A Hannah Funny

Last night, Steven and I got ourselves a new game for the Playstation, called Singstar 80's. We played it a little bit last night and quite a bit this afternoon. One of the songs we sang was Madonna's "Material Girl".

This evening on our way home from getting groceries and going to Costco, Hannah was in the back seat of the van singing about she's 'living in a fabric world'. LOL.

Their Own Movie Theater

Knowing ahead of time that the girls were going to be getting a TV for their room, I had been looking to perhaps get them each a bean bag, however they are hard to find.

Having seen them in the Target After Christmas ad, I found these cute little rocking, collapsable, five position adjustable floor chairs. I even went to two different Targets just so I could get two pink ones to minimize the fighting. :)

Writing Thank You Notes

The gifts have all been opened. Some things have already been played with. And now comes the writing of the 'Thank You' notes.

Christmas Day

Christmas Morning 2007 will be one that won't soon be forgotten, not for the wonderful presents that everyone got, or the time spent with family, it was the fact that we had no power for just over 10 hours! LOL. Due to horrible Santa Ana winds in the night, a few power lines snapped and fried together sometime around 1:00 am. We had to be flexible and make due, and a few new presents couldn't be adequately played with, like Hannah's new iPod, but it all worked out fine.

We arose and made ourselves 'picture presentable'. And did our stockings in the living room. The stockings were overflowing and it was determined that we need bigger stockings. LOL. I still have a bag of things that didn't get put into the girls' stockings due to no more room. After stockings, we went into the family room for the girls to open presents from us and from their out of state Aunts and Uncles. It was rather strange not having the Christmas tree lights on, or the smell of the coffee pot brewing. And it was even sadder that we couldn't load songs on to Hannah's new iPod because the computers were down, and the CD Drive on our laptop isn't working. Steven could only load one song and a sermon from Pastor Rick that were on the laptop onto her iPod. So for hours she listened to the same one song over and over again and even resorted to listening to a sermon just so she could use her new Christmas gift. LOL. Papa Steve arrived shortly thereafter, bearing even more gifts. Hannah was very excited to receive a Smart Globe and a really cool science thing.It wasn't long after and the rest of the family started to arrive. Gramma and Papa, Uncle Bart, Uncle Robbie and Auntie and ouf course the cousins, Haylee and McKenzie. It wasn't too long after and wrapping paper was flying everywhere! Our family room looked like a bomb went off! Hannah and Rachel got a combined gift from Gramma and Papa, a television/DVD combo unit for their room. Unfortunately, we couldn't hook the TV up right away...thanks to the power outage, but eventually it came back on and the TV went into Hannah's room and they are LOVING it!Once the power came back on, it was full speed ahead for getting Christmas dinner prepared and Robbie busted out his Wii and hooked it up. Soon our family room became the grounds for an in house bowling alley, a baseball diamond, a 9 hole golf course, and a tennis court! Who knew all that would fit into our family room. :) Everyone had so much fun playing the Wii and others had great laughs at watching those playing. We had a great day filled with lots of wonderful gifts and great time with our family. Now, comes the hard part of Christmas...finding homes for all the presents from the last two days!

Christmas Eve 2007

Christmas Eve tradition is to go to my Grandmother's house on my Dad's side of the family. It's something that Hannah looks forward to every year now that she is able to fully understand all that Christmas Eve at Great Grandma's house entails.

The evening starts off with a traditional dinner followed by a gift exchange, and in years past, a fun game or activity, but this year, Uncle Robbie brought his guitar and we sang Christmas carols, however, Hannah was so tired, she fell asleep before it was even 10:00! We had a great evening and as always, Hannah was spoiled by all her Great Aunts and Great Uncles and her second cousins. Tomorrow, we get to do it all over again and Hannah is very much looking forward to more presents and playing with her cousins ALL DAY!

Class Christmas Party

It's been a busy few days for me as Room Mom for both the girls classes. Today was the class Christmas party for Hannah and a lot of thought and preparation went into this one. The kids did a craft, passed out treat bags, made ice cream sundaes, had hot chocolate, played a game, and watched a short video at the end of the party.The kids had so much fun! Hannah talked about the party all the way home. There were a few moms who came at the beginning of the party to help out and it was so much appreciated because of all we had planned for the party. We have a great bunch of kids and parents and I really enjoy working with these parents. I think we all had fun!

