Moran Family Fun

Our Christmas this year was wonderful.  I really liked celebrating Christmas on a Sunday.  Going to church in the middle of the day was the perfect way to focus on the whole reason for Christmas.  We woke up around seven and met in the family room to open our stockings together.   Natalie was very excited about all the candy in her stocking After the stockings we all went downstairs to get our first look at the Christmas tree.  Like I said in an earlier post, I thought Santa should just skip our house this year because we already had so much.  But he came anyway because our girls were so good all year long.   Santa came! Samantha and Abigail were the first to come running to see all the presents Because we had church at 11 we didn't open any presents right away.  Instead we had a nice breakfast and then got ready for church.  We told the kids that if there was some time before we had to leave for church we could open some...

After the fun of celebrating Samantha's birthday had subsided somewhat it was time to start our Christmas Eve traditions.  Emily has been our chef's helper for the last little while and she planned our dinner menu and helped prepare the food for Christmas Eve.  We had honey glazed ham, mashed potatoes, brown sugar glazed carrots (lots of glazed foods), and homemade crescent rolls.  It didn't look like that much food when it was all on the table, but it seemed like a lot of food when it was time to eat. When dinner was all cleaned up and put away, the girls put on a Nativity play for us.  There was no parental involvement other than being audience members.  A few weeks before Christmas Eve, Emily got all the kids together and had everyone choose a part to play.  They gathered items for their costumes and on that one day they were all excited about the whole thing.  After that day I didn't see or hear any preparations for Christmas Eve.  Despite n...

Our Christmas Eve girl, Samantha, had another birthday.  She just keeps getting older and older and is now the big 7!  It was an exciting day with presents and cake and all kinds of birthday fun.  Here's seven great things about Samantha: She has a great smile and loves to share it with others.  Her smile has made many new kids at school and church feel less scared and more welcome. She has the biggest ears in our family and loves them - she will proudly tell you "My ears are humongous!"  She is talented.  Samantha can hear a song and then go pick out at least the melody on the piano and sometimes even more than the melody.  Once she learns a song it is in her head and memorized forever. She's sporty.  Samantha is a good runner.  She will go running with her older sisters and has no problem keeping up with them.  According to her coach (aka Dad) she was the best player on her soccer team this year.   She has style. ...

 Last week both Natalie and Samantha had Christmas programs at their schools.  I forgot to take the camera with me to Sam's school, but I did get some pictures at Natalie's program.  Natalie was Maria (Mary) and her main role was to sit quietly, hold the baby, and say one line - Danke ihr lieben Tiere (Thank you our lovely animals).  She actually did pretty well.  There was minimal waving at me and her sisters, and she sang along during all of the songs.  She has been singing one song in particular frequently since her performance, "Gloria, Gloria, Hallelujah." It's really cute, especially because she sings it with a little German accent.  I've uploaded a video of her playing the angel on Christmas Eve and singing it here on YouTube. Here she is singing loud and clear!  All the kids really belted it for  this song; it was so sweet. Natalie and Felix (as Joseph) waiting for the animals to come and visit the baby Jesus Saman...

I think Natalie had a great birthday this year.  Five seems like one of the special birthdays to me and I'm not sure why, as nothing big happens.  Still, turning five is something to celebrate and we had a lot of fun celebrating Natalie's big day this year.  Here's Natalie's birthday in photos.  Enjoy! Picking at the cake when she thought no one was looking I think this is her "I'm not doing anything" face She was so excited to make a wish Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you I was sneaky and used trick candles.  This was her reaction when the candles re-lit In the end she needed Dad's help to keep the candles out The #1 item on her birthday list?  This wooden ladybug on a spring The #2 item?  Hello Kitty Bingo.  Thank you Samantha! One of the things I sewed while on vacation - a hat, mittens, and  scarf set for Natalie Another gift I sewed for Natalie - a two tiered Si...

