Christmas prep

The much sought/fought after privilege of topping the tree with the star went to Annie this year.

The kids hosted their 3rd annual Sock Drive for a Light the World service project this December. They collected socks at school throughout the week and altogether we collected 392 socks, or 196 pair.

We all spent an evening making Christmas cards for missionaries from our ward for another Light the World activity.

My mom came over for our annual candy making day. We were going to do a double batch of fudge, but then accidentally added two 12 oz cans of evaporated milk instead of two 5 oz cans, so we ended up doing a quadruple batch. We had to pull out the huge pot to keep it from bubbling over and as we took turns we felt like witches stirring our brew.

The fudge turned out just fine, though, in the end.

For our anniversary I made Jacob some gluten-free Circus animals, since that was one thing he said he misses most since going gluten-free.

As long as I was melting almond bark to dip the pretzels in I figured I'd make him a few more. :)

We had quite the haul:

Candied pecans, lots of fudge, caramels, and dipped pretzels.

One new thing we tried this year was pouring some of the caramels into silicone molds that I happened to have since the worst part of making caramels is usually cutting and wrapping for hours. It made a huge difference and made things way easier this year. We'll get some good molds for next year for sure.

For mutual one night we went out caroling to some families in the ward. One of the families had awesome lights:

Our ward building hosts a nativity/creche open house every Christmas. The kids sang a song, and afterwards we went around looking at the nativities, and Megan dressed up as Mary in the kids' nativity area.

I showed the kids the Light the World--Light your Family video last Monday and it inspired Annie. She went and made siblings' beds, cleaned up the front room, and decided to make pancakes for us for dinner so I wouldn't have to cook. She was amazing!

The other kids pitched in, too, with setting the table and such.

Jacob's work has a yearly Christmas party and always raffles off some prizes. 13 years going and he's never one anything. Until this year. He won a Roomba. It's the kids' new fun toy.

It was amazing how eager they were to clean their rooms when I told them they could use the Roomba in their room when it was totally clean. Hope that excitement keeps up. :)

The band played before school last Wednesday to wish the school a Merry Christmas.

Megan was excited to get to hang out at school for a while and play on the playground a bit. I don't take the kids this year nearly as much as I did last year because there's no before school clubs and the bus is so much more convenient. But Megan does miss that playground. Maybe I'll be more motivated to take her to play before school more often when it's not as chilly in the mornings.

We have now turned off all alarms and are looking forward to more than a full week to do whatever we want and mostly hang out at home or do fun family outings. Here comes Christmas! The kids are so ready for it.

A busy December

We keep having awesome sunsets. Here are a couple amazing shots.

Rachel's school band got to play at the Holidays on Houghton event out in the Walmart parking lot the first Saturday in December. It was pretty cool with lots of free treats and pizza and a bouncy house and not crowded at all. And we got to stop in to talk to the big guy without having to wait in line at all.

It was great. Rachel was getting ready with the band, and she wasn't really interested in talking to Santa on her own when her band was done. She knows that Santa already knew what she wanted, I guess.

Her band accompanied the school's choir on a few numbers. She's a percussionist, so she got a few turns on the snare and a few on the bass and did a great job.

The kids also got their faces painted while we were there.

Then we went inside Walmart and got some things for the Angel Tree kids each of the kids' classes at school were sponsoring to get in the spirit of giving and kick off the season right.

Rachel gets to participate in ELP at school once a week where she goes to another school for a few hours and does "extended learning" activities. They did some cookie election thing and her teacher sent me a picture:

I got to go with Ryan on his field trip to the Children's museum. Lots of fun was had by all.

Probably the biggest hit was climbing the fire pole and sliding down it over and over. Ryan is a little monkey and the first kid to climb all the way to the top and show 'em how it's done.

Rachel won her class spelling bee and got to participate in the school-wide spelling bee. She tied for runner up in the school-wide bee and did a great job, spelling some tough words.

When she told me she had won her class bee she said they had to stop for the day and continue the next day because it was between her and another kid and they both kept spelling every word wrong, and ran out of time to finish that day. Apparently a new day brought back some brain cells and she eked out a win.

Ryan caught strep from someone at school, then passed it along to Megan. He wanted to see what his throat looked like so we shined a flashlight back there and took a picture.

Neither Ryan nor Megan like the flavor of the penicillin, so it's been rough getting them to take it twice a day. Sprite has helped, but it's still like pulling teeth. Megan's got two doses left tomorrow, then we're all clear. Hopefully for a long time.

