Getting Ready For Christmas

I feel like there has been so much going on lately, but not much to show for it!  I've been trying to get ready for Christmas, the girls have ballet, Asher and David had an orchestra concert, I'm playing in a concert with the symphony this week, and we're only half way through the month!  Also, David's car died (again...but at least we know what's wrong with it and how to fix it!)  so we're a one car family right now.  So because of that I end up driving across town about 10 times a day trying to get everyone to their various appointments, classes, work, rehearsals, etc.  But at least it's not my car that died this time!  

We had our Ward Christmas Party a week ago.  They had the Primary kids get up to sing, which I always love.  They also had Santa come and the girls got a picture and a little treat bag!  Asher has never been one to sit on Santa's lap (which I am totally okay with) so I didn't get a picture of him.  But I think the kids had fun!

At the beginning of the month my brother and his wife had their baby!  I was so sad we couldn't see her until a week later, but we finally were able to make a trip to Rexburg and see little Jayda!  My girls have always loved babies and they both thought they were in heaven that they got to hold one!  They each took about 5 turns holding her and that little girl was so good and just slept through it all!  Asher even took a turn holding her, which I was a little surprised at!  But he did a great job.  On the way home Ava and Mia told me that they missed Jayda (even though we'd only left their house 15 minutes prior) so I think they are a little smitten.  We love seeing all the babies!

I told Mia I love petting babies heads and feeling their soft hair, so she spent the entire time doing it too.

Ava kept wanting to look at her fingers and toes to see how little they were!

Jayda was very patient with my exuberant crowd!

So cute!

I love seeing Ava's doodles on the back of her work.  This time she drew her and Mia with reeeally long hair.  She must get that from her aunt Joni because she used to do that too!

This week was Asher's first ever orchestra concert!  It is so weird and so cool to see him start this stage of life because it's something that I really love and now I get to watch him do it too!  He was pretty nervous before the concert, but I think he actually had a really good time!  I was a little worried about him in orchestra because he can get really frustrated with new things sometimes, but he has caught on so well!  He played great, and I even noticed he was doing a very "musician" thing where he would move his head with the baton on the down beat to start the song at the right time.😁  We didn't really give him much of a choice about joining orchestra, but I'm still glad he's doing so well and having fun!

Isn't that just the cutest little cellist you ever did see???

I have to tell a couple of Asher stories that happened this month.  First, one night we were reading scriptures as a family and we had gotten to the book of Revelations.  In there, it talks about a book with seven seals that no one can open.  Asher said "So when it talks about seven seals, it's not talking about the swimming animal, right?"  It took me about 15 seconds to process what he said and then I couldn't stop giggling!  I explained to him about wax seals and things like that, but ever since he said that I can't help but picture a book that has seven marine animals trying to hold the book together!  

The next story happened while we were driving around.  We were all in the car running errands and listening to Christmas music.  The song said something about mistletoe and Asher says "What if I don't want mistletoe?  What if I want mistle-finger??"  And that also sent me into a giggling fit.  Seriously, that boy can drive me insane, but he can also be so hilarious and random with his comments!

One last thing is a tip/strategy I use all the time, but it means I end up with a lot of random pictures on my phone.  Any time my kids say they want something while we're at the store I tell them 1) to put it on your Christmas/birthday wish list and 2) I tell them we can take a picture of the thing they want so we won't forget about it.  They almost always do forget about it, but at least they feel like I'm doing something proactive about it!  So here are a bunch of pictures of things my girls saw in the store, decided they couldn't live without it, we took a picture, and then they forgot about it:

 

And here is one more picture of my girls in a tiny little ride on car at Walmart.  I was surprised they actually still fit inside it!  My kids are so tall and growing so fast that I try not to think about it because it makes me sad.  But then I remind myself that we still have lots of fun and that makes me feel better!  That and the fact that I can now sleep in a little bit and am not running on 5 hours of sleep... ;)