Castle Walls

Last week we made the traditional gingerbread (okay, graham cracker) houses. Even Sunny wanted to be part of the action.



Here's how they turned out:



Lisa was the most traditional, with a quaint house and snowy outdoor scene.



Apparently there are kids who like making snow angels living in her house. :)



Yumiko went with a completely different idea.



Andrew started doing something pretty ambitious, but it fell apart on him, so he scaled back to a humble little dwelling with a big wood pile in back.



I went with a castle theme.



Daniel also went the castle route, but as usual his is the biggest, most grandiose design.



He had a lot of fun crafting and hanging the bells in the tower.

A Little Christmas Music

'Tis the season... for music recitals!

We started out the month with Lisa's violin recital. She did two numbers, one solo and one duet.



Looking relaxed after it's over!



Lisa also played in two orchestras in the big CHS band/choir/orchestra Christmas concert.



They also did a big combined number with everyone on the stage at the same time, but there were so many kids that we couldn't even see her in that one.



Then Yumiko and the kids played in a piano recital.



And we had our ward Christmas party. While people were eating, Yumiko and Lisa played some Christmas songs...



...and Andrew and Lisa played Pachelbel's Canon in D.



Lisa played in the "ward orchestra"...



...and as he is wont to do about once per decade, Yours Truly even got into the act.



Yes, they were pretty desperate for entertainment...



No photos, but Lisa also played for YW in Excellence, in church last Sunday, and she'll be playing with the ward choir for the Christmas program tomorrow. Whew!

Don't Fence Me In

A few photos of this fall's fence project.

Lots of cedar...



Posts in place.



Rails in place.



That's it for this year!

Snowball fallin' on my head

We two or three of inches of snow on the ground over Thanksgiving, and then last Tuesday we got another 8-10 inches.

It snowed pretty much all night, and was still coming down in the morning.

School was cancelled through the district, so Daniel got a day off for his birthday. That was his favorite present.

It's amazing how different the world looks when it's all covered with white.

Lots of piles of snow!



It's been above freezing every day since then, and was up in the 40s today, but it still takes a long time to melt that much snow. I figure we've got somewhere around 3000 gallons of water to melt and drain off our yard. It's supposed to snow again tomorrow, so we'll get more before this goes away. We should probably make at least three weeks of continuous snow on the ground, which is pretty good for Boise.

We also got the Christmas lights hung over the Thanksgiving weekend before the snow got too deep.





It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!