Chess Shirts!

Samuel and Jacque came home from school last Thursday with a big surprise. They were given chess shirts!! The best thing is that I didn't have to even buy them. Some how they are able to just give them shirts for coming to chess club. They must have a sponsor of some sort. The kids love them and are wanting to wear them every Tuesday and Thursday because that's when they have chess club. It didn't work this week because they were dirty, but I will try to have them cleaned for next week!

These are a couple of pictures I found still on my camera. Aren't they cute! I think its going to be the new style. We wanted to give everyone a chance to see this new fashion, so the girls wore them to volleyball that day. Looking at the pictures now, I can see why Aaron's might've been a little hesitant in letting them wear them, but if the girls wanted to wear them, why not...its only volleyball! Calista might've actually changed first, but I can't remember. Calista has always loved dress up and Ellen is starting to also. As soon as the kids leave for school, Ellen will run to her room and bring out a dress to put on. Then it will stay on until bedtime. Lucky for her, she has two older sisters that don't mind sharing their dresses with her. She's wearing one of Calista's dresses in this picture.

Fun Conversation

On our way home from Baker, somehow this conversation started. It seems like Calista was just saying a random comment, but when she gets bored she always plays with her belly button...so maybe there was a link...

Calista: Cats don't have belly buttons.
Samuel: Yes they do, you just can't see it.
Calista: No, because they don't have shirts.
Samuel: Their fur is their shirt!

Pretty random! I enjoyed listening.

We did it!

Aaron and I finished the Old Testament before the end of the year. When we started reading, we were reading 10 pages a night because it would give us some leeway when the holidays came around, or when Isaiah or another "fun" book came up. We were scheduled to finish on December 15th, but somewhere around Thanksgiving we missed 10 days of reading (good thing we had planned for something like this). We decided that rather than try to catch up, we could just finish on Christmas. We had a couple more nights where we didn't quite read our 10 pages, so on Christmas Eve Aaron read all the way to Malachi while I wrapped presents (I think it was about 25 pages he had to read). We figured that it would be so easy to read the next four pages on Christmas...but Christmas came and went...and pretty soon it was New Year's Eve and we hadn't finished yet. Luckily it was only four pages, and we finished by 5pm December 31, 2009! We still made our deadline of reading the Old Testament in 4 months!! It was a fun goal, and now we just need to decide on the next set of scriptures to read!


Another topic...We just got back from a nice week vacation to Oregon! It was so nice to actually have a long break. Aaron and I haven't been able to take this much time off since we got married and it was fun for all of us. The kids still weren't ready to come home, but I am grateful that Aaron was able to get away from work for so long.

We got a sled for Christmas and we were able to bring it to Baker and go sledding! The kids had a lot of fun...well except for Ellen. She enjoyed the ride around the house until she got on unlevel ground and happened to fall off on her face. After that she didn't like it anytime the sled started to wobble, she'd cry and say "Whoa!" The next day, we drove in James' pickup to a good sledding hill and Ellen liked riding in the pickup. She even let me carry her to the top of the hill. When I went to sit down, she was hesitant, but since I was holding her tight, I think she felt safe. I was a little hesitant myself to go down, seeing how steep it was, but Aaron was on the bottom and encouraged me to go down anyway. We took off and at one point I thought we were going down too fast, so I stuck my feet out to slow us down. It worked, but it also covered Ellen in snow. I think Ellen held her breath until we reached the bottom, and then she started to cry, and she said, "No fun...no, no, no fun!" I figured she just didn't like the height, so we did some smaller, less exciting ones next, but she still kept with the same comment. She did enjoy making snowballs for Aaron to throw at Eli, and eating snow, and poking sticks in the fire, but sledding was "no fun" for Ellen. The rest of the kids loved sledding and didn't want to leave. I think we made some good memories there.

On the way home we were in and out of fog, but just outside of Farewell Bend, at the top of the Three Mile hill, we really ran into dense fog. I was nervous because we couldn't see the road very well, so I said a silent prayer. As soon as I was done, the fog lifted and I figured it was because we were starting down the hill. But then I could see stars up above. Just then Samuel and Jacque said, "We both just said prayers so the fog would go away...and look...its gone!"

I thought this was a great spiritual experience for all of us and it made me happy to see that they have a testimony of prayer! Samuel said that he wants to bear his testimony of this tomorrow in Church. I hope he still remembers tomorrow!!

Chess Tournament

Samuel and Jacque have been in the chess club since the beginning of school, and last weekend they had their first practice tournament. They got to go to another elementary school and play kids that they hadn't met before. I think they had a lot of fun. It was neat to walk into the gym and see several tables full of chess boards, all ready to go.

Samuel did really well. This is his first opponent. I think he got to play a total of 4 people. The kid actually had Samuel checkmated at the beginning of the game because Samuel moved a pawn, putting his king in check. They had a rule that if you touched a piece, you had to move it. Samuel had touched his pawn, so I guess he had to move it, although I don't think you are allowed to put your king in check either. However the kid didn't recognize that he had"won", and the game doesn't end unless someone calls out checkmate. So if you don't realize you've won, then it doesn't count. You could take turns checkmating each other throughout the game and still not finish.

