Christmas Letter and Activity

Thomason Family 2011 Christmas Letter and Activity

Our family took the 12-hour drive to Utah twice this summer. First for the Dale Olsen Family Reunion in Bear Lake, and secondly for Grandpa Eugene Olsen’s funeral in Orem.

In October we traveled to Arizona for Barry’s sister’s funeral.

Unscramble the letters to find out more about what the children have been up to this year. (Answers below pictures)

1.Marianne is twenty months old. She was a cautious baby, but has turned into quite an adventurous toddler. Maddy gave her the nickname __________.

                                                    apsz

2. Mackensey turned eight in July and was baptized. She is in the third grade and is learning how to play the _____________ in a club taught by her music teacher.

     trugia

3. Maddy (13) added money to her college savings account by selling her ____________.

                                                                                                                       irah

4. Avery wiggled six year old Makayla’s two loose front teeth every night for 2 months so that she could sing the song, “All I want for Christmas are my two front teeth.” They stubbornly stayed put until Christmas eve when big sister Maddy got involved and pulled out one. The second one required help from ___________.

                                                                                                                                                adydd

5. Mindy was excited to turn ten in November because she now can have _______________ with friends.

                                                                                                                       psesolrev

6. Benjamin (4 ½) loves going on outings with his dad, especially ______________.

                                                                                                         nmacpgi



Benjamin 4 1/2




Marianne almost 2




Makayla (6) All I want for Christmas...

 



Maddy (13)



Mindy (10) and friend

Mackensey (8)

answers: 1.spaz 2.guitar 3. hair 4.daddy 5.sleepovers 6.camping

Happy Birthday Mindy! Mindy has been telling people for weeks that she is ten years old. Now as of Tuesday it is official! She has definately been acting like a TWEEN!

Waiting in line to see Santa.

Mindy performed in choir on Friday night for the City wide Santa social, then on Saturday around town and the our church's night of nativity. She and Mackensey also sang Saturday night at the church. Mackensey did What child is this and Mindy sang Mary Did You know?

Mule drawn carriage rides, 20 degrees outside. Definately starting to feel like Christmas!

I was able to go with Mindy to see the Spokane Symphony perform a special concert for the Spokane area fourth graders. I was one of the homelink chaparones.

Mindy performed in her first choir concert for Veteran's Day. She joined choir a month late and worked very hard to memorize all of the songs so quickly. (We found most of the songs on youtube for her to practice at home.)

Our first snowfall. Mackensey is in her boots and coat over her pj's. I asked her if she got cold wearing shorts, and she said no.

We got nine inches of snow in three days. This is Ben sledding down the piled up snow from Barry plowing the driveway.  A few days later it rained for three days and now the snow is mostly gone.

We had this family picture taken on Thanksgiving Day. We were dressed nicely to go to our friends house and wanted a family picture taken. I had the tripod set up on the ground and Marianne must have touched the lens which is why the top is blurry.

Marianne and Ben play outside waiting for Thanksgiving Dinner.

We had a nice Thanksgiving break. We got a lot done around the house and had fun relaxing, too. It was way too short. Have a great week!

Halloween before Thanksgiving

Meeting up with the Buckley's on Main Street while trick or treating. Ben is in the back left with orange fangs on. He dressed up as Bambi. Marianne isa ballerina, Makayla a fairy princess, Mackensey is a dog and Mindy was Medusa.

We went trick or treating for the first time for our kids (and Barry). The ward has a trunk or treat every year that we go to instead of trick or treating, but this year the ward party was last friday night, which freed up Halloween! We had a blast! We went up and down both sides of Main street and it took an hour. We began at 5:30 and finished up at 6:30. The sun went down and it was dark around 6:15 and that is when everyone started getting cold, but we had to finish up the street. Everyone thought Marianne was so cute they gave her more candy than they gave the older kids (that didn't make any sense to me...).

Just thought I'd post Halloween Pix before Thanksgiving....

1st day of school

Due to extenuating circumstances, the girls started their homelink enrichment classes at the Chewelah elementary school a month late. They were so excited to finally go and see all of their friends.



This year Mindy is in the fourth grade and is finally old enough to join the choir and is looking forward to that that.




Mackensey is in the third grade and is taking guitar club with other homeschooled kids. She had a 45 minute catch up session with the teacher and learned what everyone else did in 5 weeks! She did great and loved it!

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Makayla has started taking piano lessons this year and amazes me at how quickly she is picking up on it.

We had a hot dog roast on our property Friday night. We have been wanting to all summer, but without rain for two months straight, we had to wait for the burn ban to be lifted.









The fire was too hot so Maddy was wearing this box on her head to be able to get close to the fire and still see through the holes. Marianne wanted to try it on...



