This Little Family

I'll start off with Seth's lovely paper bags! He felt like the last group of "Christmas" paper bags were way too cute, so he focused on making these more "cool-Christmas" I think he accomplished that goal. We just wont tell him how cute the gingerbread dancers are. :)

This was a fun set from a certain movie that we LOVE! It's tradition to watch "A Christmas Story" every December and "It's A Wonderful Life" on Christmas Eve every year.

Decorating: This is always a favorite for the girls. I like to surprise them and decorate the cupboards like presents while they are at school. They love to walk in the door and see it all Christmasy in the kitchen. :) Poor Pip didn't understand they weren't really presents and was disappointed to find our regular plates in the cupboard instead of a marvelous surprise.

We love making these snowflakes and laminating them. We add a few to the collection every year. We've got about 40-50 now. :)

This is the pile of scarves we made to give out to the girls friends for Christmas presents. They helped make them. We also make about 50 more with girls from our church and gave them out to passerby's after we went Christmas caroling downtown.

PIP'S BIRTHDAY

Singing Happy Birthday with her friends.

Making a wish

FAMILY PARTY NIGHT!

She chose her favorite dinner: mac'n cheese with hotdogs cooked to look like an octopus.

We had our niece Sarah with us for part of the month. She was NOT impressed with the octopus. It took a lot of work to get her to try it. :)

Favorite dessert: Yummy Chocolate Truffle Cake!!!! (To die for- just so you know!)

We proceeded to celebrate a Very-Pip Birthday by doing all the things she likes...

Favorite Thing to Do #1: DANCE!

This little kiddo loves to dance and boy does she have moves!

Makenzie and Seth made her a crazy dance mix and we had a blast.

Favorite Thing to Do #2:

Play with play dough!

Favorite Thing to Do #3: Baking and Decorating!

We made gingerbread men. Look how pleased she is with herself. :)

The whole collection. :)

On to Hanukkah!

Ever since we lived in LA, Makenzie has had us celebrate this holiday. She had a teacher who was Jewish and taught her so many fun songs, games, etc. about Hanukkah and we've loved celebrating it ever since. We don't know how to say the prayers very well in Hebrew as we light the menorah, but we figure we don't have to do it perfectly. :)

Spinning the dreidel.

Seth and Kendyl being silly with their gold coins they won in spinning the dreidel.

December Events:

Makenzie's first middle school dance. Seth and I embarrassed her by telling her our first 6th grade dance horror stories. Mine included me wearing suspender-ed hammer pants and being asked to dance by a boy who played the air guitar the whole song. Then another boy sent his friend to ask me if I would dance with him. I had, had a crush on this boy since 3rd grade and was so scared/excited and wanting to play it cool so I asked his friend who the boy was again wanting to dance and pretended like I didn't know him very well. He said he'd have the boy I had a crush on walk past so I could remember who he was (so DUMB Karalenn!) Anyway, my crushs' friend came back to me and said that my crush had said never mind and I felt dumb and disappointed the rest of the night. He of course didn't speak to me again! haha

If that was bad, Seth's was even worse. At his first dance he saw another boy dancing with a girl with his hands on her rear so he thought that is what you do and when a girl asked him to dance he put his hands there too. haha He was really put out with his family for not telling him that's how you are suppose to dance and when he got home and told them his poor mother had quite the shock. We also showed Makenzie mega gnarly dance moves like the Running Man, The Sprinkler, Grocery Shopping, Roger Rabbit, etc. We also taught her real dance tips too, like where your hands really go when dancing slow and how to punch a guy if he tries anything funny. :) After I dropped Makenzie off I sat in my car in the parking lot crying for about 20 minutes. I hate that as she gets older I don't get to watch her go through miles stones as much as when she was younger. I know, I'm going to be a wreck when she goes on her first date or when she goes to college. Well as it turns out the night was a success. She said it was so fun and can't wait for the next one. She didn't even have any horrible embarrassing moments to report, so I guess she'll just have to torture her kids someday with grandma and grandpa's embarrassing stories.

Caroling with the youth in our church on the front steps of the NY public library. Makenzie's the one on the front in a grey hat. :)

We had a pretty good turn out!

Getting pizza afterwards! SOOOO good!

Makenzie's Winter Choir Concert. These are some of her favorite buddies.

Poor Pip couldn't make it through the performance.

Makenzie's art piece in the art show!