After that, Samuel dominated the game. He does a great job killing the other person's pieces, especially if he has his queen, but he has a little bit of trouble finishing the game by capturing the King. Last night Aaron worked with both Samuel and Jacque on how to finish the game. They aren't experts but I think if we keep up the practice, they will be fine chess players soon. I think he had 1 win and 3 draws.

Jacque was a fun one to watch. I was a little worried that they had matched her up with this girl. The girl looked like a fifth grader, and I thought Jacque was going to get creamed. However, I don't think the girl knew much about chess. As I was watching Jacque, she'd move a piece and then say, "Look, now you can kill me with your piece right here!" and the girl would do what Jacque told her to do. Jacque would kill the other girl's pieces every now and then too. Her other two games went similarly. At the end of the day, after having 3 draws, she was a little disappointed that she never won! I tried to comfort her by telling her that even though she didn't win, she did a great job teaching the other kids to play!

On the way to the tournament, Aaron commented, "You know what would make this tournament interesting? If they had one for the parents too!" Well after 45 minutes of being a very supportive dad, the tournament got very interesting! I looked around and found Aaron with one of Samuel's friend's dad. They played two games, Aaron won the first game and Ryan won the second. They both enjoyed it. Ryan is supposed to be a really good chess player and was glad to have someone who could challenge him. Aaron felt the same. He's a little rusty because he hasn't have anyone to really challenge him for years, but he and Ryan might be getting together again to play.

Calista and Ellen were good sports. Most of the time they just sat on the floor and played with some extra chess pieces laying around. We had to leave the tournament early because after an hour of "playing" chess, Calista and Ellen had had enough fun!

FHE Visitor

This week our visitor was Esther! Calista got to choose her own costume and I think she did really well. I like the first picture (not smiling). It kind of makes her look "royal." Then the second picture really shows Calista's personality. I thought about shortening her "train" but Calista wanted it long and loved walking around with it just dragging behind.

The kids knew this story pretty well since we have a movie, "Esther and the King" from the Liken the Scriptures series. I am very impressed with this company because the movie follows the scriptures really well. It has real people acting, not cartoon character, and its a musical. I really think everyone should get this movie if they have daughters because it shows that the most important thing is being yourself and putting your trust in God.

I'll chalk this one down as another successful Family Home Evening!

Samuel is 7!

I can't believe that 7 years ago I was a mother for the first time! I am so thankful to have Samuel as the oldest child in our home. He is such a good example to the rest of the family. He is very kind and considerate of others, especially when someone gets hurt. He's responsible, respectful and safe. At school he is a self-manager, which means he gets special privileges. He has been a more faithful reader than I have been to reach his goal of reading the Book of Mormon. There are many nights that I think it is too late to read, but he is willing to stay up a little longer. We are almost done with 2nd Nephi and his reading is already getting much faster. I'm always amazed at some of the words that he can read or sound out all on his own.
We had a fun birthday. Yesterday we made a cake and took it to Tricia's house for a mini b-day party. Tricia watched our kids while Aaron and I went to the temple. When we got back we visited until Calista, Ellen and Caleb got up from their naps. (Tricia was so nice to put them down for a nap!) Then we ate cake and the kids got to play a little longer with their cousins. They must've played hard because both Samuel and Jacque fell asleep shortly after starting our drive home and they were still tired enough to go to bed at bedtime!

Mom gave me a cupcake decorating book last year where we saw a cute alligator. Samuel decided he wanted a cake and not cupcakes, which sounded easier to me, and we followed the decorating instructions. It was fun to make and yummy to eat.

Growing up we always had the "spanking machine." Whoever had the birthday had to crawl through everyone's legs while they were spanked (lightly of course). You had to go through the tunnel the same amount of times as your age, so Samuel had to go through 7 times. He was a good sport. It was fun to have Grandma and Grandpa Baxter here!
For his birthday, we got Samuel an alligator so he would be able to remember his cake, a pair of pants (not pictured) because all of his other pants have holes in them, a transformer carrier airplane - which came with a small transformer truck which fits in the cargo bay, and a toy pirate pistol. I think he enjoyed them all.

New Christmas Advent calendar idea

We grew up using an advent calendar that had a bear going from outside to inside the house, from room to room, looking for Christmas and he finally found it on Christmas day.

At Thanksgiving, I overheard my sister-in-law talking about another idea. You use the the advent calendars with the pockets on the bottom. In each pocket you have an activity that you can do as a family or with the kids to celebrate the Christmas season. You can make cookies for a neighbor, read a book on Christmas, watch a Christmas movie, make ornaments, put up the tree, decorate the tree, build a snowman, making paper snowflakes, play a game...etc.

It sounds like lots of fun. Some of them might need to be moved along the way, because you might not have snow on the day chosen for the snowman, so you can save it for a snowy day! Depending on how many ideas you have, you can do it for the whole month, or make it the 12 days of Christmas! You can also repeat several of the options to lengthen it out.

It sounds like a fun way to spend the Christmas season with the family. By the way, my brother-in-law makes awesome snowflakes. He made one with carolers on the outside, and another with angels. See how creative you can be!