Step back VonTrapp family, there's a new act in town. Below is the program from Emiline's Christmas violin recital. In addition to our family performance she played The Happy Farmer.
Don't get too excited. The Henderson Family Quartet only knows one song. We played our one song then we ran for the hills of Switzerland. Actually, we drove around and saw some of our favorite Christmas lights.

If you don't live in OKC check out www.mestalights.com to see the kids' favorite house. Below are the lights at Chesapeake where they briefly jumped out for a chilly picture.

Wii Wish You a Merry Christmas

If I think my children haven't been influenced by video games I am so wrong. This is how Reid wrote "On Christmas we celebrate Jesus' birth." Seriously.At least I can rest assured that he has now changed his person on the wii from looking like this:
to this:
Huge improvement. Thank goodness they mostly play old school video games like Galaga and Donkey Kong where everything is spelled gramaticaly correct. Reid can spell Space Invaders like nobody's business.

Elf-tastrophy

Today our dog and our elf met each other. What I am sure started as a friendly encounter led to Zipper being carried around in Bixby's mouth while the kids chased him yelling, "Bad dog." This is where he landed.


In an effort to maintain his elfish powers the kids decided it was best to pick him up with the tongs. Personally, I feel that if touching him takes away powers then being carried around in a dog's mouth will do him in for good.


Nevertheless, we are hopeful that his powers will be restored and that he will continue to spy on us from places out of the dog's reach.

Turkey Talk

There is more than one way to eat a turkey. I can't take credit for this idea, but the kids loved making their own paper bag turkey. After we ate dinner they carved it and feasted on the popcorn Mr. Tom was stuffed with.
We always shoot a family game of pool on holidays. They think it is family bonding, but really we are training them for when they are older and we take them to pool halls to hustle unknowing strangers out of money. Aren't we great parents? Maybe we should get them their own monogrammed cue sticks in cases for Christmas.

One Small Step for Man...

Reid has now passed a landmark moment by losing his first tooth. Let's be honest- he didn't really lose it. It was pulled out by Robin, but that's what you get when your dad is a tooth guy. He has sat by and watched Robin pull many teeth from children who show up at our front door motivated by the desire for some cash-ola from the tooth fairy, and now it was his turn. I will say though that the whole thing was Reid's idea and he didn't even flinch.



Here is his note which translates to, "I was very brave when Daddy pulled my tooth. Love, Reid." I was shocked he spelled 'tooth' correctly. I mean of course he can spell his name and 'I' is pretty straightforward, but the entire thing is mumbo jumbo phonics until you get to the end. All of this earned him a silver dollar and a gold tooth from the fairy. Oh wait... I just thought it was a silver dollar. On closer inspection it is actually four Francs which must look very similar to silver dollars to the tooth fairy in the dark. Either that, or she visited a little boy in France right before coming to our house.

Enter the Bubblesphere

Kindergarten is exhausting. What better way to kick back in the evening than with a jug of suds? Reid seems to have this figured out.


In his opinion the bubbles are too small. I guess bigger is always better when you are five.

First Day of School

The kids had their first day of school today. Reid announced that he was no longer going to pick his boogers since he was starting kindergarten. He'll be doing good if he can just keep his shirt tucked in and manage wearing a belt. Reid's eyebrows were up in every picture. I think that means he was excited.
End of day report:
Mom: "How was your day?"
Reid: "Great"
Emiline: "Mine wasn't great. It was fantastic."

How could you ask for more?

Heat Wave

How are you enjoying your days of 100 plus temperatures? It's even better with fur...or a cast! I will admit that the artwork makes the cast much more bearable!!

Summer in Breck

I've gotten a little lazy with this post and added a slide show of our trip to Breckenridge. (If an ad pops up at the bottom of the slide show you can close it.) Colorado is almost better in the summer. When I was a kid and we went on vacations we would drive to Elk City and stay at the Holidome. We would swim and play miniature golf and we thought we were so lucky. We had no idea places like this even existed.

Tomatoes for Sale!

Somehow when we were planning our summer garden Reid threw out the idea to sell our extra vegetables and give the money to the poor. If I didn't roll with this I figured I was going straight to hell.I jumped on board and now we have close to 40 tomato plants, 8 red and yellow bell pepper plants, and some herbs. My dad is beating us so far in the actual production of tomatoes so we have been selling his overstock. We are up to $49 which we be given to St. Vincent de Paul Society when the harvest is over. We like to use real farming words like 'harvest' to fool us into thinking we are on a real farm.
Today we moved our stand to Wilshire for some new customers and the cars were all stopping. At one time the kids had four customers at once. I think their new farmer look helps sales.
How could you resist? A pint sized farmer and home grown tomatoes for $1!

Jumpers

Aren't we nice? When Reid asked if he could raise some tadpoles into frogs we let him. I thought it would take a little over a week. It actually took 5 weeks of tadpoles in my dining room.
It's fun watching them grow, but then they start to get a little gross. Since Reid has the necessary Y chromosome to love all gross things he jumped right in. Then the big moment happened...
The big moment for Reid was that this thing grew legs. The big moment for me was that we got to get him out of my dining room.

The rest of the frogs were released a few days later. This time the kids barely got out of the car and I dumped the rocks, water, & frogs in the lake as fast as I could. I guess you could say it was slightly less ceremonious.

Stormchasers

Within 5 minutes of getting home from the day we took the brownie troop to the zoo this is what we were hit with. As soon as the media referred to this storm as a mega cyclone Reid checked out. Anything close to a tornado he envisions his toys being blown away to Texas. Good luck to you Texan children because he probably has something you want.
As thrilling as storms are they do some damage so we will be calling our insurance company in the morning. At least Emiline could enjoy some hunting for hail pellets in the meantime.

Bike & Trike

Bike & Trike day was stepped up at Reid's school this year because there were quite a few riders without training wheels. There was definitely more speed and if you are going to go fast you have got to look the part.
He was given quite a few traffic tickets. The best was the one that he got for lookin' too cool. Let's just say the ladies noticed.


Just six more days of preschool!

First Communion

First Communion for Emiline was this weekend and it was so sweet. For all of you non Catholics out there, get ready to feel like you need to convert.




Her dress was worn by her cousin, and the girl who did her flowers also did them for our wedding. Emiline made her rosary, and her prayer book was carried by my grandmother on her First Communion in 1934. I plan on making her sash into a pillow, but don't hold your breath. My project list is long these days.





After all the sweetness we headed off to the bricktown ballpark for bedlam baseball. Shockingly, no other First Communion families were there. Luckily my kids make the transition from church to ballpark in a snap.