This is a Rocket

Becky and Tinsley are the best of friends!  They are lucky to live right next door together!  If they aren't in school they are usually together and having fun doing things like, well, creating a rocket and flying it through space.  I sure love them!



Gingerbread Man Trap

Mary has projects every month in her 3rd grade class with Mrs. Dow and in December they had Gingerbread Man trap STEM project!  Murray created this trap with Mary and assisted her in making it all come to life!  It was pretty cute and creative!  The Gingerbread Man fell for the "Free Candy Canes" sign and walked right in to the trap when you pulled the string and he was stuck!  Good job Mary and thank you Murray! 

Reading, Shopping and Naughty List Concerns

Rebecca is 4 and in pre-kindergarten with Mrs. Krach and Mrs. Gerrish whom we just love!  She comes home from school with fun activities to do while at home which I appreciate!  One day Becky cut these words out, arranged them in a sentence AND read them! Then she would mix them up and arrange them back in a correct sentence!  Way to go Becky!

 

Becky and I spent a day at the mall picking up some last minute gifts and it was fun to shop with her!  We even got a treat at the end of it all!

 

We stopped by Santa's workshop and Becky typed her name in to Santa's machine and saw that she was indeed on the nice list.  The rest of the day she couldn't stop talking about the children on the naughty list and how they got there, could they get off and onto the nice list, would they get any presents?  It was a real concern! 

The Nutcracker Ballet

The girls were all part of the Nutcracker Holly Day Recital at Centerpointe dance.  They performed at Desert Vista High School. Mary was a gingerbread girl and did a cute performance of Gingerbread girls getting into mischief with her ballet class. Rachel was a beautiful snowflake and performed as part of a flurry!  Rebecca was a tap dancing snowman to "Frosty" and it was so much fun to watch them all!  Rachel says that she wished they had a t.v backstage where she and other dancers wait to perform that would show the live performance because she enjoys watching all the other dancers perform. I am so proud of these girls and think it is incredible the way they can get up on stage and perform in front of so many people!  I have heard Mary say that it isn't so bad because the lights are bright and one can't really make out the people in the audience. 

Rachel is 7 Years Old!

I just can't say how much we love, love, love this daughter of ours! Rachel is happy, funny, bright, thoughtful, kind, generous (with everything but bubblegum), smart, insightful, obedient, helpful and the list goes on!  This year her birthday fell on what may have been the busiest day our family had all year!  Because of this Rachel got to stay home from school and we spent some time together. She opened presents in the morning and actually helped me with some chores.  Some of her favorite presents were a blue necklace and bracelet with an R charm on them, a puppy dog purse, a brush with the letter R and a gymnastics bag! Then we went to get nails done which was such a treat!  I love that she wore the crown out her teacher Mrs. Zastrow had given her the day before while we were out and about that day!  Then we met Murray at Firehouse Subs for lunch and finished with an ice cream cone at Basking Robbins.  That evening she went to watch Becky perform in her preschools Christmas Pageant and Mary perform in Aristocats.  While waiting for Aristocats to begin I asked Rachel what her favorite part of the day was and she said "Definitely right now!  I can't wait to see Mary perform." That just says so much about who Rachel is and why I am so grateful for her! At the end of the show Rachel told me "Mom, you are lucky because you got to watch this musical twice!"  Hoping this year brings Rachel as much joy as she brings to this family of ours!

Orange County Love

My dear friend Allison and I both have birthdays in December.  This means that we usually celebrate our birthdays wrapping Christmas presents, baking cookies for an exchange, delivering treats, in my case throwing birthday parties for my children and we love it and are happy to do it but this year was REALLY special because we took a girls trip to the OC!  I grew up in Huntington Beach and lived there until the end of college and Allison lived there and worked there for quite awhile!  Living in Phoenix we reminisce about the weather, food and shopping!  Allison got us a room at the Westin and with help from amazing husbands we headed out of town to celebrate our birthdays. We stopped and visited with Allison Grandma who is so delightful and had breakfast with her and Allison's Aunt Anita.  The rest of our days were pampering, shopping and eating!  We even attended a cooking class that was so much fun!  I would love to attend more of those in the future! Murray got us tickets to a surprise show which turned out to be "Anne of Green Gables" books that we both loved reading as girls! We also went to a Korean Day Spa that was wonderful!  Allison's Mom got to meet up with us there and she summed it up perfectly- "we died and went to Korean heaven"!