Seth and I performed in our church's talent show. We played the song that he wrote and sang to me and asked me out on our first date with over 14 years ago. :) It's so fun being able to play and sing along with my buddy. When we were first married it seems like we played guitar together every night. In the business of kids and night time schedule we don't get them out nearly enough anymore. A few nights ago the power went out and it was so fun to put our kids to bed by candle light and because they were worried we got out our guitars and played them to sleep. We stayed up another couple of hours playing songs by candle light and we even finished writing a song that Seth had written the chorus to 13 or 14 years ago while we were still dating. :) We are determined to get them out more now. It was a great reminder of something fun and romantic. :)

Sweet Kendyl was Mary in the Christmas pageant and had a solo. She worked for weeks on learning that song and when she sang it filled the whole room with the most sweet, clear, angelic voice. I couldn't believe how beautiful she sounded. Makenzie and Pip were shepherds and Pip's job was to announce the appearance of the star. In the middle of a song a star lowered and Pip tried to shout out her line 3 times and was shushed because it wasn't said at the right time. She then scream/cried in front of everyone and even though she made her sisters embarrassed she made everyone else love her more. :)

Christmas Eve!

We had a surprise visitor come to our door bearing gifts. Santa stayed and relaxed for 15-20 minutes (he was pretty pooped after all). He gave them each a gift- pjs. We have a tradition that we can open one present on Christmas Eve- which is always pjs. Then we get to sleep in them that night and wear them to open presents the next morning. I love that swirly fabric on Santa's suit. :) wink wink. It's the same suit he was wearing a few years ago when we caught him on tape here.

Here's the pjs I made for Seth. Pretty ugly right? :) Well that's the goal anyway. :) I tried to find silly ugly fabric to make his out of. They are so comfy. He says they feel like he's wearing a blanket. He gave me a red onsie footsie pjs with sock monkeys on the feet. They are awesome! And no, I wont put a picture of me in them on here. :)

For Christmas Eve we also always have some sort of fish dinner. That's a tradition that Seth's family has carried on because of their German ancestry. We had yummy salmon and it turned out great. My family always ate by candle light from a wood carved pyramid with angels that would spin around from the heat of candles. I found a picture online of what my mom's looked like right here. They are so magical and sweet. I found a cheap nativity one a few years ago and so we ate by that and it was a peaceful and happy Christmas Eve celebration. We finished up the night by reading from Matthew chapter 1, Luke chapter 2 and 3rd Nephi chapter 1 and acting it out. For some reason I'm usually the donkey and the kids pull my hair to stay on and take turns pretending to be Mary for WAY too long... so this year we did something different. We acted out everything using our little nativity set. :) My back and hair liked this way much better. hahaha

CHRISTMAS MORNING!

They're excited. Can you tell? :) We always have to tape their doors so they remember to stop and not run into the family room. I heard Makenzie wake, scream in delight, open her bedroom door, and get stuck to the tape, and then say "Oh Yah!" I think this is her yearly tradition of how she wakes every Christmas. hahaha You'd think after a few years she'd remember that tape was there, but nope, she's Kenzie, so she doesn't. :)

Running into the family room.

Magical morning.

One more set of pjs.... for the elders serving in our area. We got to have them for Christmas dinner and we wanted to include them in our tradition so the girls and I made them some ugly pjs too. :) One of the elders has a girl friend who is waiting for him while he serves his mission. She going to be a fire-fighter so we made his out of fire fighter material. :)

Pip helped me sew Elder Hajje's pjs. She put all the scraps into my hair as we sewed. Don't I look so beautiful?! :)

Here they are opening their presents.

Elder Montierth's look is priceless as he discovered the "firefighter joke". :) I had called their mom's to ask for their sons' favorite Christmas dishes and recipes and family traditions they have we could do with them while they are away from home. Elder Montierth's mom told me about his girlfriend and so it made it fun to tease him.

Looks like they'll fit! :)

Seth and Elder Montierth playing guitars while Elder Hajje talked with his family. Oh these wonderful elders! I can't tell you how much we love them. We are so lucky to have them in our branch and in our lives. They bring such blessings to our family and my heart seems to open deeper with each one I meet. I may never have a son so I guess I just want to be a mom to them, support them and feed them as much as I can while they work so hard. :)

NEW YEARS (with the Fillmores)!

Cute Kenzie and Sam

Silly Kendyl and Claire

Sweet Pip and Jane!

