Church Christmas Party

This year we had a Christmas in Zarahelma Christmas party at church.  The kids had fun posing with Santa and eating burritos with their friends. 




After dinner were some fun Minute to Win it games.  Trevor got to compete in one where he had to open a Christmas present wearing oven mittens.  He did great & came back with the oven mitts for me & candy for him. 

I also got to compete in a game of trying to stick a red ball on my nose with a string and vasaline.  Let's just say I didn't fare as well as Trevor in the competition. Luckily I  had great company on the stage and we all looked goofy together :)  No pictures of me either, darn it. 

The Primary kids sang a song & Luke and his other nursery friends stormed the stage & pretended to sing too.  Guess they are ready for Sunbeams!

We missed Michael this year.  He went up to Austin with his friend Tyler to see their high school football team win the State Semi-Finals. 

Lamar is STATE BOUND! 

Trimming the Trees

One holiday tradition we have is to go over to Don's parents house, usually during the Thanksgiving break, and help them decorate their Christmas tree.  It is always fun to hear the stories about the different ornaments and hear about Don when he was a child.  The kids now have their favorite "beautiful" ornaments they hang up at Grammy's house, as well as the ones on our tree. 

This year Luke especially loved the beautiful sparkly glitter light bulb ornaments and Grammy let him pick out a special one to bring home and put on his tree.

We are not as quite on the ball and it usually takes a week or 2 after Thanksgiving to get our tree up to decorate on a family night. 

Luke helps me get everything out.

Jake quickly claimed the front of the
tree as "his spot" for his special ornaments.

 

My heart was tender as I watched Michael put the star on the top of the tree, realizing next year would be his last one home to decorate the tree.  Hard to believe he is almost 17!  Good thing we have up to another 15 years to go with some of our other tree helpers!

Holiday Music

One of the best things about the holidays is the music.  We love to play Christmas music in the car, off the computer, everywhere we go.  Luke's favorite song for the last 18 months has been "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" jazzed up a little by Weezer.  

So it has been great to have Trevor in Varsity Choir this year, walking around singing his holiday songs, a mix of Christmas and Hanukkah music.  He had a holiday concert in December, as well as a memorable performance at the big Chase bank downtown where he and 5 others proceeded to pass out during the performance.  Not sure if they will be invited back, but it made for an exciting morning!

Michael has also been busy with music this year.  He is in his 2nd yr of piano at Lamar & did great in his piano concert.  I am amazed at the quality of music these kids memorize and play in such a short amount of time.   I love hearing him just stop at the piano and stop and play random things.So great!

Thanksgiving

Two of my Turkeys

The weeks leading up to Thanksgiving were spent filling our gratitude tree with leaves.  It's always fun to see the unique things people are thankful for each year.  I love to see the wide range of items, from PIE, COMPUTER, SEMINARY, COUSINS, the BISHOP, Wii, FAMILY, BLUE BELL.  All sorts of wonderful things to be grateful for!

We started off with our own little Turkey Bowl Football game the morning of Thanksgiving.

Then we headed to the Meiers for a wonderful Thanksgiving Dinner.  The food and company was perfect.  Love having family so close!  Tracy always makes everyone feel so special.

Go Texans!

The weather was so perfect the kids couldn't resist sticking their feet in the pool.

November in Houston - perfect!

After returning home later that day, we had fun playing games and just hanging out with each other.  What a great Thanksgiving day!

Birthday!

Don celebrated a birthday in November.  He got some fun gifts, including his favorite thing ever - BYU duct tape!

Getting older isn't so bad as long as you have Texas Sheet Cake and Blue Bell Ice Cream!

It was fun to have Don's parents come over and celebrate the day with us.

Happy Birthday Don!



Busy November Saturdays

Every Saturday in November was abnormally busy, filled with school programs, UIL tournaments, friends baptisms, State Playoff football games and Don's birthday, among other things.  It was all great, but it sure did make the month fly by. 

November 3rd started off early with our elementary school hosting a UIL tournament. This year I am coaching 2 events. The first is Impromptu Speaking with a group of 17 2nd-5th graders. The other is the normal Oral Reading for 4-5th graders I have done for 4 years. It is fun to have Jake in the Impromptu with Hayley but that is a lot of kids! Hayley did great on her Oral Reading poem and all the kids competing did really well. While we were at our tournament, Michael and Don were attending a "Music in Physics" seminar at Rice University for one of Michael's IB classes....I think we had the more entertaining event :)

Hayley and friends waiting to compete

That afternoon we meet our church congregation at the Houston LDS Temple for a Primary Children's Temple trip.  Over 110 people braved the trek in the rain and it was a wonderful experience. 

Maplewood 2nd Ward Primary Temple Trip, 2012

The kids loved the tour of the temple grounds by our Primary President and the special  talk from the new Temple President and his wife. 

I Love to See the Temple - Mangums 2012

Our awesome Primary President

Hayley, Halie and Luke 

Trevor hanging in the back of the group with Don

Michael and Luke

Touching the temple

Michael and Trevor



Even the rain tastes better at the temple!

Luke agrees with Jake!

Jake wanted his picture alone with the temple

Happy times!

It was only made better by ice cream sandwiches at the end.  Ice Cream and the Temple...hard to top that. 

But the fun day didn't end yet.  Don's parents live just a few minutes away, so we headed up there for dinner.  It was fun to spend a few hours playing and eating with them.  Hayley was excited to show the master scrapbooker, Grammy, the Mormon Migration scrapbook she had made for her big Migration project at school.  After a fun evening, we headed home.  There may have even been a kid or 2 who fell asleep on the ride home...wonder why?! 

What a great Saturday!!

Chamber Music

Trevor is in the advance company theatre troupe at his middle school.  Every year they compete in the One Act Play UIL Tournament.  In November they performed Arthur Kopit's Chamber Music.  The story is set in 1938 and features eight famous women from different historical periods who all are interned in the same insane asylum.  Trevor played the part of Joan of Arc. He  put off having a haircut for a couple months, saying he had to have longer hair for part.  Of course, he wore a helmet most of the time, but it's all for the sake of the art, right?!  The class did fantastic at the tournament, going to district and taking 3rd place overall.

Trevor was pretty funny. As he enters the first scene, he carries a huge over sized cross that was like twice as big as him.  He keeps running into people with it.  Not sure how much of that was actually acting at times :-)

 

Luke was fascinated with Trevor's liquid latex burn marks. 

It has been interesting to see him play different characters and see his acting skills grow. This was really different than the big musical they put on last spring, Willy Wonka, the Musical.