The kids made a craft in which I found online. It was simple and cute and was dry by the time class was over. It was cute to see how all the snowmen turned out just a little bit different from one another.We had an ice cream sundae bar. All the students volunteered to bring the topping of their choice. Which made for some interesting toppings, such as Skittles, gummy bears, and gummy worms! The kids had so much fun picking and shoveling on their toppings. And then of course eating it all!While the kids were at recess, us moms sat for a break, and took advantage of the time and read through our kids' writing journals. Not much work comes home from school, and we're always hearing about these writing journals, but haven't seen them. We were very much in awe of our kids writings, imaginations, details, and honesty in their writings. As I thumbed through Hannah's journal, she wrote about such things as when her cousins visited from Oregon, date nights with Gramma and Papa, what she might be doing on vacation (prior to going off track back in September), her trips to Disneyland and how she loved riding Pirates of the Carribbean and sitting on the edge of the boat, and my personal favorite, writing about her mom on her birthday and how the only thing she wanted for her birthday were for Rachel and Hannah to be 'good girls'. LOL. Here is an entry about one of her trips to Gramie's zoo and Alta Dena the Cow.After the kids came back in from recess, we played a very simple but tons of fun game. Miss Barrett had told me of a parent last year that brought this in and how much fun it was. It was simply trying to toss a ball into plastic cups that were arranged in a tree pattern. The kids did such a great job at cheering each other on and bursting into cheers when someone made it into a cup or did something spectacular. It looked like so much, even us moms played. Here Miss Barrett demonstrates.After everyone had their chance at the game, the lights were turned off and the kids settled down to watch a cute Snowman video. Soon after, it was time to gather backpacks and jackets and say final goodbyes and Merry Christmas and the school day, and school for 2007 came to an end. Hannah is now on Christmas break until January 7th.

Our Student Of The Month

As Student of the Month, Hannah has a very full day at school today. This morning was the Student of The Month assembly and then at lunch, she has a special lunch for all the Students of the Month in the entire school (60 total). Hannah was pretty nervous about having to get up and accept her award She even gave us guidelines as to not cheer too loudly, or holler, or anything else to embarrass her. Yes, she's reached THAT age.

All the Students of The Month for Track 1. Our Student of the Month. Hannah and Alex,
the Students of the Month for their class, and the principal.

Christmas Craft

Hannah LOVES to do crafts. Awhile back, long before Thanksgiving, I picked up this adorable ornament craft for the girls to do one free afternoon or evening. With Daddy gone tonight and it being just us girls, it was the perfect night to make our ornaments!

Karate Belt Ceremony

This evening, Hannah advanced from a Green Belt to a Blue Belt. Following the belt ceremony this evening, it was Hannah's intention to inform Grant that she was quitting karate. While he was putting on her blue belt, he asked her how dance was and she told him she'd quit. He told her she couldn't be a quitter and that she needed to continue on in karate until she was black belt. LOL. Needless to say, with that being said, she didn't quit karate tonight.

Christmas Tour of Our Home

As a participant in Boomama's 2007 Christmas Tour of Homes, come, take a Christmas Tour of Our House.

Student of the Month

Hannah came home from school today with a letter congratulating her and her parents on her being chosen for the Student of the Month for December! We are very proud of her as this is something she's been striving for for months. There will be a special awards ceremony on Thursday morning and she'll get a special lunch that day as well.

The Art of Making Candy Canes

In the December preschool newsletter, the director shared of how she and her granddaughter had recently been to Logan's to watch them make candy canes. With out fascination for the show, Unwrapped, on the Food Network, I thought this would be a great and festive thing to do. So after calling and getting the details, that's what we did this evening.

The demonstration started off with us standing outside and watching through the window. The whole process from the start of flipping the sugary batch to the end of making 400 candy canes takes an hour and a half. The Candyman poured the sugary substance onto a large marble stone and flipped it and tossed it to have it cool evenly. He snipped a couple pieces out and added red dye to one piece and green dye to another. After that process, he put the bigger piece that he wanted to become the white of the candy cane onto this large hook on the wall and stretched it continually to add air bubbles and help make the sugar crystals form.Logan's make their candy canes with five thin stripes and one solid stripe. The next step was the Candyman cutting and piecing together the pieces of the five stripes. The batch is then stretched and pulled and cut to size. This size batch can produce over 400 candy canes! The red machine in the picture keeps the mixture warm so that it can be easily worked with through the whole process.The candy canes that were being made with this batch were cinnamon, and we were given warm samples! Which was were good!After the major part of the demonstration was done, you were free to wonder their store and of course purchase candy canes or other candy they make and sell. I happened upon this particular candy cane and purchased a few. The red ribbon reads "The heart of Christmas is Jesus!"It was a really neat outing, and at the end of the evening, Hannah said she enjoyed it and learned alot and couldn't wait to write about it in her journal at school tomorrow!

Karate Belt Test

Tonight was a Karate Belt Test for Hannah and she did so well that she's being moved to a Green belt to a Blue Belt!! On Belt Test nights, the instructor usually kicks all the parents out of the room, to cut down on the added pressure to the kids, so I stayed home. But tonight, they were in a different room and the instructor let the parents stay and watch the kids get tested. Steven said Hannah did an awesome job! She nailed everything precise and crisp the way she's suppose to. The Belt Ceremony will be next Monday. And then following the holidays, a new quarter will begin. Up until tonight, Hannah kept saying she was quitting after the belt test. But now that she's come home all pumped and built up, she's thinking about continuing on with Karate.

Birthday Party / Sleepover

Yesterday was McKenzie's Hannah Montana Birthday party. And wouldn't you know, Hannah made a guest appearance to the party. Pay no attention to her body guards behind her. The party was fun, but what followed the party was even better. Hannah and Rachel spent the night with McKenzie and Haylee and had great amounts of fun. Hannah especially loved playing Uncle Robbie's Wii. We all did...and now we're on a search to find one. LOL.