Ben crashes on Sunday afternoon after trying to keep up with his sisters (stay up late, too).



The World is Mine

The World is Mine
Today upon a bus I saw a girl with golden hair;
She seemed so gay, I envied her, and wished that I were half so fair;
I watched her as she rose to leave, and saw her hobble down the aisle.
She had one leg and wore a crutch, but as she passed--a smile.
Oh, God, forgive me when I whine;
I have two legs—the world is mine.
Later on I bought some sweets. The boy who sold them had such charm,
I thought I'd stop and talk awhile. If I were late, t'would do no harm.
And as we talked he said, "Thank you, sir, you've really been so kind.
It's nice to talk to folks like you because, you see, I'm blind".
Oh, God, forgive me when I whine;
I have two eyes—the world is mine.
Later, walking down the street, I met a boy with eyes so blue.
But he stood and watched the others play; it seemed he knew not what to do.
I paused, and then I said, "Why don't you join the others, dear?"
But he looked straight ahead without a word, and then I knew, he couldn't hear.
Oh, God, forgive me when I whine;
I have two ears—the world is mine.
Two legs to take me where I go,
Two eyes to see the sunset's glow,
Two ears to hear all I should know,
Oh, God, forgive me when I whine;
I'm blest, indeed, the world is mine.

Tennyson Guyer (1913–1981)

This poem has been going through my mind a lot lately, especially this weekend as we went to Phoenix for Barry's sister Anna's funeral. She died at the age of 41 after battling cancer for 10 years. She and her husband have two children that are the same ages as our two oldest. Three years ago her leg was amputated due to the tumor that was on her leg.  She was a cheerful, loving person.

Barry's other sister (he has six sisters) was diagnosed with breast cancer last year and has had several surgeries dealing with that. He has another sister who is currently undergoing 9 months of chemotherapy for Lymphoma. They, and many others are courageous examples of faith in the midst of trials.

Barry and his brothers as pallbearers at the cemetary. It was a beautiful day!

This was taken before the funeral. These are the precious little ones that I get to kiss goodnight.

I haven't updated my blog in a while and I have a lot more pictures, but I wanted to get this out without delay. Have a great day!

Ir al camping!

For years our children have begged us to take them camping. This year we decided to just do it and get it over with! Friday night we had a campfire and slept in tents on our property. Everyone had a fun time. Ben packed his little backpack, but I grabbed some clothes and pj's just in case. I was glad I did - his back pack had a toy gun and orange goggles (see picture).

It all started when....

Two years ago one of my daughter Maddy's friend's older sister sold her hair for over $1,000. We were sitting around the dining room table discussing this news and I saw 4 daughters with hair below their shoulders. ChaChing! I asked them if this was something that they would be interested in doing to earn money for their college savings accounts. They said yes. I had long hair too and decided to join them in the quest, not wanting to ask them to do something that I was not willing to do. Two months ago I posted mine, Maddy's, and Mackensey's hair on an online hair auction site (similar to e-bay, but for hair). All of our hair measured at 18 inches. We were contacted buy a buyer from Canada who was interested in Mackensey's hair, but asked if she would be willing to grow it out to 24-28 inches (30 inches would be to her knees!) She agreed and over the next few weeks he offered to buy Maddy's hair and we cut it on Saturday. Here are the before and after pictures.



We were also excited when he asked Mindy if she would be willing to grow her hair out, too. (I'm just glad, she was feeling a little left out). What was Ben doing when all of this haircutting was going on? We put training wheels on Makayla's old bike and he learned how to ride cirlces around the shed. Look at the cool bike rack that Barry made!

Busy month of May!

The lilacs bloomed late this year. We had a LONG, LONG winter!

Avery has started another beginning ASL class that she teaches out of the home.

Happy Birthday Barry! Ben helps eat his breakfast in bed.

Field trip to Silverwood theme park. Fun day! Maddy hung out with the older crowd.

Hiked Quartzite mountain on Memorial Day. Beautiful day, beatiful hike. Busy day, too. Other things that happened this month: piano recital, band performance, jazz band performance, litter of four kittens born. Busy month, that is for sure!

painted ladies



Marianne in pink



Makayla sets free her butterflies from birthday present. It was actually fun and inforamtive watching caterpillars turn into painted lady butterflies. (The cage is a mess because the left over pink just ozzes out...)

Maddy in spring softball. She wants me to take a better picture. Says this one is showing her in "bad form". Notice Barry in the background as third base coach. He has been the assistant coach for her team.

Finally took our easter family picture before church today. Had a run through last week but didn't like the pictures - still learning the ins and outs of my new camera. Our last family picture was a year ago. Everyone has grown so much this year! I'm grateful for a wonderful husband and kids. :-)