Let the Festivities Begin

We're going to step back a bit into November and start the festivities with Thanksgiving. We hosted Thanksgiving dinner this year with all the Barton side of the family in attendance. There were 23 people total and we had a wonderful time eating, visiting, playing at the park, playing Ticket to Ride...and eating some more!

I'm usually one that waits until December 1st to break out the Christmas decorations but this year, with the 1st falling on a Monday (and I work Monday evenings), I decided I would break tradition and we decorated on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The kids always get so excited to find "their" ornaments and put them on the tree. Each year I buy them a new ornament to add to their collection and I put the year on it so they know what year they got each one.

On Thursday Landon had his preschool Christmas program. The kids sang songs about numbers, shapes and colors, recited Christmas poems about the different symbols of the season, and showed off their "Jack Be Nimble" skills.

(the #9 song)

(To my Kovacs siblings...any of you remember this song?: "This is a song about colors (colors). You see them all around. There is red on the stop sign, green on the trees, blue in the sky and sea. Red stand up, blue stand up...ah, the memories :)

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick...oops couldn't get the video to upload!

Landon loves preschool again* and his teacher had this to say about him in an email after the program...

"Landon did so well. He knows every word to everything! I've been so pleased with his "recovery" from whatever was going on. He is smart and fun and I love him!"

*Note to readers: The next section is mainly for journaling purposes for me but feel free to read on or skip to the next part...

When Mrs. Lee became concerned about something being "not right" with Landon, she mentioned to me when I picked Landon up one day that she needed to talk to me. She had previously told me about some issues that happened (another child taking a toy from Landon which upset him and another child hitting him when they were outside playing). The next day I told Landon he needed to eat lunch so he could get ready for school. That was the first time Landon told me he didn't want to go to school. I decided I needed to call Mrs. Lee to see what was going on. She could tell Landon would get anxious when it was time for "free play" time and then it got to the point where he would wouldn't play during free time and just wanted to sit on the couch and some days he would cry. I had talked to Landon before to see what was bothering him but really couldn't get anything out of him. Kathie and I discussed different solutions and she said she has really been praying to know what to do for him. How grateful I am to have such a wonderful teacher who is so willing to help each child individually and is close enough to the spirit to pray and know what to do. After my conversation with her, I talked more with Landon about playing with the other kids and how fun preschool is. We focused on the positive things and he decided he was going to be happy at school that day. When I went to pick him up, Mrs. Lee had a good report for the day. She told me she got an idea to start "free time" by partnering the kids up for play buddies. For the first 10-15 minutes of free time, they had to play only with their partner and then they could do whatever they wanted. That integrated Landon into the group again and he has done well ever since. As I have said before, we LOVE Mrs. Lee!

Later on Thursday was Parent Observation Night at Ashlee's ballet class. Rob was able to go since I had to go into work that night. I've been the last two years since her class had been earlier in the day so it was nice for Rob to be able to go this year and see what she is learning and how much she has progressed.

This past Saturday was a busy one and of course, a huge snow storm decided to hit Cache Valley, making driving around town not so pleasant. We started the morning with a ward breakfast and a visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus.

Later in the day was the Sugar Plum Tea Party performance. Ashlee's class danced to "The Waltz of the Snowflakes" from the Nutcracker. I was very impressed with how much Ashlee has improved...such a graceful dancer (definitely did not get those genes from me!) Here is the video clip from the performance. Ashlee is the second one from the left in the front row....