A few more things happened in December that I haven't posted about!
My Dad was asked to be in charge of the entertainment for their ward Christmas party this year. The theme was Hawaiian, and he hired a professional Polynesian dance group to come and put on a half-hour show. He asked all the girl cousins (his nine granddaughters) if they could provide the "warm-up" act! Well, most of our girls don't know how to dance very well but one of the teenaged girls from the Polynesian group taught them a fun little dance, which they worked on for about a month before the performance. I took video of the actual performance so I don't have any stills! But here are the girls in a classroom at the church that night, getting into costume and doing one last run-through of the routine. They were SO cute and did a great job.
They also performed this same dance at our traditional extended family Christmas Eve Eve talent show.
Earlier in the school year Molly joined the school chorus and has loved it! She goes once a week after school to practice. In mid-December they had the fun opportunity of singing at the State Capitol, in Phoenix.
Here she is in the Capitol; it was a fun experience.
The following week, the chorus sang again for their concert. But, this year they combined the Chorus, Band, and Orchestra into one big concert! They held it at a local high school auditorium; it was great to have comfortable seats and more space than when we have the concerts in the elementary school cafeteria. Having all three groups perform, it was a little long, but not too bad. Here's Molly, front and center with the school chorus.
That night we had lots of cousins involved: Molly's in chorus, Brooklyn's in band, and Noah, Molly, and Tyson are all in orchestra. Aaron took some video of the orchestra playing, but no still shots! We weren't very well prepared with cameras that evening. I accompanied the orchestra on the piano, which I hadn't done before and it was really fun. I love our kids' orchestra teacher; they play really well and sound great under her direction.
On the last day of school Noah had Battle of the Books. I don't know that I've mentioned this before, but every quarter of the school year, the kids who are involved in Battle read four books, and then at the end of the quarter they have a quiz competition. They have to know those books inside and out! The kids who are really serious about it read the books several times each; Noah has only read them once each and with both the Battles he's had so far, his team has done an average job. There are two other boys on Noah's team, but this time around one of them couldn't participate. It's a pretty fun thing and Noah was excited to be on a Battle team this year.
Right after Battle of the Books that day, I went to Noah's classroom to put on his class party! I was not originally going to be Noah's "room mother" but through a series of events I ended up becoming so. I had a lot of fun with the party; we had pizza & punch, did a craft, cut out snowflakes, did a holiday word scramble, had a one-handed-present-wrapping team competition (which was hilarious), and did a book exchange. It was busy for me getting ready for the party and then executing it -- but it was fun! (And I left my camera in the car.)
It seemed like there was something on the calendar every single day in December, but it was all good stuff :)
The theme of Molly's 4th grade music program was Arizona (and it was on February 14th, Arizona's 100th birthday!) They were told that they could wear something "western" or else Hispanic or Native American to represent the history of our state. We eneded up borrowing this cute square dance dress from a friend; it was way too big on Molly but with a few safety pins we got it to work just great! 
There were a total of about 36 contestants: the winner of each elementary school and Junior High in the district (it's a pretty big district). Noah did a great job; made it through a few rounds and then got out about halfway through the group (about half were left when he got out).
We're so proud of our Smartypants boy!
Here she is in the Capitol; it was a fun experience.
That night we had lots of cousins involved: Molly's in chorus, Brooklyn's in band, and Noah, Molly, and Tyson are all in orchestra. Aaron took some video of the orchestra playing, but no still shots! We weren't very well prepared with cameras that evening. I accompanied the orchestra on the piano, which I hadn't done before and it was really fun. I love our kids' orchestra teacher; they play really well and sound great under her direction.
Right after Battle of the Books that day, I went to Noah's classroom to put on his class party! I was not originally going to be Noah's "room mother" but through a series of events I ended up becoming so. I had a lot of fun with the party; we had pizza & punch, did a craft, cut out snowflakes, did a holiday word scramble, had a one-handed-present-wrapping team competition (which was hilarious), and did a book exchange. It was busy for me getting ready for the party and then executing it -- but it was fun! (And I left my camera in the car.)
Here they are with their teacher Mrs. Speer, who Noah and Molly also had as their first grade teacher.
And, both Noah and Molly with their orchestra teacher Ms. Smith, who does a terrific job: 
They played some really fun songs at the concert and it was another good night.
