Winter Break cabin visit

We headed up to the mountains on Tuesday the 27th.  It was pretty easy to get there and we were happy to have some time at the cabin since we had to miss a visit earlier in December because of weather.  On Wednesday, the weather was clear but cold.  The skiers headed out to ski.  

Here's Leo's selfie.

Here's Serafina's...

I took Mousse for a snowy walk, which he loved, of course. 

It snowed over night so we woke up to fresh snow on Thursday.  They didn't end up going skiing because of the temperamental weather, so Tom joined us on our walk, which was combined with a game of fetch. 

We drove home on Friday in a storm.  It wasn't all that great and it took us a while to get home.  It's good that our dry state of California is getting so much precipitation, but I have a feeling it will impact our trips this season. 

 

Christmas 2022

We had a nice, quiet Christmas with my mom.  On the 23rd, I made a bunch of cookies to distribute to friends and neighbors.  After we made the rounds in the neighborhood, we headed to a drive-thru light display.  We were the last entry time at 9pm and even though it was a chilly night, there was a festive energy in the air as people hung out their windows and stood up through the sunroofs of their cars. Serafina had her head out of my car's sunroof and was yelling "Merry Christmas" to everyone.  Tom and I weren't sure what came over our usually subdued child, but it was a fun outing. 

Here are some pictures of the cookies I made. Chocolate chocolate chip in the front and orange molasses ginger in the back.  

And of course a giant (messy) batch of Mexican wedding cookies. 

Even though there were still plenty of cookies around, both the ones I made and those we were gifted, Serafina said we still needed to make our traditional butter cookies for Santa.  So I whipped up the dough and we pulled out the sprinkles.  

We had a nice Christmas Eve dinner with my mom. 

Christmas is quite different with teenagers.  We didn't have to get out of bed until 8am!  They are also more low-key about everything.  There was no squealing or jumping up and down.  But there was a lot of gratitude for gifts and that's all I would hope for. 

Mousse gets excited about his gifts.  

He loves new toys. 

Christmas Day was lasagna day.  Tom made two full-sized lasagnas - one veggie, one meat. Here's all the noodles he cooked. 

And here's the end result.  They were amazing.  My mom came back over to enjoy them with us and then we froze a bunch for later. 

 All and all, a very nice Christmas holiday. 

Family Gingerbread House Competition

We decided to put a little twist on our annual gingerbread house decorating tradition and make it a competition. I bought a gingerbread "village" that included four little houses, one for each of us to decorate.  Then we invited my mom over to judge our work.  

We all had the same supplies to work with, and there was no time limit.  Here's Tom and Leo hard at work.  

Serafina and Nana.  

Here's the line up of houses.  

Nana choosing a winner and ranking the remaining houses. 

Here's mine.  I had structural issues and went for a monochromic aesthetic.  I came in 4th place. 

Serafina came in third.  Nana declared it "a bit messy".  Serafina was offended. 

Leo placed second.  Though his incorporation of a gumdrop chimney was appreciated, Nana described it as "a little sparse".  

Tom was declared the winner!  

 

Winter things

A big storm rolled into Northern California earlier this month, so we weren't able to go to the lake house like we planned.  We'll get a chance to spend time up there after Christmas.  In the meantime, we've been trying to have some fun and enjoy the holiday season.  

I took Serafina, Sunny and Leo with me to Cost Plus for some Christmas shopping.  The girls found this Barbie Dream House gingerbread house and talked me into buying it.  

They were quite proud of their masterpiece.  

Serafina and I went to see her friend Rozalynn dance folklorico at a Christmas Festival.  Their friend Arya was also there to cheer on Rozalynn.  

We also went to see Arya dance in a Nutcracker.  She was awesome and it was fun to see all the 6th grade friends again.  From left to right: Serafina, Arya, Rozalynn and Mia. 

Speaking of Nutcracker, I was asked, along with several other veteran moms, to come back and help with the elementary school Nutcracker because the last time it was performed was December 2019. 

Leo came along on Monday night to help.  I had him pose with the former Vice Principal, recently promoted to Principal, Mr. Fuller while he was in his sheep costume after he took the stage with all the little kids.  There are sheep in this version of the Nutcracker so they could give even more kids roles since Nutcracker is a very popular activity. 

Here's all the directors after the final show.  Well, all but the head director that tested positive for Covid right before this show.  She's the one that got me to come back even though I didn't really enjoy my time.  It's just not the same when you don't have your own kid in the production.  

