Christmas Break Take 2

Continuing our Christmas recounting: after Heidi's wedding...

We made gingerbread houses!  Wow, that was quite the project.  My mom had visited us last year and participated in our family tradition of making gingerbread houses (a tradition from the Weaver's) and thought it would be a fun activity to keep all of us occupied.  Since I did not want her to worry about making them and storing 13 gingerbread house pieces around her house the week before the wedding I offered to make them and bring them.  I was very concerned about them breaking but should not have worried.  We had some extra pieces ( I was prepared in case any broke) that I just tossed in the box when we went home, and they didn't even break!

Rob and I went to Winco that morning and purchased the candy.  It was hard to know how much to buy for that many people!  We had a lot extra but figured we could use it next year.

We had some discouraging issues with making the frosting (my mom's whisk attachment for her Bosch was broken and we needed something more powerful than a handmixer) but Jeremy came to the rescue by sticking a beater in the electric drill and making the frosting that way!

Once we all got going it was very fun!

My mom's kitchen table was the perfect size for the grandkids!

Rob's masterpiece

My niece Vanessa turned three a few days before Christmas.  She had a very "princess" birthday.  We are out of the princess stage right now but it got me excited to reenter it in a couple years.

My mom holding grandson Garrett and Rob holding Sydney.

She has wonderful sparkly eyes.

Christmas Eve!!  The "kid" table.

Lining up Christmas morning to see what Santa brought.

Apparently we didn't get a picture of Seth or Sydney.  Santa brought Sydney baby food.  She loves to eat Cheerios now and has started to army crawl.  She gets faster everyday and I am having trouble coming to terms with her growing up so quickly.  I still think she should be about 4 months old.

So that was our December!  Well, at least that is all the pictures we have of December.  New Year's Eve/weekend we were lucky enough to have my sister Sarah and family stay with us.  They were in town for the blessing of Jeremy's newest nephew.  We just love having them around.  It was fun to remember that the last time they were here was when Sydney was born! 

So now we are on to January which is usually a very dreary month.  This year, however, it has been full of sunshine!!!  (no snow!  still cold, mind you, but sunny!!)  Hooray!

Heidi's wedding!!!

Alrighty, I am finally posting about this!
My little sister Heidi married Sam Worsham on Dec. 20, 2011 in the LDS Temple in Sacramento, CA.  It was such a fun day made extra special by the fact that it was our 12 year anniversary!  (hard to believe)

It was so great to be able to have the wedding in Sacramento and not have to travel to Oakland.

Here I am with my brother Steve on that pleasant CA day.

My sister Wendy and family. (Notice the flowers blooming on the right- in December!  CA- I miss you!!)

Seth!

Brenna with cousin Shannon.

Grant, Brenna, Kenneth and Shannon.

Sister Sarah and family.

The newlyweds with all of their Astle nieces and nephews.

The reception was at a beautiful country club.

Sarah and I.  All of these pictures are from Rob's phone as our camera battery had died.  It is one of those rechargeable ones so we didn't have time to charge it.  If you would like to see more and better quality pictures check out my mom's facebook page.  There are approximately 563.4 of them :)

Sisters, Grandma and mom

Heidi- this could be you in 12 years!!  :)

We all stayed at my parents house (they are troopers!  Let's see, that was 6 more adults and 11 kids, 8 of them 5 years and younger) and stayed through Christmas.  (More pictures coming of that later).  It was so nice to be together.  Thanks mom and dad for letting us all stay there when you were preparing a wedding and Christmas. 

All in all it was such a wonderful time to visit with immediate and extended family, and to share in the joy of Heidi and Sam's wedding.  We are so excited for them and what the future will bring.  I am not sure when we will all see each other again.  My sisters are all spread out- one in New Jersey, one in Pennsylvania, and now Heidi will be in Iowa as Sam attends medical school.  Thank goodness for blogs and texting and cheap phone calls.

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and we hope you all did too.

Grant's kindergarten class had an Indian Feast one day and a Pilgrim feast the next.  They made costumes for each one.  The Indian feast consisted of jerky, popcorn, raisins and nuts.  The pilgrim feast was stew, corn muffins, and pumpkin pie.  I was able to help out with one of the feast.  It was a lot of fun.  I don't remember Seth or Brenna doing anything like that in Kindergarten.

The Saturday before Thanksgiving we were lucky enough to have a visit from our friends in Oregon who were driving through the state.  It is good to see that even after 3.5 years our kids still enjoy playing together.

My parents joined us for Thanksgiving this year.  The day after, my parents and I flew down to Salt Lake to visit with my sister who was having a bridal shower and some other events to get ready for her wedding next month.  On Tuesday I decided that we should have our feast on Wednesday instead of Thursday so we could have a day to enjoy the leftovers!  So we did.  It was yummy both times. :)

Rob and the little boys relaxing after the big dinner.

My dad with his signature gravy.

Aren't my parents cute?

The works!

Because of our haste in preparing the feast a day early I only made three kinds of pie (but they were yummy!)

We feel so grateful for all of our blessings at this time of year.

Russ turns 3

Russ turned three this week!  It is hard to believe he is getting so big!  He is completely potty-trained and likes to tell me he is "bigger."  He sees all the things his older siblings get to do and always wants to participate so I often tell him, "when you're bigger."

We had Kristy and family, and Melanie (both of Rob's sisters) over to celebrate.   In the morning when we all sang Happy Birthday to Russell he had the biggest grin on his face when he realized it was HIS birthday.  He has been waiting a long time.  Everyone in our family has a birthday close to someone else except for him.  Clear back in May and again in the summer when Seth and Brenna had their birthdays he kept telling me it was his birthday.  Well, now he finally got his chance.

I made him a football cake since he has been enjoying football lately.  He likes to watch it with Rob on TV and play it downstairs in our basement.  He throws his small soft football in a perfect spiral every time.  He likes to have me "run" and then he will throw it to me as if he is making a play in a game.  He also likes to kick it.  Right before he begins to run toward the ball he puts his right hand up just like the kicker in a college game to signal he is ready to go.  It is pretty cute.

Here is my nephew Jonah with our cutie Sydney.

Here is Russell sporting his new pajamas from Grandma Weaver.

I took this picture the day after his birthday when he was wearing his new clothes from Grandma Astle.  He wanted to take a picture of me, too!

Thanks everyone for making his birthday so special!

This past weekend Seth and Brenna participated in a Sonatina Competition.  Each student played in a private audition and two finalists and three Honorable Mentions were picked from each level.  I am so happy to report that Brenna received an Honorable Mention!  I was so proud of her because she wasn't really enthusiastic about doing it and was extremely nervous.  I am so glad she was brave and gave it a try.  Hopefully she will have more confidence now.
As a piano teacher I was helping hand out awards at the Honors Recital.  I was able to give Brenna her ribbon (and squeeze a hug in there as well).