THE NEWTON'S

Santa Came!! The kids were thrilled with the presents they got! And then it was time to open the last present... a book from santa and a letter telling us to use the book to choose A DOG! We haven't gotten the dog yet. The family can't decide on what color of dog we'll be getting! lol! :)

We have a favorite family tradition each year of making a gingerbread house. We have been doing this for the past 5 years, with only one year skipped (the year we moved into the house on Dec 23rd! and even then, I baked the gingerbread for it, but we just didn't have time to make it). This year it was a dissapointment to us that the oven was broken and I couldn't bake our traditional gingerbread houses. So, instead we went and tried to pick up a gingerbread house kit to do. Unfortunately we couldn't find any gingerbread Houses... but we found Santa and his reindeer instead! Alex is missing from the pictures because he was so dissapointed that we didn't have stuff to make a gingerbread house, and he didn't want to participate in decorating the sleigh and reindeer. But the rest of us had fun!

I hope to get some pictures of the kids and Christmas morning up soon, but we had a great christmas! The kids got lots of wanted toys, and Santa left us a book telling us that we had to choose what DOG we would be getting for our family! We are still in negitiations within the family on what type of dog we will be getting, but when we finally make the decision, and get the puppy, we'll share a picture with everyone!

Last night for Family Home Evening we took the kids to Pop's for dinner and dessert.  Pop's is a gas station /cafe/ soda shop on Route 66.  It's along a stretch of farmland, and has like 500 different varieties of Soda Pop in the old fashion glass bottles.  It has glass walls that are lined up with a few thousand soda bottles in different colors, it's really cool looking.  And... it has this huge Soda Bottle outside lined with LED lights so you can see it from miles away.  Pop's  We had a good time, even if the kids didn't eat even half of the food... They have a diner there so we all got hamburgers and french fries, corn dogs and onion rings.  They have pretty large portions, and it was like half a bag of french fries for my one order, along with the large hamburger.  I was stuffed!  We had told the kids that we would let them get dessert, so although we were already stuffed, ice cream sundae's or milkshakes were ordered for...

Ashley had her very first piano recital last night. She started taking lessons this september and she did a great job!  She memorized her piece, and she even changed it just this last week.  She had memorized another song, and then got to this song in the book and liked it so much she switched. One of her friends takes piano from the same teacher and we got a shot of both girls together before the recital. Here she is playing her piece, I took the picture and it didn't turn out well, so I went to change some settings and take another picture, but I wasn't fast enough and this picture is the result... Ashley racing back to her seat. :)

Ashley's class had a play, and then their turkey dinner afterward.  They all did a great job with their parts.  They also made the Turkey's in the background. Here's a picture of Ashley, Ashley and her friend Peyton, and the Turkey she helped make.

The afternoon Kindergarten and Pre-K classes did a concert for parents and then had a turked dinner in their classrooms last week right before Thanksgiving Break.  Angela came with me and found herself a little overwhelmed with the noise of all the kids out on the playground.