December 8th-15th--More Busy Days

So in a nutshell, the past two weeks have been crazy busy and have flown by! Yesterday, the 18th was the boys last day of school until January. I am so glad that they have a break. I think I am more excited about it than they are...or at least AS excited! So the past weeks have been filled with finishing school projects, book reports, and music lessons for the year. The 11th was a busy day for Bryce as we went to a transition meeting in the morning at the elementary school where he will begin preschool when he turns 3 in January. Straight from there we went up to St. Joe's hospital for an EEG, which luckily came back fine...no seizure activity!!! While in Phoenix we stopped and picked up his new gait trainer/ walker/stander device. Once we get it all set up and figure out how to use it, it should be a great tool for him. I'll add some pictures once we get that going.

Then we drove home and made it here just as John and the others were loading up to go to our ward Christmas party. We all climbed in together and headed over to the church. They had a wonderful dinner of soup and rolls, a hay ride to deliver little packages to some of the inactive members of our ward, hot chocolate and cookies, and a little program. John and Glade Smith sang as part of the program. We had to leave before the entire program was over, because it was past bedtime and the kids (and I) just couldn't take anymore. I think we got to participate in most of it though.

The next morning we woke up early and headed to the Bumm's house with some of our stuff to sell at their yard sale. They had actually moved all of their stuff out of their house into their new place, so we had the sale inside the house. It was kind of a cool idea, but there were just not many people who showed up. We only ended up making about $11, but it was fun to hang out with some friends for a couple of hours anyway!

Then on the 14th we were invited by Christine Rogers, who is renting our guest house, to a family home evening Tamale night. A couple of her daughters-in-law and 4 grandchildren were there as well which made for a full house! She taught us how to make tamales and we ate the first batch together for dinner. Then we made some more to bring home. They are absolutely delicious. The boys all love them as long as they can smother them with ketchup!



John and William learning the art of Tamale making.




Spencer and Jacob soon joined in.



There were a lot of people in that little guest house, but we all had a lot of fun and only one piece of her wonderful decorations was broken by one of the flying bears that the kids were playing with on the stairs. Bryce sat in his chair at the bottom of the steps and giggled at all the kids that were there! Annalise actually fell asleep early into the festivities so I brought her back to our house and used the baby monitor to listen for her. It was a late night for the boys, but overall, it worked out really well.

The 15th William had his last pack meeting of the year. He and John just went because we had a couple of kids that weren't feeling good so I thought it would be better to keep them home. Throughout these past couple of weeks, the kids have all taken turns with colds, coughs, fevers, and an Ear infection for Annalise. Hopefully they have gotten that all out of their systems now and they can be healthy for the holidays!