December

December was a huge month for us, so I will just get straight to business here. 

First, we celebrated Sarah's 10th birthday. 

The kids have been very into the BBC series, "Dr. Who", but especially William, Sarah, and Marianne. Hence, all the "Dr. Who" paraphernalia. William loves to make things, so we bought a little wooden box that he turned into a Dr. Who Tardis (aka, time machine) to give to Sarah. And, I was overly-ambitious and actually agreed to her request for a Tardis cake. She was also pretty excited to get some oil pastels, and has since made many a beautiful picture with them. Sarah is very fun, artistic and witty. We just love her spunk and the fun-loving personality that adds so much to our home.

Second: Our student recitals. Here are some recordings of our kids performing. First is Sarah playing "Solffeggietto" by C.P.E. Bach.

Here is Thomas performing "Gavotte" by David Popper.

This next one is Marianne performing "Romance" from Wieniawski's second Violin Concerto. I felt bad, however, because my camera space got all used up at pretty much the beginning of her performance, so we only get a little taste of hers. :/

William performing "The Storm" by Burgmueller.

The kids performed these next two numbers at the Thanksgiving Turkey Choir Concert I mentioned on last months post. James and Sarah performed "The Puppet Show" by Josephine Trott, and the other kids performed a piano trio "Miniature by Frank Bridge.

Next up: Orchestra concerts. Below was the middle-school concert. William is right smack in the middle of the viola section.

And, the Jr. High concert. Marianne is the one on the outside with the pretty red skirt.

And Thomas sitting in the front of the cello section. He had a cello solo and sounded beautiful on it! 

Thomas and Marianne after the concert. 

And then we celebrated William's birthday! He turned 12, and I now have more kids out of Primary than in, and two boys passing the Sacrament on Sundays! That all happened a lot faster than I thought it would! 

William had a strange request for homemade donuts instead of cake for his birthday. But, with all the birthdays in our family this time of year, I think we were all happy with the change. I made a batch with regular glaze and a batch with maple glaze. William is a great kid! Talented, smart, creative, and quite the little inventor. We love his imagination and humor. He's a lot like his Dad and we are lucky to have this boy...er....young man in our family!

Then we got super lucky and won the lottery for tickets to the Christmas Concert put on by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square. It was so amazing! I could not be happier that we were able to go. Well, unless we would have realized that we could have taken our youngest three kids instead of leaving them at the hotel since there were still empty seats from standby! Ah! Kicking myself over that one! :/ Oh well, it was so nice to sit back and enjoy a performance that none of us were actually involved in. :) We thought it was particularly cool to watch and listen to "Gimly" from "Lord of the Rings". 

As we headed over to the Conference Center, I snagged a picture of the Salt Lake Temple. The way the sunlight hit the Angel Moroni was pretty cool.

The whole production was just absolutely top-notch. Just thrilling. Such a highlight of our Christmas season.

Finally, the last of our December birthdays, Thomas! He turned 15! FIFTEEN! For breakfast, he requested that I make a cream cheese danish. A boy after my own heart! :)

And, Tres Leches cake for his birthday cake. Once again, a favorite of mine. He has such good taste in food. ;) Seriously though, he pretty much eats everything I make and goes on and on about how much he loves my cooking. Every mom's dream kid right here. haha! 

Thomas is fun, passionate, and a little crazy at times, but he really brings a lot of life into our home. When he takes interest in something, he learns everything he can about it and really becomes an expert quickly. He and Richard enjoy shooting together. It's nice to have a Dad that can teach him how to be safe and careful. Thomas is a great young man, and we love him lots!

Phew! That covers everything up til Christmas, which I will post separately.