Gingerbread Houses

Yesterday, Dave and Bonnie Hunter (our new pastor & wife) had us (without kids!) and others over to make gingerbread houses. Bonnie cut out and baked all the pieces herself. The table was covered with lots of different candies and pretzels! It was quite yummy, and so was the frosting!Here they are, along with Pam Holsten. Mike got architectural and added a little roof... Here's their finished house. It turned out good! It even has a satellite dish.

Finished house

And this is ours! It was a lot of fun! See the kids looking out the window? Here's what's on the inside before I added the kids. Matthew made the rocking chair that actually rocks, and even sheet rocked the walls! I made Bingo lying there with a bone. Such a cozy little cabin. The backyard, complete with an igloo and an outhouse! The front Meadow, Logan, and Brennen looking out the window. Ashlen is on the floor next to Bingo, but you can't really see her. (her head is the orange dot in the corner of the window) Now we'll see if the kids can keep from eating it until Christmas!

Singing Christmas Tree '09

We just finished our Singing Tree performances. As you can see we had a nice big choir this year, and it sounded really good! This is the first time I've been a part of it since having kids. My mom offered to babysit so I could do it!
Brennen had his first drumming performance (at age 2)! He went up front to play his drum while the choir sang Drummer Boy. He only actually drummed a little each time. I think he got shy, but he was so cute running up there when it was his turn, and he sat there very nicely holding his sticks, and when he did drum, it was mostly in time with the music! He's a natural! In the first performance, when the audience clapped he stood up there happily clapping too! Everyone thought he was so cute! :)
Pastors in costume! Ha Ha!
One of the new things Pastor Dave did this year was have comment cards at each audience member's place, where they could comment or suggest improvements. He also led everyone in a prayer to accept Jesus, and had a box they could check and leave their contact information if they had said the prayer, or just wanted to learn more. As far as I know at least 4 people said the prayer!

Here is a short clip of one our songs- The Night That Christ Was Born. It's the only one Matthew was able to film, since he had Brennen with him.

Here's part of a solo by Kayla L. on the same song.

Meadow's Party

Here are some pics of Meadow's party on Saturday. It was just a girls party, no boys were allowed, so the brothers went to grandma's. Krista, Genesis, and Jenna came. It was a nice, very mellow time. What a difference boys make! Birthday girl requested a "horsey" cake.

We played a game of pin the tail on the mermaid.

And opened presents of course. Ashlen loved joining in with the girls, and determined that the wrapping paper tasted quite good!

Meadow loved the pillow Krista made her!

Insider's View

I decided to capture a different view of the Singing Christmas Tree- from inside it! I took these exquisite photographs at last night's dress rehearsal.

Here's an artistic scene. I call it "Music and Mesh".
The very cute kids choir. Meadow looks a bit lost! I especially like the giant sheep on top of the life sized buildings off in the distance.
Some lovely ladies in my row watching the kids sing.
(Laura, Jenelle, Kelly, Krista)

A view up the tree

And director Rob making our music glow!

Meadow's Birthday

Yesterday Meadow turned 5! When she woke up in the morning she said, "I don't like 4 anymore, 'cuz now I'm 5!" And this is what she decided to wear for the occasion: a ballet tutu, fairy skirt and wings, 2 other skirts, and velour pants. Very Meadow indeed!
Since her kid party isn't till tomorrow, one of the special things we did was paint each other's nails! (Can you believe how girly I'm getting?!) They're a mixture of 3 different colors of course.

Later on, we had a family party at the Cooke's house, because there was Singing Tree rehearsal that night. Meadow has been hoping for (and thoroughly expecting) a mermaid for her birthday, and was very excited when she opened one!It was a fun day! I can't believe how fast 5 years went, and life shows no signs of slowing down any time soon! Yikes!

Oh, how very British

Today Meadow, Logan and I went to a lovely Cream Tea in the Little Red Church. We were served yummy scones with cream and jelly, and several delicious cups of tea in china tea cups!
Proper British children drinking their tea. They loved going to a tea party!

And here's Grandma Cooke, who put this all together! It was done as a donation fund raiser for the school. She and Marge Fowler painted lots of ornaments which they had for sale for the school too. The whole thing was very well done, and lots of people came!