Christmas!!!

Christmas Eve dinner! It was delicious and the company was fantastic. It was sweet to remember my mom as we used her much loved Christmas dishes. In front of each place setting is an English Christmas cracker. As you pull them apart there is a delightful popping/cracking sound and inside is a little toy prize and a colorful paper crown (later used by the wise-men in the program).





Elinor was the all purpose angel for the pagaent. Please notice her costume made from a white garbage bag!
Clark and Bethany share a peaceful moment as Mary and Joseph.





Cannon starring as the baby Jesus.





Abe, Matt and Dev as the Wise-Men.














Christmas Morning!!!! The kids didn't wake until about 7am, which I really appreciated! We gathered in our room and called Uncle Matt and Aunt Misty, who were staying at Brig's house. They wanted to be there to see the kids open gifts. We moved across the hall to the girls room where we could look out the window to see them come.


Faith received this My Little Pony baby from Clark and I think it was her favorite present. Faith was really funny when she opened a present. She would get a really serious look on her face and we couldn't quite tell if she liked it or not. She would kind of purse her lips like she was afraid to have such a wonderful thing.


Elinor was in Polly Pocket heaven this Christmas and Bethany was in Littlest Pet Shop heaven. I enjoyed watching Mama Mia!


Clark shows off his stash. He has enjoyed his microscope and new lego set.




Cannon got a new blankie I made him.






BUT--- the really fun thing has been the Wii. Yes. We have succumbed and allowed Santa to bring us a Wii. That is fun.




BUT--- the really really fun thing was what Matt and Misty gave our family. ROCK BAND! Now that is really really fun. We've been having a blast.


Chip and Misty rock out.

Clark has been practicing and getting pretty good on the drums. The girls look like his fans in this picture!


Bethany and Faith set up a little tea party for themselves.

Coming up for air. . .

I feel like I am finally coming up for air after being immersed in Christmas festivities for the last week. And what a glorious Christmas it was! The first half of the past week was CRAZY busy with Christmas parties and gatherings. The last half (post Christmas) has been DELIGHTFULLY uneventful being home and playing with new toys!
Where to begin? Here was about the best thing about Christmas this year--
My brother Matt and his wife Misty (in the picture with Cannon) made it home to Utah for Christmas. They are living in Vancouver, WA and they were hit HARD by Old Man Winter the week before Christmas. It was doubtful if they would make it after getting their car stuck and then a cancelled flight and finally a rental car to drive on very unsafe snowy roads the whole way here. They arrived just in time for the Cannon/Behunin Christmas gathering on Monday night. We were all so happy to see them.



Here is Naomi from England! She has been good friends with our family for about 13 years and she came to Utah for Christmas and stayed with my sister Brig and her husband Dev. She brought us authentic mincemeat pies, cadbury chocolates, and a Christmas pudding!

Here is Clark's newest pet, Fritz the inguana. I didn't particularly want this new addition, but Clark found someone selling him on KSL classifieds for $15 and he bought him with his own money. I must admit he has been great so far and very easy to handle. Clark loves it!


We gather each Christmas season with our family friends, Barbara and Allison for good food and gifts. It was great fun as always.

Here is Allison with our kiddies. Faith particularly loved the doll cradle she received. She has been very protective of it!


Abe is a male model sporting his new blue sweater and "blue steel" look. (refer to the movie, Zoolander).


Cannon shows off his new handmade sweater (made by Barbara)!

Here is my dad and my Uncle Spencer at the annual Cannon Family Christmas Eve morning breakfast. I LOVE my family. They are the kindest, most welcoming group of people you will ever meet. The breakfast is an event very much looked forward to.

Christmas is coming!

Christmas is coming
The goose is getting fat.
Please put a penny in the old man's hat.
If you haven't got a penny,
a ha' penny will do,
If you haven't got a ha' penny
Then God bless you.

I love this little song. My mom use to sing it many many times each Christmas season and now I find myself singing it over and over again. So tonight as we were driving to Daniel and Lori's for dinner Abe said excitedly, "Christmas is coming!" In turn each of the kids called out the next line to the song.

Yesterday was our kids' Christmas party with some of the neighborhood kids. The kids were so excited. Here are some pictures of the festivities









Here are the ladies stringing popcorn. The kitchen floor was covered in popcorn, but it was fun. I had never strung popcorn before, so I did a sample string the night before. It was fun, but I don't think I need to do it every year.



Here are the boys. Notice the mistletoe hanging above the stairs. The boys are horrified by the thought and avoiding passing directly under it.





The Christmas crafts didn't hold their attention very long they headed outside for a snowball fight. Good choice.

Faith and her best friend, Abby. They just ate candy canes together. Abby talks really well so we think she is good influence on Faith!

The aerial view. Popcorn stringing was in the kitchen, and cutting snowflakes was down in the family room. Then we frosted gingerbread cookies in the living room.




We ended with a very spirited game of musical chairs. The girls holding Faith won the first round. She played the whole game pushing Faith along in front of her and then they won the whole thing.




Here is their celebration photo! They were quite please with themselves. Musical chairs can be risky, but everybody was a good sport.

Little Bo Beep has lost her book. . .

