Santa

Took the boys to see Santa Tuesday...

Yeah. It's probably the last year I get Noah in the picture. ;) I made a deal with him this year...he didn't have to talk to Santa, just be in the picture. (His other option was for me to embarrass him horribly for the coming years by posing him with Santa over and over again or in front of crowds, lol.)

Sorry, btw, that it's been so quiet here on the blog lately. We've been busy enjoying the season and checking off our to-do lists and still participating in our many activities. Rest assured, though, that we're in full holiday swing here...all our holiday cards have been mailed, packages have been shipped, shopping is done, tree is up and decorated, elf continues to move around the house, advent calendars are being followed, Papa candy is being given out, cookies are planned for Santa and everything else. ;) We just haven't been taking many pictures. Sorry. ;)

Musicality.

Apparently, my boys are quite musical. Asher and Noah take guitar together at LEAP once a week. They're usually pretty darn good about practicing regularly on their own, too. Last Wednesday (12/5), their class invited parents to come watch their "guitar jam"...basically a rehearsal for yesterday's winter program. Unlike the winter program, though, each kid also got to do a solo piece. Noah did one called "Grand Finale" and also a duet with his best friend to "Au clair de la lune." Asher did "The Star Spangled Banner." It went well. :)

Last night, at the winter program for LEAP, all three boys performed. Micah started things off singing a medley of patriotic songs with his Sound of Music class:

Yes. He's the only boy in a class of 9. He's good with that...thinks it's kind of cool. :) They sang seven songs together and sounded surprisingly decent. :) Later, he also performed a number of songs with his smaller recorder class. Again, two thumbs up!

Noah performed just with the guitar class and just the group songs, but still had a good time:

And, Asher was quite a busy boy. He performed with the guitar class. Then he performed with the drumming class, interspersing their pieces with the recorder class and playing on the xylophone, an African drum and snare drums. Then he performed with the bells class, picking up extra parts for some of the songs since their class is rather small:

Overall, it was definitely the best winter program we've attended yet (this being number five for us with Options/LEAP). 

Baking

I'll start my update with baking. We've done a LOT of baking in the past week. Oy. Let's see...

I got together with my grand college pals, Molly & Melissa, on Saturday to bake cookies:

(Sidenote: Isn't it awesome that we're still such good friends 19+ years after first meeting and that we live close enough to get together like this?! Yay!! And you other college friends who live far away...move already! lol) Back to the cookies...

Yeah, this was a first for us and we went a little overboard perhaps. ;) By my count, we made about 10 batches (not dozen, batches) of cookies. Oy. We were just having such fun without children underfoot and and with good company and with a stand mixer available (we baked at Molly's...she has awesome tools...Melissa and I were jealous). ;) At least a couple of the recipes were off of Pinterest and are now highly recommended! (The salted caramel pretzel chocolate chip cookies were freakin' awesome, and the sprinkle cookies were nice and easy.) It was a lovely afternoon!

The next day, Sunday, I had Noah and Micah make a double batch of the sprinkle cookies for our JOAD potluck:

Funny story. Micah was so excited as he was reading off the directions to us. Noah and I turned to get something, and turned back just in time to see Micah pushing up his sleeves with a look of pure glee in his eyes. You see...the recipe called for him to "mix by hand"...and, obviously, he interpreted that literally. ;) We caught him in time to explain the need for a spoon but were chuckling for a good while. 

The next day, I made them make another double batch for us to take with us on Tuesday when we went to a cookie exchange with some homeschool friends. Again, great time! We managed, somehow, with six families (16 kids ranging from 2 years to 12 years old) to pull it all off (some of us brought stuff already made, some brought cookie dough ready to be baked and some did the whole shebang there in the kitchen we'd rented to get together)...and the kids all got to play with friends so that we don't need to worry about coordinating play dates quite so soon, lol. Oh, and given the mood I was in (see my future ziggurat post), I made up a gallon of apple cider sangria to take for us moms. ;) (And, if you're keeping count, we're up to about 20 batches of cookies that I've been in the kitchen for between Saturday and Tuesday, lol.)

Finally, yesterday was Noah and Micah's cooking class bake sale. They've been baking every week for the past month or more. We've had to bring additional ingredients each week and ended up storing most of the goods in our garage freezer for weeks (which is fine but did mean remembering to transport things to and fro, lol). The bake sale was during lunch and the winter program and appears to have gone off quite well. Each of our three boys spent $5 or more of their own money on baked goods, so did their part in contributing, lol. (By this point, I was immune and did not buy or eat a single thing from the bake sale. So there.) ;)

And this, friends, would be why I'm *not* baking things for teachers or neighbors or coaches this year. Sorry. ;) (I have other, non-baked goods, gifts mostly ready. Can't tell you, though. It's a secret.)

MIA (with an emphasis on "action")

Sorry I disappeared for a bit there. Busy. ;)

Let's see...in the past week (since last I posted)...we've had (that I can remember, though I've probably missed something, lol)...

• 2 days of LEAP (one with lunch duty on my part)
• 1 guitar jam session at LEAP
• 2 swim team practices
• 4 regular karate classes
• 1 sword form karate class
• 2 demo team karate practices
• 1 morning going in to shoot at the archery range with a friend
• 1 day of getting together with my college pals to bake cookies
• 1 outing to get our Christmas tree (which remains undecorated, as of yet)
• 1 JOAD practice
• 1 JOAD potluck 
• an abbreviated version of our normal schoolwork
• 1 afternoon of getting together with homeschool friends to bake cookies
• 1 excruciating ziggurat project
• 1 winter program for LEAP

Plus, I've finished our 2013 calendars, most of our more than a dozen teacher/coach gifts, our 80-some holiday cards (which will go out in the mail shortly), reading Throne of Fire as a family, and most of our holiday shopping.

Whew. Yeah. So. I'll elaborate shortly...honest! In the meantime, here's a picture I managed at 12:12 on 12-12-12:

(I was at LEAP on lunch duty and grabbed these two uncooperative boys, lol. At least they were cooperative enough to be nearby...I couldn't find Noah in time.)

JOAD update

Just quickly...last Sunday we had another JOAD tournament. It was in Denver again and we ended up split up again. Noah shot in the morning and set a new personal best of 268 (a 45 point improvement over his previous best which was set last March) and was floating (well, as "floating" as a stoic twelve year old can be, lol). ;) His new personal best also just happens to "best" Micah's current personal best of 267, making it all the sweeter, of course. Unfortunately, his division happens to be the largest and chances of actually placing are slim right now. He's hoping to improve his odds after Christmas, as his wish list consists almost entirely of new archery gear. ;)

Micah shot in the afternoon and again took first (this time with a trophy instead of just a medal so he was stoked), though he didn't set a new personal best. He did, though, shoot at a three spot target for the first time and took solace in the fact that his total score (for two rounds) topped Noah's still (though only by four points). 

And that was our Sunday (from a bit before 7 am to just after 7 pm)...