Birthdays

December marks two birthdays in our family, Jenna’s and mine.  For mine Ben got me a cotton candy machine (interesting, I know).  Well it is fun and the kids LOVE it.  We are going to have a party and serve cotton candy one day. The cool thing is you can use any hard candy… so we have been making Jolly Rancher flavored cotton candy. 

  Jenna turned six this month.  It is weird to think that she is so big.  For her birthday we went and saw Tangled at the movie theater and a couple friends came over to eat cake with us (it would never get eaten if we did not share with others).  Jenna’s cake is an “oreo cookie” cake.  It was SUPER easy and I am so glad she changed her mind a few days before her birthday from the Cat in the Hat cake.

And the Glory of the Lord

This fall I have been participating in my church's stake choir and have been REALLY enjoying my night off (from the kids and home) once a week. It has also kept me busy the last few weeks. The video above is from our Christmas Performance. It is my favorite one that we sing (not neccessarily the best one). It is hard to see me in the video because the microphone stand is blocking part of my face, but I really do not mind.

Christmas Newsletter

Merry Christmas from the Rae Family

We have had a great year and we hope that all our family and friends have had a great year too. The biggest news of the year is our move in March. We REALLY love our new (to us) house and our neighborhood. We now have a community pool and we spent much of the summer there. We hope to spend more time there this coming summer. We are also enjoying our new ward. There are others our age in the ward, which has been a nice change for us.

Ben (32) has had a very eventful year at work. After 5 years at the Chamblee location, he moved to the Dynamo Alpharetta location to coach 2 higher level groups. This past month he had his first individual national qualifier and the Dynamo team won the Junior National Championship. He also had the opportunity to go to Colorado Springs this fall with 40 of the other top coaches from around the country. He spends most of his spare time playing with the kids or fixing things around the house

Jill (20-something) has been enjoying her children (finally getting used to this stay-at-home mom thing) and homeschooling Jenna. Jill has also joined the stake choir and has really enjoyed the night out of the house for practice. She just finished her Christmas Concerts and everyone says it was beautiful.

Jenna (just turned 6) has been busy being a smarty pants. She loves homeschooling and is excelling academically. She is a great reader and is breezing through her math book. She also made the pre-team for gymnastics and has practice twice a week now. She also enjoys her science class, Girl Scouts, her homeschool group, and playing with her new friends from church.

Westley (3) is growing into a wonderful boy. He started talking around the beginning of the year and has been improving ever since. We can now understand much of what he is saying. He LOVES his big sister and they play wonderfully together. I am also pretty sure he is the sweetest boy ever. He loves his gymnastics and science classes and is starting to enjoy playing with friends.

Charlotte (22 months) is SUPER cute but somehow has the worst traits from both Ben and Jill in one. At least she is quite athletic and adorable. She is working on using the potty and is doing quite well. I am sure she will have it down pat soon. She LOVES to read books and will read for up to an hour by herself. She also loves to play. “Play” is her favorite word. She is very social and loves going the nursery class at church.

Fun Pictures

So I have been sort of busy and not posting as well as I should which has left me with some random, fun pictures that need to be posted.

 

All the different colors of playdough (which I had just made the day before) were mashed together.

The culprit.

 

Westley trying to put it away.  I have not made playdough again since this incident. 

Twins. (Their clothes match.)  And we were at a very LONG stoplight (3 minutes) if anyone was wondering.

 

My silly girl.

 

The only picture of them decorating for Christmas.

An all too familiar sight at our house.

Children’s Museum

Back in November the kids and I went to the children’s museum with some friends for their free day.  The kids definitely had a great time.  Below: Here they are playing in the water and fishing.  Charlotte was COMPLETELY soaked after this exhibit.  Westley was pretty wet also. A couple cute pictures of Char in the food exhibit.  Above: Sliding down the banana slide. Below: Shopping at the grocery store.  She LOVED the shopping chart.  I guess she will be pretty excited about Santa’s present then.   Above is Westley shopping and running his basket of food back to the kitchen area so he and Jenna can “cook” it. And of course you cannot forget the moon sand.  Mommy enjoyed this exhibit too.  I cannot wait until my children are mature enough to handle it at home without dumping it all over our backyard.  (Yes, I speak from experience.)