The Knights do a cousin gift exchange where each kid randomly gets a cousin not in their own family to give a gift they have made or bought for cheap to. Rachel has Peyton, who loves cats, so she looked up a tutorial on You Tube and made this cat for her out of fuzzy socks.

It turned out amazingly good, doing it with no help from me.

No picture of Grandpa Knight on his birthday, but Jacob did manage to snap a picture of celebrating Grandma's birthday with some apple pie.

Most Sundays we go over to their house, but it seems like on those occasional times when we invite everyone to our house for Sunday dinner it has fallen on the week that I have meetings after church and it falls to Jacob to take care of it all. It's not a plot to get him cooking more, but it may have that happy side effect--he seems to be slowly expanding his cooking repertoire. :)

After Thanksgiving

Sunsets here are often spectacular. Jacob caught some "sky on fire" pictures with his cell phone camera. They're pretty, but don't even compare to how it looks in real life.

 All the Campbells headed home Saturday and Sunday after Thanksgiving, but the Seattle Knights got to stick around for a few more days and we enjoyed having them around.

They helped us decorate our tree.

 We let the kids take off a day of school to get a little more time with their cousins before they had to leave. We went to the park and found an awesome tree.

 Then we headed to the planetarium and had lots of fun there.

 There happened to be a groupon that I found that cost less for our family to get a year membership than if we had just paid to get in for one visit, so now we get to go back whenever we want. We'll make sure to put this to good use.

The kids love the puzzles. McKenzie helped me figure out this block puzzle. And Annie loves the gem/mineral museum downstairs.

Ryan's soccer club was a pretty nice way for him to do soccer--practice after school once a week, then just one night of games.

It was really cold and rained a bit, but he did great and had fun and got to get more physical activity in over the quarter, which that boy needs more than anything.

Annie says she may try it next quarter. Our team won both games that night! Yay, Ryan!

Annie's baptism

Annie's big day was wonderful. We are glad we were able to have so many people who love her come to it.

 We snagged a few pictures beforehand, and a whole lot more afterwards.

 Our neighbor, Shannon, was happy to come to her baptism. She's such a great neighbor.

 Nearly everyone who came (except a few that left right after, or went to visit the restroom).

 Knights:

 Campbells:

Thanks to all who came! We're proud of Annie for the choice she made to follow Jesus' example.

Thanksgiving

We were blessed to have a whole lot of family come into town for Thanksgiving. Grandma and Grandpa Campbell got here Monday night, Todd and Savannah and family Tuesday night, and Sharon on Wednesday mid-day. We got right down to the work of playing non-stop.

 Thursday morning we headed to the Julian Wash trail to run the 5k Eloise had decided she wanted to do. We watched a train pass by as we gathered to get ready to head out on the run.

 Rachel designed the logo for the kids' t-shirts:

 All the kids were pretty excited about it.

 Sammy rode Megan's bike, and some of the kids took turns riding in the bike trailer Jacob pulled behind his bike or on the scooter he had for relief. Sharon, Grandma Campbell, and Rachel were the first to cross the finish line (Rachel on the scooter). Jared was the first kid to finish 100% on his own two feet. Since Annie had been woozy the day before at the doctor we decided it might be best if she skip the run, so she helped me at the finish line assemble the turkey cookies for finisher trophies.

 It was a lot of fun for everyone and may be a new tradition for our family.

Back at our house after the run, the kids got more of their wiggles out playing in the back yard.

 Ryan, of course, always loves to color (when he's not running around being loud), and Sharon was happy to join him.

 We headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Knight's house for dinner when it was ready.

 We stuck all the kids in the kitchen so we could have a more peaceful meal in the dining room/living room. Except for whoever had to keep getting up to help the kids have seconds. The food was good and we stuffed ourselves full.

After the food the kids went out back for more fun and burning off the calories of the day.

 The next day we managed a trip to the park for some fun.

 And played Rachel's new game, Azul several times.

 The girls had some pedicures, soaking their feet in the tub, then painting their nails.

Friday night we had a bit of a hair party, cutting Andrew and Matthew's hair, and Janet and Cari giving each other trims. Bevy, however, did NOT want her hair cut at all. When she got over her dread of a hair cut she let Aunt Cari do her hair in beautiful braids.

 Ryan may turn out to be a barber. He was super happy to comb out Cari's hair before her trim.

 Grandpa played around with the Ukelele a bit.

 Saturday after the baptism we went to a park near our house to play basketball and tennis a bit and to dig in the sand.

 Rachel requested a full burial and got her wish.

 We managed to hit another couple geocaches, too. One right near that park, and one across the street near the entry to our neighborhood.