After a brief recovery from the Nutcracker performances, we got to see Leo appear as a "special guest" at the middle school winter concert.  The music teacher called me herself to ask if he could attend the concert and demonstrate to the middle school kids how high school musicians perform.  

I'm sure she called everyone, but these are the five that showed up.  

They sat in the front while different groups of kids took the stage.  They know all the songs that were played, but when they did know and join in on a song, they sounded great. 

The concert was in the school cafeteria, which is also where Serafina had her school dance the very next day.  Yes, day.  Immediately after school, the winter dance took place in broad daylight.  According to Serafina, no one really danced and it wasn't all that fun.  But from pictures she took with her friends, it looks like she had a pretty good time.  

Here she is with her school besties Bella and Sidney. 

Silly photo booth pictures. 

She took some time this weekend to volunteer as a Teaching Assistant for the dance studio's Christmas Party.  She's a TA during the week for a pre-jazz class and some of her little friends were at the party.  Here's an adorable selfie. 

Winter Concert 2022

Leo started with the school band at the beginning of the school year and opted to play saxophone, even though this is a completely new instrument for him. Since the school is brand new, they sometimes make plans for events that don't actually happen because the facility isn't ready or they don't have the manpower to pull it off.  But last night, they successfully held their first Winter Concert.  The performing arts center at school is impressive, even though it's not finished.  It was close enough to done to host us last night.  

The school is small since it's just 9th graders currently.  So that means the band is small too, just 16 kids.  

The small band lead to a small crowd so I had the perfect seat to watch Leo perform.  I love an unobstructed view! 

Here they are playing "Holiday Sampler".  Leo is one of two saxophone players.  The other sax kid, Treyvon, has been playing for a while.  It made me extra proud that Leo held his own next to him. 

Star Wars is always going to be a crowd pleaser. 

Leo gave a snarky introduction to the song Seven Nation Army.  He isn't a fan of this song or the band that wrote it. 

Louie Louie was my hands-down favorite because of how Leo moved and grooved while he played.  

The teacher wanted some additional numbers to round out the program.  Originally Leo was going to perform a duet with another kid that plays guitar.  Unfortunately, they didn't get enough practice time to play that song, so the teacher asked Leo to perform a solo.  He played part of Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd.  It was great to see him play guitar as well.  He was one of only four soloist.  

Here's my multi-instrument musical master!  I was so proud.  I smiled the whole time and he was clearly pleased and a little relieved when it was over.  He said he really like performing in the theater because he couldn't really see the audience from the stage and that made him less nervous. 

I'm also glad that Nana got a chance to join us and see him play live. 

 

Thanksgiving break

We had a very nice Thanksgiving break.  Tuesday afternoon, the kids and I went to see the new Black Panther movie.  Wednesday Tom picked up a prepared Thanksgiving dinner.  It was an excellent decision.  I did end up making a pumpkin pie and a cheesecake, but I wasn't fighting for kitchen or oven space as Tom prepared a ton of dishes.  I just worked away on my desserts while we watched the parade.  My mom came over and the weather was so nice we sat outside for a while.  Then Tom heated up everything and we had a delicious feast with very little effort.  It was perfect for us.  

I took no pictures of people or dogs, just the menu and all the containers ready to go. 

Sunday afternoon my mom came back over to help us decorate the Christmas tree.  But before we could do the inside tree, Tom embarked (get it...bark!) on an outside tree project.  Mousse and Nana supervised while the kids and I did our best to help Tom, who made us all a bit nervous.  

The effort paid off and Tom's vision was realized.  It looks great! 

 

Tom's birthday at the lake

Tom's birthday fell on a Saturday this year, so of course we spent it at the lake house - one of his favorite places.  It was a really nice weekend enjoying the beautiful location and eating yummy food.  

On Saturday, it was really chilly but Tom wanted to get out for a walk.  We went to the Donner Memorial State Park on the other side of the lake.  It's been a long time since we've been there.  

Did I mention it was cold?  Oh and Leo has outgrown his snow boots so he did this snowy walk in sneakers.  We all survived, even after some slips on the ice (me and Leo) and plenty of complaining.  The dog had the most fun as always.  

We went to dinner at a pizza place and they had these comically large mugs.  Cheers to the birthday boy!

Sunday was warmer but the kids couldn't be convinced to come down to the lake with us.  It was gorgeous and Mousse did a lot of running around.  

We drove home Monday evening since the kids have the entire Thanksgiving week off.  I think Tom had a good birthday weekend.