Nutcracker, Noels, and Nativities.

      Sienna with Miss Robbin

Sienna was so excited to be a buffoon this year in the Nutcracker!  They get to run out from under their mothers giant skirt and do a funny dance.

Sienna and Lauren Petersen. A beautiful young woman in our ward.

 Grandma and Grandpa White

 Grandma and Grandpa Gillespie

 McKayla, Ashlynn, and Kenzie

Ready for the Millenial Choral performance.

Let Earth Receive Her King

 Ashlynn and Andrew.

Somehow I didn't get the good picture....

 After EVMCO's concert I took the other kids to the Temple lights.

Gunner was thrilled.

 MAson Sienna and Rigdon all loved the lights and the Nativity. Nobody does it better. The true meaning of Christmas.

Family photo shoot.

Projects

 November and December Mason and I worked on some projects.

He make naked eggs for the science fair. For school we called them translucent eggs:0

He let vinegar dissolve the calcium in the shells creating a translucent egg. Pretty cool.

He also put one in corn syrup which made the egg shrivel up. Another one went into a cup of water causing it to swell up.

 I was working on loaves of bread for all the members of our ward who attended tithing settlement.

My friend told me about someone who did that for her ward and I thought it would be a fun project. I like to bake and it doesn't take too long.  I certainly have the cinnamon bread recipe memorized now.

I ended up making about 120 loaves of bread. Of course it was over 3 weeks so it wasn't bad at all.

I really didn't expect all of the beautiful cards and thank you's I received. But I often had tears in my eyes.  It was a lot of fun.

 Many day's this is what the table or the counter looked like. I just loved seeing all my cute little loaves all lined up so nicely.

Inevitably there was about one no show often so we had lots of cinnamon toast in November. The kids were very...
 happy
 happy
 happy.

Rigdon says...

 Rigdon; So mom, When you are married at the beginning and you are both skinny and you don't eat very much, can you still have a baby?

Me; What do you mean, you can have a baby...

Rigdon; Well do you have to eat a lot of food to get a baby?...

Me; It dawn's on me what he is asking... How do you get a baby?

 Um, it can make you want to eat a lot of food when you have a baby in your tummy.

trimming the tree.

 Can you tell the snowflakes are my favorite thing this year?!

Here are the rest of the White House Christmas decorations.

 The tree has been up for about 5 days... I guess we should decorate it before Christmas actually arrives

 The kids did a great job! I didn't even redecorate after they went to bed.

That could be because I was tired....

It's beginning to look like Christmas.

I love getting out the Christmas stuff! Everything feels so sweet and festive. I don't have very many sentimental things. But I always get a little teary hanging up my grandma's hallmark holiday houses. They are my favorite.

Tree decorating to come.