Adam is 16

Adam turned 16!  He had an appointment in the afternoon on his birthday to take his driving test, and he did great and passed.  Unfortunately, even though he had worked really hard on his car for a few months, it wasn't ready to drive before his birthday, it wasn't even ready to be registered.  Eventually, we did get it registered and licensed, but he is still (3 months later) working on seatbelts and the stereo and the air conditioning so that most of the time he has to borrow our car in order to drive anywhere. 

Since it was his 16th birthday, I asked him if he wanted a special party.  He said no.  I saw a couple of his friends on Sunday and invited them over to come hang out with him on his birthday.  They came and had cake and ice cream with him and brought him party hats.  These are the girls he constantly hangs out with- Masyn, Megan, Macy and Ashlyn.

I was the most excited for him to turn 16 so that he could drive Ellie to gymnastics for me every day.  He did start doing that, but then she quit so he didn't do it as often.

Skiing

While we were visiting Jayne, we took a day to go to a nearby ski resort and have the kids attend ski school and learn to ski.  Ellie and Nate picked it up especially fast, they had a fantastic instructor.  Adam and Michael had another instructor who took a lot longer to teach them, but they still did well and by the end of the day, everyone was skiing on most of the runs down the mountain.

Christmas

Decorating the Christmas Tree

I had sinus surgery right before Thanksgiving, so I was pretty under the weather when it came time to decorate the Christmas tree.  I put the ornaments out, and the kids had a great time decorating.  In fact, they had way more fun than I thought they should- throwing the ornaments at the tree and seeing if they would stick, putting a ton of them together on the same branch and then grouping similar ornaments together to make fun of how many of them I had.  Usually, I try to leave the tree when they are done decorating because they did it and it is cure, but this year I definitely had to redecorate while they were off at school.

This year, instead of the traditional gingerbread house, we tried a house made out of chocolate.  At first Nate and Ellie thought it was great, but then when it came time to actually make it, they weren't as interested. It still turned out cute, and it tasted even better than the gingerbread when it was time to eat it.

Sometime in the middle of this season, this happened.  Adam is just barely taller than Joe, but he is definitely taller

I thought for sure that last year was the final time that Nate would ever sit on Santa's lap, so when the opportunities presented themselves this year, I didn't even try to make Nate go. Then it was time for the ward party, and one of our ward members, Brother Tuck, was there to play the role of Santa.  Nate knew it was Brother Tuck, but he still wanted to stand in line and sit on Santa's lap.  Ironically, he didn't even have anything that he asked Santa for.

Christmas Eve

We planned to go to Maine on Christmas, so we did our Christmas Eve party the day before Christmas Eve.  The kids dressed up and did the nativity, and FINALLY, they decided instead of complaining, to just go with it and to ham it up. It was fun. We also had friends over and had a nice dinner.

Just before bed, the kids got to open one present, and it just so happened to be pjs.  I got the funniest pjs for Ellie and Nate, they say "awesome kid" and then I had matching PJ's that said, I have awesome kids, but Ellie REALLY didn't like them and was upset I wanted to take a picture with them on.

The Christmas tree, right before bed:

Christmas {Eve} Morning
We flew out on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, so we treated Christmas Eve as if it was Christmas.  We got up early, opened presents, and then went to shortened church.  Everyone enjoyed their presents, and even though I told them there were less presents this year, no one seemed to notice.
Everyone had a great morning, and then we got ready to go on our trip!

Ellie’s level 5 and 6 gymnastics

Ellie had a super busy year this year in gymnastics.  She did a season of level 5 starting in August.  Level 5 is still compulsory and so they have set music and set routines.  They had several meets around the state, and then the state meet was in Lubbock, Texas.  Then, after Christmas, she moved into Level 6 and competed a season of level 6.  Level 6 is the first level of optional competitions.  Each girl has their own routines for floor, beam and bars (although the bars routines are very similar).  Ellie had her own floor music cut and mixed for her and her coach choreographed a routine for her.  Only the last optional meet was in town, the rest were in Orlando, San Antonio and Dallas and the schedule was very demanding. She loved spending time with her teammates and enjoyed going to practice to hand out with them.


Level 6 was demanding, but she did really well.  By state, she had gotten a 36 all around.  As soon as state was complete, however, she quit gymnastics.  The week before the state competition, she attended cheerleading tryouts for York Junior High, and she made the Junior High team.  She was excited to try cheerleading and to have time to pursue other things.It was so fun to see how far she went in gymnastics, but the time commitment that was required of her at the end was too much for her and for our family.  We had to revolve our life around gymnastics and it seemed a heavy price to pay.

The Wizard of Oz

This year, one of Michael's electives is theater production.  That is the class that puts on plays at the school.  The first play that Michael got to be part of was called Dinner in Oz, and it was a shortened version of the Wizard of Oz play.  Michael played Uncle Henry and the Wizard.  He did a great job, and it was super fun to watch him perform.

He also got to help set up some of the technical equipment. I think he enjoyed doing that almost as much as he enjoyed acting.