trains and christmas parties

 A couple Sundays ago we went to my moms to decorate cookie trains.  A tradition I have always done and enjoyed but felt a little overwhelmed with this year.  So my wondermom just went ahead and put it all together.  So nice and we loved delivering the trains.  It's good for the kids to think of a family they want to take them to.  And this year we had Angela (exchange student from Chile) come make them with us.  She was darling and so creative with her train. 

 Last week we had the elementary Christmas concert - very fun and we have always been impressed with the songs and the program.  (This year we were a little suprised that the 4th grades didn't know either of the songs they sang, but the 5th grade did a wonderful job).

 At the work party this past week, Morgan and Ana were the only two who braved telling Santa what they wanted for Chirstmas.  The motivation was a large candy cane.  They boys all said they were too old to sit with Santa.  Tanya came with but saw the food table and never made it all the way to Santa.  Which is fine, it was much healthier than the giant candy cane!

more jr. jazz

last week in review

Morgan had her orchastra concert a couple Wednesdays ago.  She looked great and played beautifully.  She has grown up so much this year.  She loves to wear jewelery and worries about her shoes, things she has never cared for.  Victors band concert was last Thursday and it was an insane day and I didn't get a picture of him.  Troy made it to the concert and said it was great.  This picture is Victor making dinner last week for some extra credit in CTE.

This is our awesome Orchard Jr. Jazz basketball team.  Troy ended up coaching Ethan's team this past fall.  We were lucky enough to have another dad who was in town every week Troy was out of town to help coach!  Or it would have been me and I don't know that would have been good for the boys.  They were awesome and fun to play with.

Austin came for a visit with his dad last week and he just hung out with Percy and loved him.  Too sweet.  Below is Morgans science fair project, testing the PH level of liquids.  Great fun, but glad it is done and turned in!

Tanya's 15th birthday

 Tanya turned 15!  We gave her the book to start studying to get her learns permit.  She doesn't seem as excited as she used to about driving.  She would tell everyone she was saving her money for a car, but the past few months she avoids the topic...  oh well, one day

everyone wants to play with and have a picture taken with my new very cool iphone.  Ethan at tithing settlement - yes both pics.

 Our cute carpool friends and cousin wanted to see the house on Friday so we had a little tour/field trip.  It was a lot of fun, everyone was super excited.

 With the 110 mph winds that ripped through Bountiful and Centerville last Thursday we had a tree down by our rental property - super lucky the house next door had a tree on it and across the street there was a tree this size on top of a car.  The power was out all day so our kids in the school district got out of school for both days.  The poor charter school kids had power.