Keeping kids busy

In the few days before Christmas, it was harder and harder to keep these kids busy and NOT counting and recounting all the presents under the tree! On Dec 22nd, we went to Walmart and let them browse the $.88 toys! One of the best finds of all was B'loonies -- and then we went home, and these three blew all shapes and sizes of bubbles! Thank heaven for good weather and tough balloons!!

Merry Christmas!

Here are several photos of Kira, Parker, and Austen with their new and prized possessions! For Kira it was a Razr scooter, lots of Barbies and Barbie stuff, clothes and pj's, and boatloads of new colors and other art supplies. For the boys it was their new Xbox360.

We hope everyone had as merry a Christmas as we all did!

Two girls and a play

Yesterday, we went to a play -- Kira and Abbi's first such experience. We saw The Story of the Nutcracker and the Mouseking. Anne blogged about it here: http://www.bloghouston.net/item/4535

We started out at Starbuck's for a special treat for us all, then on to the Berry Center (stadium, arena, and theater complex). We were all MOST impressed by the building, and really enchanted by the play and how it was produced -- interactively. Now I know what interactive theater is!!

And such lovely little girls, all dressed up for a special Christmas event.

Christmas concert

Last night, the Honor Band that Austen plays in put on their Christmas concert. It was marvelous. I took three videos, solely for the sound. There's really not much to see. It was even hard for Anne and me to find Austen! He's second-chair clarinet, but was not sitting on the end, for some reason. Here are links to the videos to hear them play:

Concert piece 1

Concert piece 2

Concert piece 3

Enjoy!

Christmas lights

In normal driving around in the evenings, I've been noticing the really great Christmas lights done up on some houses around here. There's even one to the south of me a little ways that has umpteen full strings of blue lights hanging from the top of a VERY TALL pine tree all the way to the ground. They have to have help from a utility company to get those lights up there!!



All this reminded me of this display that was making the rounds in email and elsewhere last December. I read that it was actually shut down well before Christmas, but I'm thankful that someone got it on video!! Christmas Lights <~~music by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

This orchestra will be playing at the Toyota Center in Houston in a couple of weeks. It's rather expensive, especially since my priority right now is getting Christmas gifts off to the people I care about!!