The Dutch Pancake

This afternoon while Ben was slaving over a delicious dinner, Cat was learning songs on her new ukulele (more about then whenever I circle back to Christmas) and I was doing her hair. What you see pictured is my second attempt at a Dutch braid, which Cat helped me to pancake. Feeling pretty cool.

Resident Mime

Eliza has been working on her miming skills the last couple of days. At random times she will stop talking, over exaggerate her facial expressions, point to herself, use a hand to symbolize a mouth talking, and shake her head "no" while doing a kind of slitting-the-throat gesture. This means that the next mime session has begun. Feeling limited in what she can communicate with gestures, though, Eliza has started writing notes to convey various messages.

Imagine my delight when I plopped into bed tonight, exhausted, and I found tonight's blog post right there: a couple of Eliza The Mime's notes to Ben.

Translation, with spelling and punctuation modernized:

"Dad, I am a mime. Jack and Luke are being really mean! I cannot ignore them!"

"Jack and Luke are eating Biscoff (cookie spread) with their fingers and spoon."

Lowest of the Low

I think this was the lowest temp in my city today. And the kids were mad at me because this morning I insisted on changing our after school pick-up routine. I picked them up via carpool (where kids wait in the gym for parents to arrive and they're notified when it's time to go out to the car) instead of at our usual walker/biker meeting place a short walk from the school.

But everyone survived the cold, including Ben, who saw snow in Dallas where he was working today. And when he flew back to Utah, he even found his car (though it was buried in snow and at least partially frozen to the ground) and made it home safely in spite of the weather.

Snow Soccer: Coats Optional

Sing Around the Tree 2016

It was so fun to have Ben and Suz here for the annual Sing Around the Tree!  We were surprised to see Cat holding the "Kwanzaa" sign for the opening song that everyone sings, "Holidays All Around the World."  Then our kids participated in these numbers: first graders sang "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth;" the third graders sang "O Tennenbaum" (Jack was proud of all the German he learned); and the sixth graders sang "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas," and continued the long-held tradition of singing "Surfin' Santa" on the stage for all to admire.  They did a great job!  It was also fun to see the teachers perform their big lip syncing number.  The students got really into it, which was awesome.

Cookie Decorating 2016

And now I will begin the process of sharing some other adventures that I skipped over while I was too busy having fun with my sister and her family to stay on top of blogging.  I think I'll be caught up in a week or so.

Cookies + Frosting + Sugar Confections = Edible Art

A Primary Day

Pictured below are my two Junior Primary-ers.  That's right.  Today, Luke graduated from "ursh-ree" and began attending "pie-mary."  He had no problems at all sitting down for opening exercises, then going to class.  And he must have gotten something out of the whole experience because he was singing The Hello Song the rest of the day.  Hooray!

Notice that Jack is not included in the picture above.  Today was his first day as a Senior.  I was happy to be in attendance during the Senior Primary opening exercises, because Cat was giving an excellent, well-researched talk on agency.  When it was announced that Cat would be speaking, Jack turned around, gave me a huge smile, and clapped for his big sister.

It's hard to believe that in a few months, Cat won't be in Primary at all.  But watching her give her talk today offered yet more proof that she is growing up before our eyes.  Looks like this is kind of a big year for our family already.