Post-Christmas

Today we took the kids sledding. We really don't have that much snow this year; it's been almost two weeks since we got any but there is enough to sled on, even if it's a little icy. Henry loves sledding, even if the temperature is a balmy 13 degrees. William had to be coerced into going, but had a good time and ended up going down the hill a few times by himself. This was Tessa's first time sledding and she loved it. She went with Jay several times and then by herself on a cute little sled that our good friends the Robinsons (whom we met up at the park) let her borrow a bit; Tessa and their daughter Emily took turns riding on it. It was a fun day.

You can see that we don't have that much snow. It was just enough for sledding:

William's first solo ride. It took him a while to go down by himself:

Tessa would have stayed longer, but it was too cold:

I didn't get any pictures of Henry sledding; honestly he was just too quick for me. He was up and down the hill with his friend Kyle and I never caught him on camera.

We took more video than still pictures on Christmas morning, but here is a good one from Christmas Eve, with the kids all ready for bed in their new jammies:

Tonight Jay took Henry and William to the Jazz game down in Salt Lake City. Santa has brought tickets for the Wright boys to use for a few years now and it's become a fun tradition. Hopefully the Jazz will win and they will come home happy!

It's a Christmas Miracle!

We hope everyone had a nice Christmas. We sure have. It was cold but no crazy weather like last year's blizzard that resulted in our heat going out on Christmas night and a dicey drive for Jay when he took the boys to the Utah Jazz game the next day. The kids were up early but hopefully now they'll settle down and get back to a normal routine. They still have a week off school and we have lots of fun things planned to keep us busy, not to mention just hanging out and relaxing.

The kids had a nice day. They watched a movie and played with their toys. Henry spent some time learning the ins and outs of his new computer games. Nana, Aunt Laura, and Great-Nana came for lunch and a fun visit. But the Christmas Miracle occurred in the late afternoon. Tessa and William were having a little skirmish and William overreacted and shoved Tessa down because she was fooling around with his Bakugans. Jay took him aside and told him that Tessa just wanted to play and that it might help if he invited her to play. He did and my, oh my, what a difference. They played together for quite a while; I think William even let Tessa win a few times on whatever game they were playing. They even decided to play together tomorrow morning. But the funniest thing was their conversation. It started with William saying, "You know, Tessa, I'm starting to kind of like you." And it became a veritable lovefest after that, culminating in the following:



If you didn't get it, William was cutting up Tessa's food during dinner. And they were discussing how much they liked each other. Tessa even bestowed the title of "My Favorite Brother" on William, which is high praise indeed.

Of course all good things must come to an end. William decided to watch Henry play on the computer and Tessa didn't like it; she yelled up the stairs, "You're not my best brother anymore William!" Still, it was nice while it lasted.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Christmas Vacation

The kids are now out of school for Christmas vacation. Yay! I love having them home this time of year. It's such a fun time to hang out together and do fun activities. We haven't made cookies for Santa yet so that's definitely on our to-do list, probably for Thursday. After Christmas I promised them a movie (they've seen The Princess and the Frog so they want to see the upcoming Alvin and the Chipmunks; I wonder if anyone would notice if I took my iPod to listen to during the show) and I imagine we'll go shopping as well (since Granny is sending them cash to spend). William got a free kids meal at a local restaurant so maybe we'll have a fun lunch or dinner out. And it's just nice for them to have some time off - no homework, no rushing out the door for Henry in the morning.

In order to get to Christmas vacation, we had to get through the class Christmas parties. Tessa's preschool party was last week and she had fun. Unfortunately I had to choose between Henry and William for the Christmas party, since they were at the same time. I decided to do William's party and will do Henry's Valentine's party as a compromise. We had ten helpers there today and needed every one of them! It took two to read the stories and supervise a group, two to help decorate the treat, two to play "Don't Eat Santa" and three for the craft. That left me to float around and put out fires - cutting out extra snowman hats, helping put the treats in ziploc bags, giving hugs to a little boy who wanted his mom. All in a day's work for a kindergarten room mom.

