Miri-ism #37

While eating ice cream for our Family Home Evening treat.

Miri: (Holds her forehead in her hand.) Aaa! Aaa!
Seth: Ice cream headache?
Miri: No, brain freeze.

Miri-ism #36

While looking at the nativities on display at the Museum of Idaho during Christmas break.

Miri: Look! This one has real Frankenstein, gold and myrrh!

Christmas

Prepare to be inundated.

Our Christmas festivities included gingerbread house creations.

Seth and Analee with their gingerbread house.

Rebekah and Winnie with their destroyed house. It kept falling apart, so Bekah finished the job and put the dinosaur toy there as a joke.

Miriam (and her two missing teeth) and Andrea with their gingerbread house.

Our Christmas festivities included a trip to the Museum of Idaho's free Christmas display.

Winnie looking at Santa riding a chicken. (?!)

Miriam and her fox pulling funny faces in the Children's Discovery Room.

Rebekah taking care of a baby.

Analee showing how she was able to identify this puppet as a beaver.

Miriam serving dinner to Seth and Winnie in the log cabin.

Our Christmas festivities included a sleigh ride through a neighbor's field.

The noble steeds that pulled the sleigh.

Miriam playing with the barn cats while waiting for the rest of our party.

Winnie collecting sticks for the dog.

Blake Ford letting Rebekah take the reins.

Bennet, Analee, Andrea, Miriam and Seth on the sleigh. (Grandma Scott, Grandpa Scott, Aunt McKall, Oakley, Rebekah and Winnie were also riding.)

Our Christmas festivities included a Hendricks family party.

Miriam and Emma sporting the googly eyes that were supplied for the reindeer craft.

Kids, grandkids and great-grandkids listening to Grandpa Hendricks read "'Twas the Night Before Christmas."

Rebekah telling Austin (as Joseph) that there is no room in her inn.

Winnie as a shepherdess and Kailey as a sheep during the live nativity. 

Analee the wise woman.

Miriam and the other two angels participating in a group hug.

Our Christmas festivities included a Scott family party.

Bennet, Winnie, Grandma Scott, Rebekah, Analee and Miriam around the spinning German nativity.

Rebekah opening her Christmas Eve jammies from Grandma and Grandpa Scott. 

Analee checking out her jammies.

Grandma Scott helping Winnie put on her new jammies. 

Miriam giving Grandma a thank you hug.

Seth showing off his innovative way of bringing all the girls' clothes home.

Grandpa Scott taking a picture of all the kids in their jammies.

Our Christmas festivities also included (not pictured) a Grover party with presents from grandparents, a sledding party with the Papworth and Wilson cousins and (of course) Christmas morning with presents under the tree.

To see more fun Christmas pictures, start here.

Gwenism #14

While grocery shopping.

Gwen: Mom, what is that?
Andrea: It's a pork butt roast.
Gwen: (Snickers.)
Andrea: (Thinks, "Oh, boy ... here it comes.")
Gwen: Butt roast? BUTTON ROAST! (Laughs uproariously.)

Christmas party

Our ward has great Christmas parties. There's always delicious food, lots of friends in attendance and fun activities. Last year, Seth and I sang, "Baby It's Cold Outside." This year, we were asked to sing it again. So we switched up the parts, and Seth was the one trying to escape my clutches.

My line: "I'll take your hat; your hair looks swell." His hair DOES look pretty swell. 

Rocking the jingle bell earrings Rebekah made me for my birthday. Seth rocking the guitar as he always does.

Then we switched strings. Seth put down the guitar, and I picked up the ukulele.

Seth announcing that I just barely learned to play. My look of nervous anticipation.

He's a crooner, that one. And I nearly got all the chords in.

A cute post-gig photo.

Then the ASL group signed and sang, "Once There Was a Snowman."

Including Rebekah (with her festive hair), Analee, Grandma Susan, Miriam and Andrea.

Followed by the Primary singing, "The Nativity Song."

And then Santa came to town.

Analee, Miriam and Rebekah all sat on his lap and talked with him. Winnie sat on my knee and deigned to even look at the man. But she gladly accepted the bag of goodies he gave her.

To see more pictures, start here.

Christmas card & newsletter

(click to view larger)

Miri-ism #35

While watching the final scene in Aladdin where Jasmine and Aladdin fly away on the magic carpet:

Miri: "Where are your kids! You need to have kids! Kids! KIDS!"

Tree hunting

We took the family back up to the wilderness in search of the perfect Christmas tree. That is to say, Seth hauled us up the mountain on the four-wheeler, then found, cut and hauled the tree back down the mountain while I kept an eye on four little girls. He's good like that.

And for the first time, I took a camera with me. Usually I'm hauling a baby around in a wrap, pouch, sling or backpack and don't want to carry the extra weight. This time I determined that Winnie is old enough to walk, so I brought the camera. And then I hauled her most of the way back down because her legs were tired.

Miriam climbing up the hill. I love her mouse mittens.

I think this picture is so beautiful of Winnie, despite her tear and snotty nose. Why is she crying? Because I dared to look at a couple of trees instead of staying right by her side.

 Analee trudging through the snow.

Grandma Scott helping grandkids up the hill (Bennet, Shelby and Miriam) while Aunt McKall watches.

Rebekah (and her festive green hair) enjoying snacks back at the truck.

Gwenism #13

While sitting at the dinner table.

Gwen: Mom, how did we buy our house?
Andrea: The people who lived here before wanted to sell the house. Daddy and I came and looked at it. We wanted to buy it, so we got the money from the bank.
Gwen: But how did the house fit on the paying thing?

Halloween

As per tradition, we spent an evening shortly before the holiday carving pumpkins. Bekah and Analee carved their own (first time for Ana), Seth carved Miriam's to her specifications, and I carved Winnie's to hers.

Analee, Rebekah, Miriam and Seth working on pumpkins. (Rebekah's wearing part of an inside-out volleyball on her head, in case you were wondering.)

Winnie and her jack-o-lantern.

Winnie, Seth, Rebekah, Andrea, Analee and Miriam with our creations.

Silly photo. Minus 10 points to Seth for turning his eyelids out. (Shudder.)

Top pumpkin: Rebekah's. Bottom pumpkins: Winnie's, Miriam's, Analee's.

I loved having Halloween on a Saturday. It made it so much easier to visit the grandparents before dinner so the girls could dedicate their post-dinner time to door-to-door trick-or-treating.

Winnie the ladybug (after tripping several times in her too-big ladybug rainboots, Seth brought her home to change to sneakers before going to more houses), Miriam the witch (with her hair in tiny braids, which she specified), Analee the vampire (in the cloak I made with fabric similar to Grandma Scott's Halloween tablecloth that Ana loves) and Rebekah the ghoul (who came up with her own costume and makeup).

Grandpa Wirkus growling at Miriam and Winnie.

Rebekah removing Winnie's costume from Analee at Grandpa Wirkus'.

Winnie laughing at Roscoe at Old Grandma's house.

Miriam and Winnie watching Grandma's bird and eating candy.

Rebekah petting Roscoe.

The girls posing in their costumes so Grandma Scott can take a picture to share with Grandpa Scott, who was in northern Idaho at the state volleyball tournament.

"Ice skating" on the newly poured floor of the garage Grandma and Grandpa Scott are having added on to their house.

More ice skating.

Knocking on Grandma Susan's door.

Hanging out in the basement. Grandma Dennis had his knee replaced earlier that week, so he had a separate bed set up in the family room for his recovery.

On Grandpa's bed.

To see more festive photos, start here.