Earlier this month Jared had a conference to attend in Southern Germany and I went along with him.  We left this kids with some wonderful friends here and enjoyed some time for just the two of us.  We really didn't do too much.  Jared was in conference sessions during the day time, so we only had the evenings to have fun together.  I brought my sewing machine with me, set it up in the room, and spent most of my days working on some projects.  I even found a fabric store in town and bought a few things.  We stayed at the military's resort in Garmisch, the Edelweiss.  It's surrounded by the Alps and is a destination for winter sports.  In fact, the 1936 Winter Olympics were held in Garmisch. I expected the resort to look something like this in mid-December, but there wasn't any snow while we were there. The lobby of the hotel is really impressive, especially at Christmastime.  The tree is huge and the fireplace was just perfect. Whi...

We love the German tradition of Saint Nicholas day, which is every December 6th.  The kids put their shoes outside the night before and during the night Saint Nicholas, a Bishop, comes and fills the shoes with treats if they've been good and coal or twigs if they've been bad.   It's not a ton of stuff, just some candy, fruit, and nuts.  I usually buy a few things to put in their shoes because it's a nice way to start the Christmas season.  We have one wonderful neighbor who comes and fills the kids shoes every year - and not just their shoes, but the shoes of almost all the American kids around here.  Part of why I love living in our little village so much is the wonderful people! It was before 6 am and Samantha doesn't look too happy about her treats Natalie, on the other hand, had something to tell me about all that candy  Abigail was the most excited about the whole thing this year, even though she got a twig!

Emily gave her first talk in Sacrament Meeting today!  She was excited because it helped her to complete a goal she'd been working on for Personal Progress.  For the most part, she prepared and wrote her talk on her own. Emily is a good writer - she wants to be an author someday - so she didn't need much help with the talk.  I thought it was so good that I wanted to share it here.  Enjoy! Why do we celebrate Christmas each year?  We celebrate Christmas because of the birth of Jesus Christ.  In the Bible, Mary is visited by the angel Gabriel and he tells her that she will give birth to the son of God and his name will be Jesus.  When Jesus was born, three wise men followed the star and found Jesus when he was a small child.  They have him gifts of frankincense, gold, and myrrh. At Christmastime, we can remember Jesus Christ by giving gifts to loved ones, like the wise men did.  Some people forget that Christmas is about giving and not rece...

No, this post will not be about spending time with your kids or your spouse.  Tonight when I got home from school I found a note from Abigail waiting on the dining room table for me.  The body of the note was asking me to sign a school form and was a typical Abigail note filled with hearts and smiley faces and with her name signed really big.   But what I wanted to write about today is the P.S. at the end of the letter.  Abigail wrote, "P.S. Please get me more presents than anyone else for Christmas.  Thank you!" I loved that because it solved a little debate or discussion that Jared and I have been having.  What's more important - the number of presents each child receives on Christmas or the total dollar amount spent on the presents?  We just can't agree on this one.  I think that it's more important that each child has the same number of presents to open.  Jared thinks it's better to spend an equal dollar amount on each kid and not worry...

makes me cry.  Well, not really.  Tonight was the annual band concert and I wasn't expecting too much in the way of musical greatness.  But watching my middle school student play in the middle school band concert did bring tears to my eyes.  It's because I'm a softie like my dad. Madison plays percussion in both the advanced band and the jazz band.  When we got to the auditorium I asked her where we should sit so we could see her.  She told me we could sit anywhere, so I tried to be more specific with my question.  "Madison, what percussion instrument will you be playing tonight?  If you tell me that we can sit where we can see you playing."  She replied, "Mom, I'm playing all of them."  There was definitely a tone to her response that communicated "duh" to me; apparently a good mom would know that her daughter plays all the percussion instruments.  We ended up sitting in the middle and hoped we would be able to see her at le...

Day 28 - Well, one of the five cutest kids ever anyway.  I know I'm biased, but I think our kids are pretty blessed in the looks department.  Unfortunately, it's hard to capture Natalie's beauty on film.  I struggle to take nice pictures of Natalie because she just doesn't want to have her picture taken, or won't be still, or will be still but is doing that little kid cheese-y grin (the fake one with lots of teeth).  This week Natalie's school pictures came in and while I usually don't buy school pictures, especially not for preschool, I just had to after seeing what great pictures she took.  So I paid the twenty euro and brought the lovely pictures home.  And don't worry grandparents, your copies will be mailed to you soon!