Adventzeit

Happy Adventsing! We hosted Justin's Univ 101 students for our first (and probably only) sing of the season. It was sheer joy to host (testing Lia's memory here....) KayGeo, Jayden, Jane, Truman, Julia, Mara, Matt, Kaitlyn, Anna, Amesha, Ben, Tyler, and Alissa in our home. We drank Kinderpunsch, which Lia made, ate pumpkin bread, which Katharine made, and caroled to music that Elisabeth, Gwyn, and Katharine made. 

In preparation for a season of hosting, we got the Christmas decorations out on Monday. By Saturday night, we finally had everything up. This was not because we have so many Christmas decorations; it was because Lia had so much [to] help. But we did it.

Nikolaus Abend was this week and the children received ornaments commemorating matriculating at BYU (Elisabeth), getting her license (Katharine, who took her driver's test on Saturday and will take her written test on Monday to FINALLY be official!), first year of tackle football (Abdiel), history triumphs and passions (Gwyn), learning to read (Elinor), being a great artist (Gabriel), and coming into the world (Miriam). 

Abdiel and Gwyn each made a stable for their own nativity scenes this week.

When Lia had a dentist appointment this week, Gabriel's nursery leader came to watch him and Miriam. She reported some funny interactions they've had with Gabriel:

Nursery Leader: Gabriel, do you get to hold your baby sister?

Gabriel: No! Everyone says that I'm too little, but I LITERALLY am not!

Gut zu wissen!

*Nursery Leader places a figurine of a dad, a mom, a brother, a sister, and a baby on the table, covers them up and takes one away, then uncovers them with one missing in order to show how sad we'd be if not everyone in our family was with us in heaven. After doing this several times....*

Nursery Leader: And how would you feel if your sister were missing?

Gabriel: Oh, that's okay. I have lots of sisters.

Some readers of our blog have accused the authors of only posting "hideous pictures of [them]." It must be a generational thing. Apparently this is a cute picture:

Monday night some of the family headed to City Center for some free doughnuts, free hot chocolate, and free ride on the Orem Express. Unfortunately basic economics was at play in that the price was not high enough to control demand, so we left having only consumed a free doughnut. The lights were, however, magnificent!

And we saw two reindeer!

That cutie got to wear her coat for the first time. She was snug as a bug in a rug.
 

After hosting the Univ 101 students, Gwyn accompanied Justin to take Elisabeth home and attend BYU's Advent Singen, which we thought was a German sing along but was actually a cool concert, complete with Alpine horns, as pictured here.

Choosing our Christmas tree from the tree lot!

Elder and Sister Gilbert sent us a book to welcome Miriam! So kind and thoughtful!

With a few reinforcements and many unnecessary holes in the ceiling, Justin successfully did what Lia could not and got Katharine's birthday chair hammock hung. Don't know where the pic of Katharine modeling it went. 

Elinor made a BYU couch for us. 

Our hopes of a Christmas season with no harp transport were dashed when Elisabeth contracted to sub for the Lyceum Salt Lake Christmas concert with Daniel Beck. But we did go this long without having to figure out how to get the harp in the new van. Those in the know report that it is not as easy as with the Sienna, but Lia asserts that since we can fit both the family AND the harp in the van at the same time now, it was still a net gain. 

And with that, dear reader, let us all retire for the evening.