Arden's 1st Day in Primary

After being in nursery since he was 14 months old, Arden finally moved up to primary. He was super excited. He said "huge boys go to la primaria." We kept counting down the Sundays until it was time to go to primary. Every Sunday, for about a month, after church we would go the primary room and show him where he was going to sit, and what activities they were going to do. In our ward, the Saturday before the children move up to their new classes, they have a pajama party (photos to come soon). The children come dressed in their pajamas...(perfect, no getting ready necessary), eat breakfast, have games/activities, introduce the new Sunbeams, and meet their new teachers. Arden really liked the party.

We kept checking up on him on Sunday and he did very well. He came home singing I'm a Child of God, and the Sunbeam song.

That afternoon, we celebrated our successful Sunday, by going to the Main Quad, running around, and drinking hot chocolate.

Christmas 2007

We had such a wonderful Christmas. Last year, we spent Christmas by ourselves (which was nice). This year, we had Dean, Dirk, and Idalia come all the way from Germany to spend Christmas with us. We has such a wonderful time with them. The day after they arrived, we went to one of our favorite places near here, Half Moon Bay. They saw the ocean, played with kelp, and experienced the sea life in the tide pools. It was a wonderful day to go to the tide pools. Not too cold, and the tide was very low so we could walk all the way to the end of the pools...whenever Dirk emails us the pics of the tide pools I'll post it.

On Christmas Eve, instead of the traditional American Christmas dinner, we swithed it up a bit...we ate delicious steaks, potatoes (mediterranean style), salad and yummy drinks. The food was absolutely delicious and we (I) didn't spend all day cooking...this will definately will be the start of a new tradition. After dinner we re-enacted the Nativity story. We dressed up and Newel read the story out loud. We even ventured into singing a couple of songs. Arden was the angel, Dirk, Dean and Idalia played a couple of parts (shepperds and the 3 wise men). Newel was Joseph, I was Mary. You'd think Maya would get picked for the role of baby Jesus, but she was more like our audience/or the animals at the stable; and Arden's doll (baby Nana) was selected to play the part of baby Jesus.

Arden really enjoyed this. All night after the Nativity story, he kept calling me Mary and he stayed in his costume until bedtime. I found it to be wonderful that the story of Jesus was coming to life for him. After the story, we each opened a present and had dessert.

The next morning...we got up late...yesss, no early Christmas morning this year! Thank you Arden for sleeping in! We opened our presents and had breakfast. After breakfast, the Staudt family, Maya and I went to Muir woods. Arden and Newel stayed home to relax. It was a lot for Arden to take in, so we decided it would be best if he stayed home and played with his presents and relax. I'm also adding this picture of Maya with Tia Idalia...it's really cute. The bib says...Auntie loves me...but it was sent by Tia Dina =)