Twas The Night Before Christmas

Hallmarks of the Holiday

We love to do holiday baking and Gingerbread House making at our house every Christmas.

Bobby and I did a lot of baking one Monday. We made gingerbread men, turtle, mint cookies, chocolate fudge and white cranberry fudge. 

Winnie helped me decorate the gingerbread men. For Family Home Evening we wrapped up 15 holiday plates of goodies and delivered them to our neighbors and friends. We should have made many more plates. There are a lot of people that we love that we missed.

 We had our cousins over one day and put together gingerbread houses. We had a total of 10 houses made!

My Christmas Angel

a Cello and a Violin

Hannah started playing the cello this year. All 6th graders start to play an instrument and Hannah wanted to do something besides the violin so she chose the cello.

She tried out for the district honors orchestra playing the violin and was accepted! She was one of the only two accepted from Ravenwood. I am proud of my girl!

Here she is at her 6th grade winter concert.

Here she is at her Christmas violin recital.

Santa 2012

Bobby was not excited to see Santa this year.

Baby It's Cold Out There!

It's is soooo cold this year!

Hannah Immigrates to America

Hannah's 6th grade class is studying immigration. It is a big unit and involves a lot of work for both parents and students. One of the assignments is to assume the identity of a fictitious immigrant. Hannah chose Eavleen Reagan an immigrant from Ireland. 

One of the assignments was to create a realistic journal that fit the time period. I showed Hannah how to cover a three ring binder with fabric and the she embroidered an "E" for the cover.

Here is one of her pages. She decided to tea stain all of her paper. Her journal was awesome and she spent a lot of time on it. She received "A", but lost points because it was a three ring binder. Seriously!

Hannah and her friend "Mika" during the Immigration Simulation. It was pretty neat they had a morning where everyone dressed up as their immigrant and went through customs and a health inspection. Afterwards everyone brought in a dish from their country. Hannah brought Irish cheese and crackers.

Hannah begged me to come and help out. I finally decided to come at the last minute and I am glad I did. I dressed up as a Lithuanian immigrant and spoke Lithuanian to all the child so they would feel disoriented and nervous. It was awesome.

Office Party

Here are some pictures from the office Christmas party this year. It was brilliant as usual and I was utterly wasted by the time the party started as usual. I am particularly proud of he broccoli Christmas tree I made and the 16 Christmas stockings I sewed for all the kids.

O Christmas Tree

On Saturday we cut down our Christmas tree. We waited for the perfect day and it was. The temperature had warmed up from a -15 to a warm 15 degrees. Just as we cut our tree the snow started to fall and then continued to fall for several hours leaving us with about 5 inches of fresh snow! Lovely day.

I love you Mamma

Bobby has started to say "I love you". 

He says it a lot.

I know he means it.
Each time he says. "I love you mamma" my heart swells.
 I bottle up that feeling and tuck it away to save...and remember.

I love him too.

Jack at 11 Months

Jack Facts:

Weighs 20 pounds
Finally has three teeth
Army crawls everywhere
Loves to do "yoga" especially plank and down dog
Pulls to standing
Sleeps in mom's closet.
Loooooves to nurse....especially in the night
Takes long naps
Loves to wrestle with Bobby
Falls down the stairs
Says mamma, hi, dad, and night night
Loves his family

Thanksgiving 2012

Our Thanksgiving was filled with many fun events. Here are pictures of a few.

The night before Thanksgiving our family participated in a "Turkey Trot" at the school. I was a 1 k in the FREEZING cold 5 degree weather. It was cold but fun and our whole family participated. Bobby made this hat to wear during the trot.

We had dinner with Nana and Papa and the Bundy family.

Here is a picture of Jack's very first Thanksgiving dinner...delicious!

After dinner a few of us went out to help Papa cut the Christmas tree. 

Bobby really enjoyed running the chainsaw....kidding!

Here is a picture of our November artwork. Actually Winnie did all of it except for the hand print turkey that is in the top right hand side of the window. Bobby made the hand print turkey.

