Star Party!

I am thankful for the Star Party some of us went to one night because of my son's Earth and Space Science class.

Members of the community brought telescopes so we could see different galaxies and stars, Saturn with its rings and one of its moons, and our moon when it finally made an appearance.

There were hot chocolate and donuts.

My sons had friends to talk to.

I got bad pictures with my phone because I was not going to use my flash at an event that requires darkness.

I did get decent (enough) pictures of the moon with our good camera.

 

When we got home that night, Jeremy and Jet were trying out some lights that would "dance" to music. Jeremy needed them for yet another balloon build out of state. He didn't need them to dance to music for the build but that was one of the modes of the lights. Jet sure enjoyed it.

 

Holidays and Exhaustion

I'm still just exhausted.  We've done a lot of celebrating lately, but when it comes time to blog about it, I'm just too tired.  I'd rather sleep.  So I haven't been blogging.
I'm already tired tonight, but I'm going to do a little catching up anyway.  Some of our recent celebrations:
December 11 was International Mountain Day.  Since it occurred during Hannukah, we had a "mountain" of latkes then played Dreidel.  Lucky does pretty well at spinning the dreidel so he enjoyed his first time playing.

December 13 was Cocoa Day so the kids got hot chocolate after church.  I didn't get around to getting a picture of that.  But we've got plenty of hot chocolate pictures on this blog already.


We also celebrated Lucky's birthday recently.  He was really good at blowing out his candles.  I had to light them three times so we could get a decent picture of him blowing them out.  He didn't complain, though.  He was happy to blow them out each time I lit them, and thought it was fun.

Then today, December 16, is National Chocolate Covered Anything Day.  So we made our annual trip to the Holiday Lights at Thanksgiving Point.  We did stop by the Water Tower Plaza this year to visit the reindeer and warm ourselves by the fire.  I asked Jeremy to make us balloon hats to wear. 
Balloons.  It's kind of our thing, you know?

When we got home we had donuts and hot chocolate.  Some of the donuts were chocolate covered.  And some of the donuts we dipped in our hot chocolate to make them chocolate covered.  Yumm.

Riverwoods Lights

We took the kids to the Shops at Riverwoods tonight to walk around and look at Christmas lights.

They were more excited to see the different fires they had set up than the lights.  They remember that from a couple years ago when we went.  It was so cold that last time, we spent a lot of time around the fires.  This year is not nearly as cold.

The kids tried their hand at "water bending" and "fire bending" (we've been watching Avatar: The Last Airbender again lately).

Jeremy and I got a kick out of one spot we stopped at because two shops side by side had the word, "mountain" in their names.  And December 11 is International Mountain Day after all.

Santa was also at Riverwoods so the kids got to sit on his lap and tell him what they wanted for Christmas (again).

And Lucky slept through everything.  It was too dark to get a picture of him in the stroller.  There was a bit of a breeze so we kept a blanket hanging down on the stroller.
We did have fun tonight.  Good family time.

Lights On, Lights Off

It's Thomas Edison's Birthday, February 11.  I suggested something for the kids to do to celebrate.  I let them run through our home turning on all the lights then run through again to turn off all the lights.  The kids took turns doing this.
It was interesting to see their different styles.  Jr. went through once turning most of them on, then went through turning most of them off, then he was done. 
Jr. Jr. who can reach the light switches while standing on the ground thought it necessary to jump every time he turned a light on or off.  His aim wasn't as good while he was jumping so he had to jump up and down several times but he had a blast.  He also got most of the lights.

When Nichole went through, she made sure to get all of the lights, even in rooms the boys didn't think to go in.
It is fun to see how our children can go about doing things differently.  Sometimes Jr. Jr. will try to do things just like Jr., but there are times when he is just unique.
One funny thing.  As I was following the kids around taking pictures, I had to stop myself from automatically turning off the lights they had just turned on a light or two before.  It's instinct for me to turn off lights that aren't being used.
This is not something we'd do every day but it was a fun way of celebrating Thomas Edison's birthday.

Lots of Celebrating

Today, December 4, was National Cookie Day.  I didn't have time to make cookies.  Jr. Jr. wanted to hang a picture on the wall so I drew a cookie (circle) for him to decorate, which he did then got to hang it on the wall.  He was quite happy about that.

This afternoon we had our annual Polar Express party.  We watched the movie, had dinner, clementines, hot chocolate, and popcorn.  To go along with tradition, Jr. spent time reading while the movie was on.  We'll read the book, The Polar Express, some time closer to Christmas.

This evening/night, we went to Thanksgiving Point to drive through their holiday lights displays.  I remember plenty of times driving by on the freeway and seeing the holiday lights from a distance at Thanksgiving Point, but this was the first time I actually went to see the lights.
Jr. Jr. fell asleep on the way, but he loves looking at Christmas lights and we didn't want him to miss it, so we were finally able to wake him up so he could enjoy the lights with the rest of us.  We all enjoyed it.

After driving out of the main holiday light displays, they had a straight stretch with posters set up with pictures and words from "The Nativity Song," a Primary song I remember learning as a child.  I thought that was so great.  After the festive lights, bringing it back to what Christmas is really about.  At the end of the posters, they had a nativity scene set up.  Jeremy and the kids noticed icicles hanging from Mary's forehead and a few of the animals.  We've had that weather lately.

After driving through the displays, we went to the plaza to see ice sculptures, reindeer, and warm ourselves by the fires.  It was so cold but so pleasant.

We had a happy day celebrating as a family.

The Light of Christmas

Last year we started a new tradition. We watched lights that danced to music. Check out my blog post about it from last year- December 2, 2009. It was a nice easy family activity as it was only 10-15 minutes from where we live. This year they held it at a different place which was even closer- less than 10 minutes away.

So we combined going to see the dancing lights with driving around looking at Christmas lights. Jr. had fun saying, "It's a miracle," about the different lights we saw. It was so cute.

Since we could see the Mount Timpanogos Temple in the distance a number of times while we were looking at Christmas lights, Nichole really wanted us to drive to the temple that night. So we ended the night by going to look at the temple. In our advent scripture study, we'd been talking a lot about angels appearing to people telling about the birth of Jesus (both before and after he was born). While looking at the angel Moroni on the temple, we explained how he was the one who told Joseph Smith where to find the gold plates to translate into the Book of Mormon. And what is the Book of Mormon about? The kids knew the right answer- Jesus.

It felt really good to end the evening like that. Whose birth do we celebrate this time of year? Then why not visit His house as part of our celebrating?

Advent Calendar- December 2nd

Today's activity counting down (or rather up) until the celebration of the Savior's birth was:

Christmas Light Show

Sometimes my kids are scared of the dark, but when a light is on, they're not scared. Jesus is the light of the world. When we follow Him we don't have to be scared. So when we see Christmas lights this season, we can remember that.

A friend told me about this Christmas light display only 10-15 minutes from where we live. As you drive up, you tune your radio to a certain station, and you can watch the lights on the trees and decorations "dance" to the music on your radio. You can learn more at http://holdman.com/christmas/

I think it played about 5 different songs while we were parked on the side of the road. And since we were not going anywhere, we let the kids climb up and sit on our laps while we watched the show. You can see videos of the display on the website, but our kids really enjoyed seeing it in person.