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.