Little Bo Beep has lost her book and doesn't know where to find it.
Did you know I am bilingual? Yes, I speak fluent "English" and "nursery rhyme". Pretty much any situation can be translated into "nursery rhyme".
Well anyway, I have lost my book that I'm reading, The Girl of the Limberlost, and I can't find it anywhere. I have lots of other books I would like to read, but I wanted to read THIS book and I'm having trouble shifting my focus to another book, because as soon as I do, I will find my book and then will have to shift back. Hmmm. I guess I'll have to check it out from the library.
Here's a shout out to all my mother friends--- do you ever feel like Shakespeare's, King Lear? Here's a little recap: King Lear wants to give all of his kingdom to his three daughters, two of which are very selfish and greedy and UNGRATEFUL! They pretty much plot to destroy him and each other and take everything for themselves. King Lear goes completely kooky.
Sometimes you do something REALLY nice for your kids and they aren't very grateful. I feel a little like King Lear tonight.

I HATE snow clothes

Clark has been planning to build a snow fort since last winter. We have had a pretty good snow here and so all of his focus has been on his master plans for an awesome snow fort/ igloo. . He has drawn them out on paper and worked like mad to get all his school stuff done so he can head out. I like this and encourage such an activity. Here's the problem

I know she looks, cute but a two year old cannot properly dress herself to go outside in freezing cold, snowy weather. First off, Faith changes her clothes about five times a day. Only she doesn't wear regular clothes. She just changes pajamas. I guess they are the easiest to get on and off. Anyway, she has on a nightgown and a very thin wind breaker. (Come to find out later, she had taken off her diaper so she was really unprotected from the elements). The other children who can pretty much get on their own snow stuff (with a little help with pesky gloves and boots) have all joined Clark outside on his quest. Although the girls do remind him, "Clark, you don't OWN the snow!" in a rather whiney sisterly voice. Faith is just working her darndest to join them.
I had to break the news to her that although she had done a good job getting her snow clothes on by herself, she really needed a little help with the final touches. THIS WAS UNACCEPTABLE!!!! So now the problem was this---



















Then there is the aftermath. I shouldn't complain. I do enjoy the few quiet moments when they are all outside playing. However, I do worry that someone will get stuck in the snow fort and suffocate or something. What a dumb thing to worry about.


Clark played in his first Jr. Jazz basketball game last Saturday. He LOVED it! He is the center (he's the tallest on his team). He told us, "I'm probably the worst shooter on the team, but I am the BEST blocker!" It was pretty fun watching his game. Abe and I got surprisingly into it. I did have to remind Abe that as spectators we were just suppose to cheer and not offer advice to the players during the game.

SNOW DAY!

Oooh, it is a wonderful cold snowy, excited for Christmas kind of day. My baby is napping, my toddler took a nap. My children are playing nicely. I have cooked good food and we've even gotten school done. What is going on???? Was I bit by some super spider or something that is giving my extra powers? I like it. Too bad you can't bottle days like this for the not so good days.




This very attractive family picture was take at our Thanksgiving gathering. I am so proud.
I like how even Cannon is making a silly face!


Here is Clark at a recent piano recital. Just yesterday he and Bethany played a duet of "Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel" in Sacrament meeting. I don't think they were nervous at all- at least they didn't tell me if they were. I thought I was going to have a heart attack as they were walking up to the front, I was so nervous for them.

"The Legendary"

Here is "The Legendary". That is the name the children gave to the largest of the trash catfish Clark "rescued" from the dried up canal. So, we still have a tank full of catfish and a cooler full of crawdads on the front lawn. What are we going to do with them? I don't know. I guess I keep hoping they will die, but two weeks later they are almost all still alive. Dang, they are durable. Every morning Clark goes out and breaks the ice that's frozen in the tank. Clark was begging to cook one up; so "The Legendary" is no more. Abe said it was pretty gross. I think it was probably poisonous. It sure did make the house stink! Do you get Mom-extra-credit for stuff like this??

Here is Elinor going fishing in the tank. The fish are quite a conversation piece when anyone comes to the door!








There are probably about twenty of these!













Now does this look like two year old girl heaven or what? Faith got into the Ovaltine and was spooning it into her mouth for a while before I wised up. She was QUITE pleased with herself as the pictures show.


















Elinor likes to help take care of Cannon. Well, she likes to hold him for about 10 seconds and then yell, "help, I can't hold him anymore!" So helpful!







I don't know if it shows very clearly in this picture, but the girls have created body art on their Care Bears with my sewing pins. It started out as earrings on their stuffed animals, but this was much more exotic. The pink elephant is an Indian Princess!
We had out the sewing stuff because we were working on a blanket for Cannon for Christmas. My dad took Clark exploring around the Jordan River for about 2 1/2 hours so we girls did girly stuff!




What a little cutie (Cannon, not me!) This was taken while we waited for Bethany's violin recital. She did very well. She played The Two Grenadiers by Schumann. Also she and Clark played Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel. Right after the recital we rushed back to our ward Christmas party. We arrived in time to see Santa.




Cannon's first visit with Santa. He was pulling pretty hard on Santa's beard. Do you think he suspects? Faith was so excited when Santa came but it took a couple of times of going by him to be brave enough to sit on his lap. She is asking for a choo-choo train.

Having Santa there reminded me of when Elinor was Faith's age. She was HORRIFIED of Santa. We couldn't even be in the gym when Santa was in there.





We are so happy to have Abe around again. He finished his classes this week. He did a good job getting everything done. We are watching the Matthew Broderick Music Man while I write this. It is good to relax a bit.