the swim meet was done, we hurried home so Hayden could change and grab his instrument and I dropped him off at violin lessons. Then it was back home again to quickly feed the children (I had whipped up a fabulous tuna noodle casserole earlier in the day and put it in the fridge), get their swim suits and head off to swim lessons, while sending Landon down to my parents for a lift to the church for Cub Scouts. As we were leaving, Dix drove up with Porter, which was nice, that meant I didn't have to pick Hayden up from violin lessons. So then we didn't have to totally rush at the end of swim lessons. When we got home it was time for homework, reading and a little housework. The house looks like a hurricane has gone through it--since it has, several days in a row.

All the kids are tucked snuggly into their beds. Dix is heading up to Seattle tonight to do some work with one of his friends. He will be back tomorrow late. So that means that I have to do all the driving around tomorrow. Dang. I'm gonna miss that guy! :) I'm hoping to have some friends over to play tomorrow, maybe do some baking, maybe a little sewing. We'll see.