School parties and last minute things

The last day of school before Christmas break we made all the teachers little bouquets of flowers in Mason jars then we delivered them in the morning before school started. In the afternoon I went back to the school and had pizza for lunch with Ashley then headed to Owen's classroom to help them make santa ornaments out of blown out eggs and tissue paper. It was a fun afternoon. Once we were home the kids helped me wrap presents and Ashley received an early Christmas present from aunt Lee. Ashley found a ornament that I cross stitched when I was 12 so she decided that she wanted to learn to cross stitch. She has quickly figured it out and is much better than I ever was.

Owen and his friends at school making egg Santas

Ashley's new dress from Aunt Lee

Owen wrapping presents

Ashley's first cross stitched ornament. Love you to the moon and back.

Mason's Cello Concert

Two weekends before Christmas we all went to Mason's Cello concert. He's playing with the Boise Cello Collective Jr. which is taught by the Boise Cello Collective. Both groups played a wonderful lively concert and had a few combined pieces to play for us. It was a nice evening followed by refreshments at my sister Molly's house.

Mason and his instructor

Kids after the concert

Mike's new car

Well, I guess our new hobby is finding cars on Craigslist. We had three vehicles for about three weeks then the Chev Astro Van developed a leak that emptied out the water and antifreeze extremely quickly so we decided it was not worth the time and money to fix. We looked at a few junkie cars in our price range and came home tired, cold and a bit bummed out. So we got Papa Murphy's pizza and was just about to watch a movie when Mike decided to look at craigslist one more time. He found the above little car that had just been posted so he called to see if we could go look at it. The guy said someone else was coming from Nampa to look at it but if we got there first we could take a look at it. So we rushed out and arrived at their expensive three car garage attached to their huge house within five minutes. This super cute little 2004 Hyundai Tiburon has been babied, in a garage it's whole life and was in excellent condition. Mike said we would take it before he even drove it and was so happy and excited on the way home. The price was just to good to turn down. It is definitely not a family car as it is tiny but it is super fun to drive so we will have to look for a better family vehicle sometime but my Vibe works for that at the moment.

Hour of Code

As we come to the last week of Fall semester one of my final assignments was to volunteer for an hour in a classroom that was participating in Hour of Code. Where kids go to www.code.org and play games like Star Wars, Mind Craft, Disney, Angry Birds and more while they are introduced to computer programming.  So since we already had a mini R2D2 I added a little flag and he went with me almost everywhere all week. I took him to my class of software development students where they really are just big kids on computers anyways. I took him for walks around the campus and handed out flyers for Hour of Code. Then took him with me to Liberty, Trail Wind and White Pine Elementary schools where I teach drawing classes for Young Rembrandt's after school program. The kids loved him and I gave them Hour of Code flyers to take home to their parents.

Yesterday, I took R2D2 to my kids' school Heritage Community Charter where I helped students with the Hour of Code in three 7th grade classes, two 8th grade classes and one 5th grade class. I had to turn in photos for my assignment so I have quite a few. It was a lot of fun for me and all the kids.

Night Light Parade

Ashley, Kristey, Molly, Mike, Will, Amanda, Mariah, Mason, Delaney and Owen

Last night we met up with my sister Molly, Mike's sister Kristey and families to watch the Caldwell Night Light Parade. It wasn't as cold as other years but we were all frozen by the end of the parade. Despite the cold it was fun to see all the floats lit up with lights.

Aunt Kristey and Ashley

Mason, Delaney and Owen

Amanda

Molly, Will and Mike

Minions or Twinkies??

Mammoth float

Santa

Delaney, Molly, Ashley, Will and Mike

Mason, Owen, Delaney and Ashley

Decorating for Christmas

Mike and Ashley putting up Christmas lights

This weekend we started decorating for Christmas. We put lights on the house and set up our reindeer. We picked out a Christmas tree then decorated it and put some decorations in the house. We even got an Elf on the Shelf that keeps getting into trouble at night.

Alysha by the fireplace

Alysha with our tree before she headed to work

Ashley and Owen decorating the tree

Kids by our tree

Our Elf being held captive by minions in Pepe's cage

Our Elf hanging from the shelf while being attacked by fish with teeth

My cute little Ashley Elf wrapping presents

My Owen Elf wrapping presents

Festival of Trees

Last weekend while Mike's family was still here we all went to the Idaho Center to walk around the Festival of Trees. It was fun looking at all the different themed Christmas trees. Afterwards we went back to Grandma Reva's to play a few games to finish off the Thanksgiving holiday.

Alaina, Layla, Landon, Ashley, Alysha, Lexi, Amanda, Sarah and Alyse

Alysha, Owen, Alaina, Carla, Layla, Landon, Ashley, Reva, Alyse, Amanda, Scott, Shelley, Ruby and Bob

Alysha and the super hero tree

Owen and the fishing tree

Ashley and Landon with the music tree

Mike, Alaina, and grandma Reva

Alysha and Audrey

Mike and the Whiskey tree

Carla, Bob, Reva, Shelley, Kristey and Mike

Mike and Stacy

Carla, Bob, Reva, Shelley, Kristey, Ruby, Mike

Ashley, Landon and Layla