Now I just need a hot bath and some ibuprofen to recover and rev up for the holiday festivities in the Wright household.

We hope everyone is having a wonderful and blessed holiday season. Merry Christmas!

Glee

Today was the Kindergarten Holiday Music program at William's school. Can you really go wrong when you put a bunch of 5 and 6 year old kids in front of their family and friends and have them sing? Of course not. It was pretty cute. They sang the exact same songs that Henry and his contemporaries sang a few years ago, but it never gets old. There were some old favorites, like "Jingle Bells" and some songs that I am not familiar with, like "Must Be Santa" and "Cactus Christmas Tree", although Jay remembers singing "Must Be Santa" when he was in kindergarten, so it is apparently pretty big in Utah.

After the program we went back to his classroom and he brought home quite a few holiday crafts, including the candy house that he made last week. It's a milk carton covered in thick, pasty frosting with candy decorations but William is quite proud of it (and rightfully so). He worked hard on it and had the icing all over his clothes to prove it. It now resides on the kitchen table with the gingerbread house that we decorated Monday night.

Here is a picture of William with his masterpiece:



The Christmas tree hat really completes the picture, don't you think?

Centerpiece

Family Home Evening topics in December are pretty easy to come by. There are always fun holiday activities to participate in; throw in a good conversation about the meaning of Christmas and you've got yourself a Family Night.

Last week we went shopping for Christmas gifts for two people that we picked off an "angel tree" and then had hot chocolate and treats at Starbucks. We thought about loading the kids in the car and looking at Christmas lights tonight, but I'm getting a cold and didn't feel like doing that, so we decorated our gingerbread house instead. Every year Nana Bunny gives us a gingerbread house kit. They aren't too hard to put together and the kids absolutely love decorating them. I usually make it our table centerpiece for the rest of the season.

This year the back of the house was much more festively decorated than the front - I'm not really sure why. But the kids had a lot of fun putting candy on the house and sneaking a few bits and pieces for themselves. We had brownies and hot chocolate afterwards. We also talked about why we really celebrate Christmas. The boys got it right, but Tessa yelled out that it was about decorating the tree. Sigh. She'll get it sometime. It's hard to concentrate on the spiritual when you've got a candy-covered gingerbread monstrosity in front of you.

Good News, Bad News

The good news is that it is finally above 20 degrees around here. The last five days or so have been brutally cold. We've been sub-zero in the morning (think -10 degrees) and have only warmed up into the lower teens during the day; mid-teens if we are lucky. According to the computer we are now at 29 degrees. Hey, we'll take it.

The bad news is that it's snowing. Again. It's been snowing steadily since about noon (luckily Henry and I went out this morning to run errands and do a bit of Christmas shopping) and there are no signs of it stopping. We actually have a Winter Storm Warning starting at midnight tonight and going until midnight tomorrow night, with anywhere from 4-10 inches of snow expected. I think we have at least 4 already, so I have little hope that we'll get away with less than 10 by tomorrow night.

Jay took the kids to see The Princess and the Frog today. It's gotten really good reviews and since we have a daughter in prime-princess-loving mode, it was a no brainer. Jay took the boys along with promises of popcorn and soda and treats and everyone had a good time. I wanted to go, but figured my time would be better used wrapping Christmas presents. So from 2:30-4:30 I sat in the family room wrapping gifts. More good news - I'm pretty much done. Well, I am done with what I have. I have a couple of gifts to buy (William and Tessa need to get something for Henry and the kids need to get something for Jay) but they will be easy to wrap. Thank goodness Santa doesn't wrap gifts at our house or I would have had to send Jay out for another movie at some point.