This is the gratitude turkey that was in the office this year. We had over 100 feathers. It looked awesome!

Winnie's Baptism

Winnie was baptized on November 3, 2012. It was a very special day. She wore the white dress that Hannah wore at her baptism and that I wore at my baptism.

 Here she is with Robert before the service. I have a picture similar to this one with my dad. When Winnie was baptized the water was quite cold. She will always remember that I think.

Winnie and Hannah performed "When I am Baptized" as a special musical number. Hannah got terrible stage fright right before and didn't want to perform, but she did and did a great job! Winnie sang and Hannah played the violin.

Our family after the service. Bobby was wild during the whole thing, but many people helped keep him under control. I think he was de-toxing from Halloween week....way too much candy!

Here is Winnie with my mom. She spoke on baptism and did a really great job. The Holy Ghost was felt and I know Winnie was happy to have grandma speak. Carolyn spoke as well and I am sad that I didn't get a picture of her and Winnie together, but she did a great job. Winnie is wearing her baptism dress that she wore for her pictures.

Here is the way the program went.

Conducting: Brad Husberg

Pianist: Jolynn Hansen (Winnie's Primary Teacher)

Chorister: Bethany DeKay

Opening Prayer: Hannah DeKay

Opening Song: Choose the Right

Talk on Baptism: Hannah Galbraith

Special Musical Number: “When I am Baptized” by Hannah and Winnie DeKay

Baptism

Talk on Holy Ghost: Carolyn Townsend

Confirmation

Welcome to the ward: Bishop Bruce Clark

Closing Song: I am a Child of God

Closing Prayer: Rachel Bundy

Winnie was baptized and confirmed by her father, Robert DeKay.

I love Winnie. I am so grateful for her choice to be baptized. She is a wonderful girl. She is a blessing to our entire family.

Jack at 10 Months

Jack Facts:

A very good stander
A very good roller
"Swims" across the carpet to get what he wants
Loves to give kisses and hugs
Loves avocado, goldfish, spaghetti and jell-o
Weighs 19.5 pounds
Says mama, dada and night, night
Loves to jump
Loves to nurse
Brings joy to everyone around him

If you give Jack an Oreo....

Little White Dress

We went to the temple a few weeks ago for family home evening. It was in preparation for Winnie's baptism. I also wanted to take some pictures in her white dress for her baptism announcements. It was a very special evening for our family. We talked about temples and how baptism is the fist step on the way to the temple. Hannah expressed that she was excited to be able to go in when she is twelve.

Later, I was playing around in Photoshop and came up with this picture. I love it! I took about a million pictures, but this one really captures Winnie and the sweet girl hat she is. She is a wonderful girl with a very special spirit.

"Trick-or-Treating!"

Here is our Halloween crew this year. Hannah was a "Korean Girl", Winnie was Little Red Riding Hood, Bobby was a Cowboy and Jack was a Monkey.

Winnie was so cute as Miss Hood. I made the cape for her during nap time one day and she loved it. I don't really have a picture of her that does her justice. She was to cute in this outfit.

Hannah did her own costume this year and this is what she came up with. She really wanted to paint her face white, but I wouldn't let her. 

Bobby finally "got" Halloween this year. He was so awesome. He would ring the doorbell and say "Trick-or-Treating!" It was so precious. I wish I had a video!

Winnifred at Eight

I honestly cannot put Winnie into a word. There are too many words that describe this girl. That is why I took all these pictures of her on her birthday. They all describe Winnie perfectly.  I look at each one and say to myself, yep that's Winnie. I feel really lucky because a lot of people say that they have a "spirited child" and that is code for "extremely challenging". Winnie is a spirited child, but I absolutely would not say she is a challenge. She is an absolute delight. In fact she is my least challenging child at the moment.

Winnie is a sweet, caring, kind, smart, dramatic, friendly, opinionated, confidant, good and loving daughter.