Hayes Loves Playing the Piano

Though he's hard to see because his shirt matches the navy wall color and it is dark outside,

 

you can find Hayes practicing his piano each and every day, multiple times each day.  He has made great progress since starting in fall 2014 and truly enjoys it. 

Walking Home from School

When it is not raining, we do our best to walk home from school most days.  Dixie appreciates the opportunity to get out, and the boys are always eager to get steps now that they are tracking them with FitBits.  We often walk home with our backyard neighbors, the Connellys, as you can see Jack and Emmy walking with the boys here.

E's First Bar Mitzvah

At this point, I'm going to focus on scrolling through pictures on my phone to see what I've considered photo worthy.  I'll try to add a photo or two every few days . . . but no promises.

This past weekend, Eleanor attended the Bar Mitzvah of her classmate Benjamin Montag.  Before his party, the girls gathered at Allie Woods' house to get ready.  Here we have Selle James, Allie Woods, Samantha Foshee, Maddy Van Slyke, Caroline Hagood, Eleanor and Mary Locke Speed.  Don't they look beautiful?  E reported that the party was a lot of fun too!

Games in Florida

Post Papa's estate sale back in November and then his donating of whatever didn't sell, I spent some of our time in Florida after Christmas trying to redistribute items around his house.  One thing I did was moved all of the games to the main floor from the loft upstairs.  I placed the games (mainly board games) at the bottom of the two bookcases in the dining where we all could see them any time we walked through the room.  As I had intended, this location change resulted in some frequent game playing.  We all even got in a game of Rummikub together (though Papa passed on this opportunity). 

Boys Crack Each Other Up

I sneaked these pictures of the boys while we were at the Las Vegas airport waiting to fly home from our Grand Canyon trip the day after Thanksgiving.  The boys had re-discovered the ipad games "Stacking the Countries" while on the trip and they played it any free chance they had.  What I loved about this moment was that (1) they were getting along and (2) they were actually cracking each other up in their silliness. 

Kids Christmas Lists

Because I've posted them in years past, here are the kids' Christmas wish lists from December (yes, a month late). 

 

Eleanor actually made a Powerpoint presentation for her list this year, and she made it during Bible class at school.  How ironic is that?!  It was twelve slides long so I'll spare you most of the details and show you just three so you get the idea.  :-)

Lunch with Santa

Mid-December, we attended our annual Lunch with Santa at Ansley with Granddaddy, Grandmommy, Uncle Michael, Aunt Ivy, Cate and Everly.  The kids had had plenty of time to work on their lists so they were ready to share them when their time came. 

 

Santa must have listened because he did a great job meeting expectations on Christmas morning!

Jingle Ball Concert

I convinced Thomas to take Eleanor and her friend Caroline Hagood to the Jingle Ball concert at Phillips Arena the night after she finished her first semester exams mid-December.

 

 

Thomas had not attended a concert with Eleanor yet and I thought the time had come!  The Jingle Jam had a variety of artists perform including Shawn Mendes, Nick Jonas and Justin Bieber.  The girls had a ball.  Thomas thought the experience was "interesting" and reported the next morning that his ears were still ringing!

Ben's Scribbles

I leaned over one Sunday during Advent and saw Ben (otherwise known as "Neb" which is Ben backwards) writing all over his church bulletin.  He sure has reached the age of nonsense!