School fun

The Christmas parties are in full swing at the kids' schools. Annie's teacher has been out all this week, so last Friday they went to the bowling alley for some fun.

Annie has loved Mrs. Xochitl (pronounced So-chee).

But she has not loved the half hour of homework daily or being away from the family for the whole day. She was doing fine for a while, but before Thanksgiving started complaining a lot more and not wanting to go to school in the mornings. And homework always involved a lot of crying. I totally do not agree with 30+ minutes of homework for kindergartners, but that is part of SSA's "appeal" is that they are college prep, which they somehow think means lots of homework even when it does nothing but make kids hate school. Annie is at the top of her class. I can't imagine how homework goes for some of her classmates that still struggle with knowing which letter is which.

Anyway, since Annie has not been loving school, and Desert Willow would not allow us to transfer her over because their cut off for kinder is September and Annie's b-day is October, we are just taking the rest of the year off and Annie will go to Mrs. Heather's preschool until she starts kinder at DW in July. She is excited about it, but will miss her friends, especially Arianna and Isaac.

Rachel has been doing great in school. She has met every AR (accelerated reader) goal this year, so she got to participate in pie day on Wednesday.

They also decorated their winter wonderland scenes Wednesday.

I was going to help out, but Tuesday came down with a horrible stomach bug, so I decided to keep it to myself even though I was mostly better Wednesday.

Annie has reached a new milestone: she lost her very first tooth!

She was so excited to have it come out as it has been loose for a long while--probably 2 months.

She woke up so excited to see what the tooth fairy had left her, only to find her tooth still there! When she got down stairs for breakfast she found a note that said, "I didn't want to wake you up, so I left some money here for you. Since it's your first tooth, you can keep it! Love, Tooth Fairy" She was happy to have some money and immediately said, "I need to pay tithing." Good girl! She took her tooth to school to show at show and tell today. Lucky the tooth fairy left it for her to keep. :)

Ryan's school had a Christmas program yesterday. They sang a bunch of songs for us, then got to make gingerbread houses.

It was lots of fun. Even Megan got in on the fun making a Christmas tree.

Ryan helped make this awesome snow globe ornament.

He's got more of a grimace than a smile here, but I think that's because we are true Arizonans and the thought of snow makes us grimace. ;) Though we really do love the once a year snow we usually get. That's plenty for us. (Ryan's camera smile needs a little work. The only way to catch a real smile is to catch a candid or to have him say candy, or turkey, or something of the sort.)

Christmas prep

We put off decorating for Christmas until after Thanksgiving this year because of all our house guests. But we still got things up pretty fast, thanks mostly to Cari being there to clean like crazy, and keep the kids occupied while I got out the big boxes. We had to take our traditional topping the tree picture.

Annie got to put the star on the other tree.

We also got to visit Santa when he stopped here in Rita Ranch.

Ryan delivered his letter asking for Rescue Bots. He made sure to specify to Santa that he already has Chase, so he just needs 3 more.

Annie read Santa her note that she wrote all by herself. She asked for a Webkinz stuffed animal and drew a blue fish on it to give him an idea of what to get her.

Rachel's letter was lost somewhere, but she was okay with just telling him that she wants a unicorn Pillow Pet for Christmas.

I knew Megan (with her stranger anxiety) wouldn't be a fan of sitting on Santa's lap, so I didn't even try. I thought she might be okay with Rachel holding her.

But not when Rachel is holding her so close to Santa. She did calm down for a semi-nice picture.

We made a list of things we want to do before Christmas. One was make and decorate cookies, so we did it last Sunday.

Rachel's cookies that she made for herself looked like Christmas threw up all over them.

My mom came over for our annual candy making. Ryan helped stir the caramels.

We used probably 3 pounds of sugar, and 15+ cups of sugar to make lots of caramels, fudge, and candied pecans. Now we're ready for Christmas! :)

Megan shenanigans

Megan decided in November that strangers were scary. She would run and hide her face in my shoulder any time an adult besides Mom, Dad, Grandma Knight, Grandpa Knight, or possibly Uncle Justin or Aunt Marie would try to talk with her. Then I cemented the deal when I left her with her Uncle Todd for an hour while I took Ryan to a dentist appointment. She cried for a while, he figured out that she'd stop crying outside as long as he didn't talk to her, and she wouldn't do anything but stare forlornly at her play lawn mower until I got home. The next day Todd walked in the house, said, "Hi, Megan!" and she immediately started crying and ran to me. Of course that was the week of Thanksgiving when we had 15 extra people she didn't know staying in our house. She wouldn't even let Grandma Campbell hold her. She didn't mind all the kids, but once she noticed an adult she didn't really know she'd run for a familiar face. Cari stayed 3 extra days and on the last day this miracle occurred:

Megan actually played with Cari and let her pick her up. It took a full week before she warmed up to her.

Megan is a bit of a copy cat. Ryan is her favorite person to shadow, but if someone else is doing something cool, she'll copy them, too. Daddy was trying to take a nap on the couch, so she joined in.

Cute picture of Daddy and Megan:

Jacob was trying to get her to copy him blinking. This is how she blinks. Also how she closes her eyes during prayer:

She squints so she can "close" her eyes like everyone else, but still see what's going on.

Love the hairdo, dude.

Ice cream makes everyone happy.

Another favorite activity is "riding the horsie" that is Mom or Dad's leg. She loves to bounce over and over, and it's a good workout.

I love the expressions on her face.

And yes, our little girl has moved on to bigger and better things. Climbing the stool is no longer enough. She must get on top of the counters to reach all sorts of new toys.

Megan is beginning to talk more now. We can even understand some of what she says. She says all our names: Mommy, Daddy, ātch (Rach), Aaah-eee (Annie), Ay-an (Ryan). She signs milk, says and signs water, juice, more, all done/all gone, probably a few others, and has quite a few animal sounds down, too. She used to say ruff ruff for all animals except sheep, which say baa, but now she knows meow, moo, roar, and does an awesome pig--not an oink, but an actual snort.

She is getting in to things more and throws a fit when she doesn't get what she wants. She is definitely approaching the age of time outs. Good thing lots of cuteness comes right along with lots of naughtiness.

Park fun

After Rachel's baptism we went to Purple Heart Park for a picnic. We got Eegees 3 foot subs (and a gluten-free sub for Jacob, not from Eegees), and Eegees drinks (slushies) because what better to eat on a chilly November afternoon than something frozen. In the sun it actually wasn't so bad, and those from Utah and Washington probably fared a little better than us Arizonans and Texans, but Eegees are Eegees, and we're all willing to endure a little coldness to enjoy the tasty treat.

Anyway, much fun was had by all as we celebrated Rachel's baptism, Thanksgiving, and families. We're glad we're a forever family that has been sealed in the temple.

Rachel's Baptism

Rachel was baptized yesterday. It was a special day for her and she had many people show up to support her: her family from both sides, friends and leaders from church, and our neighbor who loves our kids.

Rachel was lucky enough to be baptized with her best friend from church, Lydia.

They were so excited for their baptism.

Rachel and Lena:

Our neighbor, Shannon, brought flowers for Rachel:

We tried to get a picture of all the cousins. We were missing Christian, but did get at least most of them in.

The whole family on both sides, just missing Lisa.

Thanks to all who came. We're so happy to have Rachel in our family. She read the whole Book of Mormon before she was even baptized. She already doing a great job of growing her testimony of the gospel. She was very excited to get her own full set of scriptures and plans on reading the D&C, Pearl of Great Price, then starting on the Bible.