Christmas spirit!

 Kids had some jobs at Church last Sunday - Emmy was the acolyte and Bobby rang the bell.  They love it when they get those duties.  We made gingerbread houses and also discovered that the kids are fully capable of folding laundry.  This is now a new chore!  Emmy had two CDCC performances.  Her dad got chosen by Connor Lundeen to do the reindeer twist up on stage.  Emmy told me later this was terribly embarrassing for her but I wondered if her teary reaction had more to do with two late nights in a row at these concerts.  I thought Robb's twist moves were great and Bobby sure enjoyed it too.

Emmy's solo

Christmas program fun!

 Bobby's class rang the bell to gather donations this year.  Bobby enjoyed helping.  Later he asked if he could also participate in the food drive at school.  I helped him choose some donations from our pantry.

 Emmy did a fantastic job and had a great time at the school Christmas program - Elflandia.  She had a solo singing part - "They choose diet soda with a big pile of fries."  Our whole family has been singing this line all month as it gets stuck in our heads as she practices.  She is referring to humans and how silly we are.  The elves can't figure us out!  She was really insistent that when a designated number of students run around in the audience to get 'Elfie selfies' with the parents that I make sure to have my camera out and ready to go.  I did get my moment and Emmy was very happy I took a selfie with her classmate.

Today was hat day and the kids had very specific ideas.  Emmy was from France and so she needed an entire ensemble.  Bobby wanted his baseball hat and jersey.  He actually forgot his hat at home but mom saved the day and drove back home and delivered it special to him at school.  When I found him in the hall on his way to deliver his canned goods for donation he was very excited to see me.  He ran into a friend as we were walking together and he told the friend,"This is my mom who brought my hat, she is my angel."  That made the special trip back to school worth every minute.  What a sweetie!

Shopkins Live show and a Fargo trip

We had a great weekend in Fargo at the Shopkins Live show and at our fun hotel.  We all slept together in the same room/suite, ordered pizza and sushi, enjoyed the waterslide and on Sunday went to the Shopkins show.  The kids enjoyed their day and it was a fun family trip.

Thanksgiving gratitude

 Emmy was in love with the new Emmel baby!  She was so excited to get to hold this baby and has big aspirations now to babysit, puppysit, etc

 We celebrated Thanksgiving with both sides of the family.  Grandma Candy makes the best hats and all the kids got Xmas hats.  Baby Emmel got the cute giraffe hat that we gave to him when we visited.

 Robb and Bobby went deer hunting for the first time.  Robb shot a doe and Bobby has taken all the credit.  He told me that he deserves most of the credit for telling Robb where to look, go and then for finding the doe once Robb had shot it.  He had many stories to tell about the leaving the guts in the river for the coyotes and other stories he shared once he was home.  Today on the way to school I looked in the back seat and there was Bobby in his bright orange stocking hat.  He was smelling his hat and had it pulled down over his nose.  He told me, "Mmmmmm, smells like the fresh smell of hunting!" and "Oh mom, the smell of this hat brings back memories of hunting."  He told me he was going to tell all his friends about the hunting success and maybe even his teacher.

Cub Scout Bobby

Cub Scout Bobby is reporting for duty now.  He participated in Chariot races this past weekend with his dad on duty.  Every team he was on was a winner as Bobby is a little work horse.  He enjoyed every minute of it and looked adorable in his little uniform.  Bobby is lucky to have such a great dad!  In other news this past weekend I played a day long volleyball tourney and the kids were there to cheer for me.  They were loud (sometimes maybe too loud) and when they got worn out of cheering they found these blocks to play with and had a great time doing that.  It was fun to have them there and my team did pretty well. 

Emmy sends a video to the Ellen show

Emmy wrote, directed and came up with the idea for this video I sent in to the Ellen show.  She wrote some clever lyrics and I was proud of her work!  We are crossing our fingers that she gets noticed.

Emmy the star!

 Emmy got some great scores on her testing the other day.  She is ahead of normal for every subject!

Emmy got to perform with her choir for the area 1st graders!  She was very excited about this and we came to watch her.  I took her out for lunch after she was done with her concerts.  We had a great time together.  Recently she tried out for a solo in her school Xmas concert and got the part.  She has been very excited about her singing talents recently.

Meeting the beauty queens

Emmy had a play date with her friend Izzy and her grandma took the girls to the Miss America (Miss North Dakota Cara Mund) Welcome home party at the Civic Center.  The girls met many reps from the pageant and Emmy once again got to catch up with her "friend" Miss North Dakota who remembered Emmy from their time together when she was at Emmy's school last month.  Emmy and Miss North Dakota talked about a future play date they would do together.  They girls had a great time!

Trick or Treat at U Mary

Carlos and Mal from the Descendants movie were in town trick or treating on the U Mary campus.  They met many nice U Mary students who gave them candy.  Emmy (Mal) and I stayed back on campus to watch the U Mary volleyball game since it was camper night.  She cheered for her favorite player who was also her coach at camp last summer.  Her coach threw her a little volleyball she had signed and stayed to take a picture with Emmy after the game.  U Mary won in 3 and Emmy got the extra popcorn that had been made for the game.  Bobby went trick or treating in the neighborhood with Cam and then later Keira came over to check out the kid's costumes since she was Mal as well.