We are enjoying the Christmas season. Snow this time of year is kind of pretty and fun since we aren't too tired of it yet. The forecast promises highs in the mid-30's next week, which will feel positively balmy after our recent frigid weather. Thank goodness we are stocked up on hot chocolate.

Weekend at William's

William had quite the weekend. The Tooth Fairy came to visit on Friday night and dropped off $5. Okay, I know the Tooth Fairy is kind of generous. But she doesn't give $5 per tooth - just $5 for the first lost tooth. It all started when Henry lost his first tooth. He was almost 7 when it happened and was very stressed about the fact that he was almost the last kid in his first grade class to lose a tooth. So the Tooth Fairy felt a little bad for him and overcompensated. Apparently she works on a sliding scale around here because Henry informed William that while he would get $5 for the first tooth, he would get $2 for a few teeth, then $1. Anyway, he was excited to have some spending money to fool around with. Coupled with the $2 bill that Aunt LeClaire and Uncle Heath sent for his birthday, he's got a few bucks to spend.

The whole Tooth Fairy visit started the weekend off with a bang. Saturday afternoon William had his first birthday party. Jay and I have decided that once the kids are in kindergarten we'll start letting them have little birthday parties that include friends from school, church and the neighborhood. William invited 8 kids and 6 of them were able to come. They had fun, I think. We made Yoda invitations that said, "Invited You Are....to William's 6th Birthday Party" and passed them out on Tuesday. Then we planned a few games - Star Wars Bingo, Pass the Thermal Detonator (basically we played Hot Potato, but we wrapped a baseball in aluminum foil and called it a thermal detonator) and Yoda Says. The kids were really sweet and gave him some fun presents. We had cake and ice cream. And they played for a bit before their parents came. It was only 1 1/2 hours long and it was a good amount of time. I always planned two hours for Henry's parties, but his are in the summer and we just put the kids outside with water toys and games and they play on their own. It was harder to plan an inside party - and we were definitely inside since it snowed all day long.

Anyway, here are some pictures from the party:

Blowing out the candles:

Opening presents from his friends:
Playing Star Wars Bingo:
The Star Wars Cake:
I wasn't that impressed with the cake. I looked all over town for a Star Wars cake and this was the only one I could find. The figures of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader had lightsabers that lit up, which was cute, but I wish I could have found a cake that was more fun. I'm not nearly creative enough to do one on my own and I didn't plan ahead enough to order some cake decorations that I could have used anyway. William seemed to like it, though, and I guess that is all that matters.

So William's big weekend is over and I admit I'm relieved. I'm a bit Star Wars'd out and ready to get down to the business of planning for Christmas.

Toothless

William lost his first tooth this evening. It's been loose for a while but you know how long these things can take. He came running downstairs after dinner with it in his hand, yelling, "my tooth, my tooth!" He's excited to get a visit from the tooth fairy tonight.

William's Birthday, brought to you by Star Wars

Today is William's 6th birthday. He had a nice day, I think. We let him open his presents before Jay and Henry left this morning. He received some Star Wars figures (Darth Maul and Young Obi-Wan Kenobi), a Lego Star Wars shirt, and Lego Star Wars - The Complete Saga computer game. I had something else planned as a bigger gift for him, but over the weekend the boys played and absolutely loved the Wii version of the Complete Saga (basically all 6 movies are included instead of just the original three) so I picked it up and will save the other gift for Christmas. He also got to open his gift from Grandma since it arrived in the mail today - a NY Yankees shirt.

As a result, we are now the proud owners of a new graphics card for our computer. We've never had any issues running computer programs or games before, but this computer game is new and requires more to run. Thanks to the Geek Squad at Best Buy, I was able to get a new one installed before the boys got home from school. Here they are enjoying the game:

He also took cupcakes to share with his kindergarten classmates and had Happy Birthday sang to him twice - at school and on the bus. We capped off the day by having dinner at A&W. As William said, "this is the best birthday ever!"

Happy Birthday, William. We love you!