New Year Wishes

In the words of my 3-year-old....


"HAPPY NEWT EAR!!!"

Sing, Choirs of Angels!

I'm so grateful to God for my children, and my heart is filled with praise to Him when I see them up on stage singing about baby Jesus. It's a sight that at one time, I wasn't sure I'd ever see. Now instead of crying tears of sadness for myself when I see kids doing Christmas programs, my eyes leak tears of joy and thankfulness to the giver of all good gifts, my Father.

Here are a few photos of the kids singing in their various Christmas programs this week.

Snow, the day after

What will probably be the last batch of snow photos is posted here. It's been a treat, for sure!

No longer a light sprinkle

Well guys, we've gotten just about a foot of snow here in the little old Antelope Valley today. For as long as I've lived here (almost 20 years), this is pretty unheard of. So what did we do? Play and photograph, of course! :) It's 7:00pm right now, and the kids have been out there in the relative dark for about 45 minutes having a grand old time. They're just slightly frozen.


I posted a bunch of photos on my facebook account (here and here), but here are a few to get you started.

Snow pictures

Sorry, there's a lot so they're on facebook: Click

It's Snowing!!!

Yeah, yeah, I know... it's only a light sprinkle. No blizzards here. But any snow is cause for major celebration here in the Mojave Desert! Schools are closed, City services are closed, and everybody's staying home. Woohoo!! Laugh at us if you want, but it's a rare day in Lancaster when the ground is white instead of brown.

Not much sticking at our house yet, but here are a couple pictures my dad sent of his house, about 3 miles up the road:

A full day of Disney magic

This trip to Disneyland was filled with surprises... the first one being that we were even *going* to Disneyland!

Last Friday we got up as usual and prepared for school. Colby dressed in his school dress code (collared shirt, etc), but the rest of us all had on our Disney attire, complete with Mickey-ear hats. The only glitch in the surprise was that I hadn't made Colby's lunch the night before, so he got worried when it wasn't on the counter for him. We told him we'd have to bring it to him at school later since we hadn't made it last night and it was time to leave for school.

This video will show you what happened after about 20 minutes of driving toward Disneyland. The boys were just chatting in the back seat as usual, listening to the Disney CD we'd put in the player, unaware that we had gotten onto the freeway and were headed out of town. Finally Colby started to notice the scenery was a little different:

Once we got there, unknown to the kids, their best friends were in line at the Buzz Lightyear ride, a favorite of all of them. We casually walked over beside them in line and enjoyed the second surprise of the day. "Hey, who's that?" "Kale's here?!??!" It was priceless. They proceeded to walk around all day hand in hand.

Then later, about 6:00pm, there was an overhead annoucement that something special was about to happen on Main Street. I knew what it was, but they didn't! I grabbed them and we ran for Main Street, them begging, "Mama, what's going to happen!!!??" We stood there for a few moments and they lit up the castle, followed by lights travelling all the way down Main Street until they reached the huge Christmas tree in Town Square and lit that up too. So beautiful!

But then, one more surprise was in store! It started to snow! It was bubble-machine snow, but of course the kids didn't know, nor did they care. They danced around, got all excited, and even tried to catch a few flakes on their tongues. The question of the moment was, "Is this *real* snow, mama?" Well, we are always very honest with the kids, to the point they even know Santa is just a pretend game. But their expressions and awe were just so precious, I couldn't bear to tell them it was just a bubble maker. Instead, I said, "It's Disney magical snow," and that was the truth.

It was such a lovely day with so many wonderful memories. Disney, Christmas, and my family all rolled into one... how could I go wrong?

Here are a few last pictures of the day:

(I wanted to add a few more but keep getting an error. Here's the link to all the pictures.)

Mmmmm

Twinkle, twinkle, pretty lights

In case you're noticing a trend, yes, I have been mainly posting my photos on facebook lately. Since I upload them there anyway, it's really simple for me to just post the link instead of uploading them here too. It's especially handy for multiple photos, since I've found that the blogger photo upload process is fairly tedious for that sort of thing.

So after that long and mostly unnessary explanation, here's the link to my latest batch of photos- Christmas lights!! The lights are probably my favorite part of Christmas. We try to go out several times each year and tour lots of different neighborhoods and houses. But the season is never complete without visiting Clark Court.

Clark Court is our city's "candy cane lane." Every house on this long cul-de-sac does it up BIG for Christmas. And the awe factor is multiplied by the fact that all the houses are big and beautiful- even without the lights. I can't imagine the work and expense that goes into something like this, but just driving through really gets me in the Christmas spirit. (However, I also like to walk through- better for taking pictures!)

I also took lots of photos of my parents' house because it's really something to see. In fact, everybody got tired of my dad always winning the neighborhood decorating contest, so they quit having it. No kidding! But the house is still a winner in my book.

So enjoy the lights this year, and let them remind you of the baby who came to be the Light of the world.

Houston, we have a problem

This is what I would look like as an astronaut, which is one of the main reasons why I'm not an astronaut.

More Shuttle fun

The whole fam got to go see the shuttle today... pictures here

Cool!

My aunt sent me a video of these guys doing an appearance on Conan O'Brien's show, but seeing as I can't stand him, I had to find a different video to post on my blog. :) Seriously, though, after you watch this one, go to youtube and look them up (it's spelled Pilobolus). Very neat!