Bickmore Buzz Dec. 11, 2016

By Lesley - December 11, 2016

Hello family!

How is everyone doing? This is the time of year when we LOVE Arizona. The weather is beautiful. We're excited to travel to Utah next week, but really dreading the COLD temperatures. We have one more week of school....yipee! This week has been tiring. Everyday, I would come home from school, change into my pjs and watch a Christmas movie with the kids. So far we've watched The Grinch, Elf, Home Alone, Charlie Brown's Christmas, Matilda (not a Christmas movie, but a great show!), Mr. Krueger's Christmas, and The Nativity Story. The boys loved Home Alone. It was their first time watching it. It's crazy to think that I was William's age when that movie first came out.

Along with Christmas movies, we've done some other festive things. We saw the Mesa Temple Christmas lights with Will's cub scout troop. We put up our Christmas tree...it crashed to the ground 2 days later. Isaac and I decided it was a sign. When I initially purchased the cheap, small white tree at Family Dollar three years ago, I said to myself, "This will be our PhD tree. It only has to last three years." And three years it lasted. Time for us to be done and move on!

We had our Christmas party at church last night. It was one of the best church Christmas parties I've been to. The theme was Feliz Navidad. The food was AMAZING. That is saying something for ward dinners. Sister Nunez is from Mexico and she made a couple hundred homemade tamales. She had a delicious recipe for Mexican rice and beans. There was also enchilada casserole and green salad. For dessert we had pie. The program was short and simple. Isaac sang a song on his ukulele "Las Posadas", a spanish song about the innkeeper. At the end, the primary children did a procession holding electric candles. You can watch it here https://youtu.be/l8O4GBy3JL8 Then the primary children sang "Picture A Christmas". Will and Van did a great job. On the line, "and can you see so reverently the shepherds kneeling there," Van pretended to kneel down. After the applause, William bowed to the audience. They're not shy boys at all when it comes to performing! You can watch it here https://youtu.be/GulaukQuXGE

After our church party, we went to Dr. Stauffer's house for her Christmas party. I can't believe that was our 4th Christmas party at her house. Time flies!

Overheard at our house:

On Thursday, the sister missionaries came over for dinner. William was asking them questions about hell. At one point he was clarifying when hell would be used as a swear word and when you would just be using it in a religious context. Van jumped in and said, "The angel told Mary 'Hell." It took me a second to realize what he meant. I corrected him, "No Van. He said, "HAIL, Mary. Hail is an old fashioned word for hello.'" We all started cracking up.
William pointed to the bottles of wine at Dr. Stauffer's and asked her, "Is that beer?" She said, "No that's wine." He asked, "Is it like beer?" She said, "Kind of." He asked, "Does it make you D-R-U-N-K?" She replied, "Yes. Yes it can make you D-R-U-N-K."
William--"Mom, Quentin said that Santa isn't real. He said that it's just my parents lying to me and that you guys give me the presents. I said, 'No! That's not true because my parents would NEVER lie to me, right mom?" "Right!" I said.

William took this artsy selfie. What a cool dude. The other night it was my first time to take him to Scouts. I pulled up to the door of the church, he hopped out, ran up to the door, turned around and gave me a wave. I said to myself, "I'm starting a new chapter in life--dropping off my kids to their after school activities and I don't have to stay!" William looked so big when he waved to me.

Coach Bushor took these photos of Van at the Turkey Trot. I hardly have any photos of my kids taken with a good quality camera so I'm so grateful she snapped these.