We are so grateful for this wonderful family. We had fun celebrating with them (tacos and game night) and then going home and celebrating as a family by watching family videos and drinking Non-alcoholic Coquito- (coconut egg nog)

We tried a funny trick on the girls too. When we got home from the Fillmores at 8:15 I began setting the clocks ahead by 20-30 minutes every so often until we finally got 2 1/2 hours ahead of the real time. We totally tricked our girls! hahaha They kept running to the clock to check the time and then would say, "I can't believe how quickly the time is going!" Makenzie was so giggly and kept telling us that she was slap happy from staying up so late and Kendyl was having melt downs and saying she just wasn't use to being up so late. :) So at about 9:40 the girls thought it was actually midnight! hahaha We drank root beer floats and wished each other a Happy New Year and they were in bed and asleep by 10pm. After they were in bed Seth and I snuggled and watched a great movie until midnight.

What a fun night and what a wonderful year. I'm so grateful for the blessings, trials, growth, and mercies of 2011. I'm thankful for the beautiful people in our lives and that we have been able to live in so many different places and find them all feel like home and discover wonderful relationships everywhere we go. Most of all I'm thankful for my Savior and This Little Family of mine. :)

Anyone that knows Makenzie knows that she's not "shy" in any way. :) In fact, she never has been. She has always been very open, precocious, and a tad dramatic. hahaha Which can be challenging as a parent, but when focused in the right direction bring a lot of fun and happiness to her and everyone around her. She also loves to sing and act and is comfortable being herself around whoever she is with and not worry about "being cool". This may just be something she gets to keep. I had always assumed it would go away as she grew closer into being a teenager, but I can see that she still keeps it with her. Sometimes her friends make fun of certain things and she'll laugh along with it or she'll tell them that it bugs her and ask them to stop- which they do amazingly enough.

When we lived in Los Angeles when she was much littler she was able to do acting for movies, commercials, tv, etc. and she had a lot of fun with that. We posted one of her commercials here on the blog a few years ago. The link is here. She was so cute and little I could squeeze her. :) She was also in "Beauty and the Beast Jr." at her elementary school and I got to help a lot with that, link about it here. We have had such crazy drifting lives that she hasn't been able to do much acting since LA for the most part and she has missed it like crazy.

Anyway, this year she is in a new school that is 6-8th grade and she wanted to audition for the play "Annie" that they are hosting. She figured since she was new and that she was only in 6th grade she wasn't very likely to get the role of Annie, but still wanted to be apart of it. I took some pictures of her before her audition because she looked so dang cute. Here they are below.

Adorable right?! :)

A few days after the audition she came bounding in the house so excited to tell me that she was in the play and that she was going to be a hobo in it. I danced around with her and congratulated her. She kept laughing really hard and finally the little booger admitted to getting the role of Annie! I screamed and picked her up and spun her around the room until we were dizzy. We jumped up and down and screamed for at least 5 minutes and fell down laughing. Then we spent an hour calling family and friends to tell them. She told me that when she saw they posted the Annie list she looked at the extras and didn't find her name and almost turned away feeling sad that she wasn't in it and then decided to just see who was Annie in case it was her friend Sam. When she looked at the top of the list and saw "Annie: Makenzie Hippen" she said her brain when blank from shock and thought to herself, "Makenzie... Makenzie... that sounds really familiar" and then it clicked and she wanted to scream, but there were a bunch of 8th grade girls freaking out around her that a 6th grader had grabbed the role so she smiled to herself and quietly ducked out walking backward out of the crowd. (That is exactly how she described it and I can picture the whole thing- I told you she's dramatic- hahaha)

She has been working her tail off. Everyday she has rehearsals for 2-3 hours and Saturdays are 4 hours. She walks around the house singing the songs and her sisters join in. It's the darn cutest thing to hear little Penelope singing "Tomorrow" in her little 2 year old voice word for word perfectly! Kendyl has become famous by association at her school and is always being asked to sing songs from Annie on the bus. One of the best parts for Makenzie is that one of her favorite friends, in a grade older, got the role of Miss Hannigan! They get to yell at each other, Sam gets to pretend to slap her and call her a drunk, and Makenzie gets to pretend stomp on her foot. They LOVE it! :) Here's a cute picture of them last year before a singing duet they did. Aren't they the cutest little buddies.

Her play is in a few months and we can't wait! All this hard work is bound to pay off. We'll post pictures, videos etc. when it's done. We love this Makenzie and the bright fun light she adds to our family and the wonderful example she is to her younger sisters.