Author: Joyce

This is Tyson. He is enjoying spending Christmas at our house this year. Here he is, eagerly waiting for Santa’s arrival.

The library had a program where you could order hot chocolate mixes.  (I has asked before and was told that the different events was for any age.)  I knew that Santa was supposed to make a visit, and thought that would be fun for Megan, but that everyone would enjoy the hot chocolate.  So I ordered one for each child.

My children liked the hot chocolate and the candy canes with it.  They enjoyed the picture books that Santa delivered. Adrian especially, he got a joke book!  But they loved the melting snowman slime.  Everyone made their slime a different color and have enjoyed playing with it a few times.

I enjoyed that my children had a unexpected visitor and enjoyed being silly a few minutes with him.

Since we did not have much family time over summer -we were not all together from June-Sept and most of the time it was just Adrian, Megan and I- Allan treated us all to a week vacation in Gulf Shores Alabama.

One day we roamed Fort Morgan. It is a wonderful fort and I would love to roam it again. Audrey discovered this passage way that led to a hidden room.

The lighting was so nice, I asked Andrea to stand in the corner. She decided to interpret it differently than I meant at first 🙂 . So thankful for children who have a good sense of humor!

More vacation pictures coming…

After a break last year, we were able to attend the Nutcracker again! We continued our tradition and invited some new friends who have never seen the Nutcracker before.

Friday morning was very foggy and many schools were cancelled or postponed. There were a lot of front row seats available. We waited until intermission and then Adrian and a friend moved up. I thought after the show that we should all have moved. We were sitting on the right behind a curved wall so 1/4 of the stage was blocked. Our group was still up close and could see very well but center stage would have been a lot of fun.

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The dancers were very good. I do not usually chose the Nutcracker as my favorite for the year, but I did like this one. There seemed to be fewer males, so my favorite dances were not as good (extreme bias on my part), but the interpretation was very enjoyable.

Like the last time we went, the performers came out to greet the students. I enjoy the interaction after. The younger students are often in awe of the dancers. For some reason, we were not rushed out of the doors so quickly, so we enjoyed being able to meet a few different groups.

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We have been enjoying the Nutcracker ballet for many years. In 2015 we started the tradition of going for hot chocolate after the performance. Since these Nutcrackers never grow, they are wonderful for measuring the growth and change in my children.

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Every year, we try to decorate our windows in a new way.  This year we are enjoying making stars.

We do not have our tree up yet, but the kids did string some lights outside.

My friend commented that she has very few portraits of her with her husband that are not “selfies”.  So we needed to fix that 🙂

I wanted a fun fall picture of these siblings.  I love Grant’s look.  He was not sure if he liked the idea or not.