Hannah's braces

Hannah got braces on this month. She had some pretty sore days the first week, and realized it's a good way to lose weight. But she has been adjusting and doesn't feel alone since many of her friends are wearing them. She does like getting to choose colorful bands to put on the braces everytime she goes to the orthodontist.

Here are some pictures taken much later. You'll also notice Hannah's shorter hair. She got it cut while we were in Arizona over New Year's week.

Christmas Gifts

Christmas morning

Christmas morning was nice. The children get to open stocking gifts first, but have to wait on everything else until after breakfast. We enjoyed our tradition of cinnamon rolls, eggs and juice or egg nog. We then enjoyed opening gifts from family and friends.

Hannah showing a few cinnamon rolls left (we made them homemade this year. so yummy but lots of work!)

Katelyn loved her new push grocery cart, but mostly for sitting on

Laurel looked so cute in her dress up outfit

Samantha got lots of play with her new Strawberry Shortcake set

Jamie trying out the mini trampoline that was a gift for all the children (in hopes that they will no longer jump on the couch)

Mackenzie liked the books she received

Our very last gift of the day was an envelope with a car that had a message from Heavenly Father, saying he had sent us a new family member. The new little one will arrive in July 2011! It was sweet to see all the kids cheer when they got the news. (and fun to talk to excited grandparents later that day.) That, by far, is the best Christmas gift we could ever receive.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve we had our usual nice dinner together and then the re-enactment of the Christmas story. Here are a few picturesLaurel as the angel bringing news to Mary

Samantha (sheep) and Jamie (shepherd) hearing the good tidings of great joy

Mackenzie as Mary with baby Jesus

Visits

We enjoyed a wonderful visit from some good friends, the Nguyen family, who no longer live near us. They were spending time in the area though and came by to see us. It was fun to catch up on their lives again.

The San Francisco Giants won the world series this year, and since then, their trophy has been touring the Bay Area. It made a stop at Oracle and Derek was able to see it up close and get a picture with it.

Christmas concert

Our homeschool co-op has regular song practice each week and they regularly perform at a nearby nursing home once a month. This year, Jocelyn, who has been leading the music in our co-op, formed a more formal choir with the older children. They sing additional songs at the nursing home, and sometimes at other places. Below is a video of one of the Christmas songs they performed. The group is small, and includes 9yr olds to a 17 year old. Mackenzie, Adam and Hannah participate.

Christmas events

We enjoyed some of our usual Christmas activities, as well as a new one.

I took the older girls to the Creche exhibit in Palo Alto. It was beautiful as usual, and the girls spent the most time in the children's room, dressing up in their nativity clothes. They also saw a puppet show and worked on crafts.
http://www.christmascreche.org/

After taking a break last year, we went again to the Bethlehem exhibit in Santa Clara. It was good as always, and we often see a number of friends when we go.
http://www.bethlehemsc.com/

I took Hannah, Mackenzie and Jamie to a free production of the Nutcracker in Oakland. We drove up with some friends, and a drive that is about an hour, took two because of lots of rain (and it happened to be rush hour on Friday night). The girls enjoyed the show and it was fun to see a few friends there in addition to those we came with.

All of these activities served to help us feel the Christmas spirit and remember the blessings of this wonderful season.

Playing in the leaves

The tree in front of our house drops plenty of leaves, so it was time to rake some up and jump in them. Not everyone joined in, but those who did, had a fun time.

Katelyn just loves to be outside

Laurel, Samantha and Jamie in the pile

Katelyn checking out the leaves, not sure if she thinks it anything worth spending time on

It's a lot of fun to throw the leaves in the air

November miscellanea

Hannah couldn't even put her book down to do her clean up chore after dinner.

Laurel didn't feel like giving a smile for a picture this time

The girls are getting geared up for Christmas already with their book reading

Christmas tree cutting

This year we did something we haven't ever done, but was something I had wanted to do. for a long time. Instead of getting our christmas tree at Home Depot, we went and cut it fresh from the mountain. Some friends of ours invited us to join them on their annual tradition. They always go the day after Thanksgiving. So we drove into the Santa Cruz mountains to a Christmas tree farm and spent some time wandering the hillside in search of a perfect tree. The kids weren't used to it and the little one's thought we tromped around much too long. We discovered none of them were "perfect" so we looked for one that was close enough. We had been given a saw to cut it down and each person wanted a turn to use it. Derek probably did the most of the sawing though. After we dragged our tree to the truck, we enjoyed a picnic lunch with our friends. Homemade leftover turkey sandwiches. Yum!

the hill, with so many choices!

At last, we found a tree we liked.

cutting the trunk

Lunch!

Katelyn being cute as always

family picture time

When we took our tree home, we discovered it was the biggest one we'd ever had. Derek had to keep cutting it down to get it inside. And with our tree topping, it touched our ceiling. We decided that we liked getting our tree that way, so hopefully we do that again next year.

Thanksgiving

We had a fun Thanksgiving this year. During the morning, Derek and Adam enjoyed another year of ultimate frisbee with friends from church, to help work up an appetite. We had a couple of families join us for the dinner (the VanDams and the Huangs), and one set of friends visited later for pie (the Lanyis). We were treated with a fun play put on by Hannah, Adam, Mackenzie and Jamie and the VanDam girls. If you've got the time, you can enjoy videos of that below.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Hannah also got creative and wrote a Thanksgiving song and used a Christmas song for the tune. She convinced all but Adam to sing it for us. I've included the words:

Verse 1 - Every year it comes to town, Celebrated all around. Started 1621, Held in Plymoth, Lots of Fun!

Chorus – Yu-ummy food. Lots of yummy food. Gra-ateful hearts. Thank him on Thanksgiving Day

Verse 2 – Thanksgiving's known for lots of food, It gives me a happy mood.Turkey, tatoe's, pumpkin pie. Every year I think I'll die.

CHORUS

Verse 3 – God gives us a lot of stuff. We should thank him every day. So we have this holiday. That is all we have to say.

CHORUS

Laurel singing the Alphabet song

Laurel loves to play the piano for us and sing a song at the same time. She can do this with many songs, but the piano music is the same. Here she is singing the ABC song.

Goodbye to Datascaler, Hello to Oracle

After many months of uncertainty for Derek's company, Datascaler, an offer of acquisition came through from Oracle. Oracle saw some value in the product that Datascaler had been working on and decided they needed to add that to their company. The offer came in September, and by early October, the Datascaler office was in shut down mode and finishing up any final paperwork for the purchase. Most of the employees were offered jobs at Oracle and those began mid October. It is nice to have a good conclusion to the three year run of Datascaler. It's unfortunate that lack of funds ended a good thing, but it was a great experience for Derek and his coworkers . There is definite relief at getting a full salary again, but there is some adjustment for Derek at going from a very small company to a very large company. The commute is now very long and our nice schedule is taking a hit as a result. But on the whole, the change is good and Derek is looking forward to helping get their product to customers through Oracle.

Haircuts

Laurel's hair has always grown slow. It's been that way from day one. So at her 3 year old birthday her hair was still thin and somewhat meager, but showing signs of growth. Even the sides of her hair were starting to pass her ears. (see below)


Then Samantha decided she wanted to cut Laurel's hair (Why did she need a haircut? She didn't!)

So I had to trim up both sides to match, which brought the side lengths to the top of her ears.
Shorter, but still cute. (see below)


Then Laurel somehow got a hold of some scissors and thought some more trimming was in order. She chopped away at the top and front. (see below)


So I had to trim again, but much more this time to give a more even look all over. (see below)


Let's just say we're back to square one. How long will it take to catch up to the original 3 years growth? There's no telling, but maybe it will grow in a little thicker this time? Thankfully she still has a beautiful smile that lights up her face, with or without hair.

Just too tired

Katelyn has been gradually shifting from two naps a day to one. Sometimes it's tough for her to make it to that one nap. This day, I guess I delayed too much in getting lunch to her, because she just couldn't wait anymore to begin her nap. I had stepped away while she ate a sandwich, and came back to her snoozing away. I was able to wipe off jam without her waking up. She was tired!

Mother Daughter Date

Every year our church's Activity Day Group (weekly meeting for girls 8-11 years old) has a Mother Daughter Night. This year the theme was Garden Party. We had a really fun activity of putting together a flower bouquet in a pumpkin. We worked together on it and though we had no previous flower arranging skills, we were quite pleased with the results. We enjoyed a dessert afterward and some visiting. It was a nice evening and a joy to get some special one on one time with Mackenzie.

Cathy and Mackenzie

our pumpkin bouquet

view from the top

Samantha turned 5

Samantha was so excited for her birthday this year, since she would get her first friends birthday party! And she actually got two parties, one was the birthday dinner with the family and then a princess party with her friends.

chocolate cake with strawberry frosting. Yum!

Samantha was so excited to finally get her own 18" doll. She named her Emily

Lots of princesses came to Sammie's party

Samantha enjoyed many princess gifts

Since she already had cake and ice cream at her birthday dinner, she chose ice cream treats for her party

We sure love having Samantha in our family. She has a ready smile and loves to learn new things. She has a sensitive heart and is a bit timid at times, but when she is happy and comfortable, she has an infectious laugh. Happy Birthday Samantha! We love you!

sweet 5 year old

One year old

Our baby turned 1 year old! It's so hard to stop these little one's from growing up!

On Katelyn's birthday a nice dinner with some friends from church. And instead of cake and ice cream we had a tasty jello dessert. Then her siblings helped her open her presents. She was fascinated with a musical birthday card which she received from one of her Grandma's. You'll see her playing with it in a video below.

Katelyn has been a pretty easy going child and we've loved having her in our family. She gives hugs so willingly and makes us smile and laugh. She is already moving into a stage of quickly learning new things. She's more of a mimicker than some of our other children, so it will be interesting to see what she picks up and she copies things we say or do. Happy Birthday Katelyn!

Katelyn waiting for her dessert to be dished up

getting some loves from her friend, Carloline

sweet one year old

Irony

When driving by a middle school, their billboard was announcing some upcoming dates. One of them said,

Learning Day, No School.

Pictures from the month

Laurel showing us her fun with stickers

Derek enjoying time with his girls

Adam reading a good book

Samantha modeling her new hairdo, courtesy of Hannah

Another cute hairdo, Samantha folding clothes

Laurel gathering plates to help set the table