John-Thomas turns 5

 Happy 5th Birthday, John-Thomas! This year Princess will get baptized and your brother will get the priesthood in January, but you will get to start kindergarten. In the meantime, have some presents!

He got some board games, some books, a couple more teddy bears, his very own whack-a-mole, and a few other treasures.

"Of course! Why not?" has become our family's new triumphal, open-armed, all-purpose exclamation.

He loves our door now that it's been
conquered by Bowser's family

Teddy bear birthday cake!

His friend from preschool came (in chaps!)

One of his favorite Christmas presents was a punching bag ... that bit the dust in under a month. So this year my parents got him an upgrade.

Dinner at Cici's with air hockey.
Because the table is larger than he can reach, I give him a
"Bullet Bill" boost, shooting the puck at Superstar's side
with my fingers unfairly.

I want to praise big brother Superstar too. For JT's birthday, he was the kindest, most thoughtful, caring brother anyone ever had. It set such a good tone, and I've noticed he's been following up with more of the same since. What a wonderful birthday present for us all!

Hey, I even got this post done in the same month it happened!

Cutie pi

Digging his brother's first soccer game of the year

He loves teddy bears, so this was a dream come true.
He keeps asking to go back to this friend,
where they played some Very Noisy tag.

For pi day, we tried to calculate pi by drawing a circle on some cardboard, then measuring how many little blocks it took to trace out the circumference. We were off by about 2%, which isn't too bad, I guess. We also enjoyed chocolate pecan pi (rounded up).

Watching some friends roping, he stole my hat

We start our family scripture study with a hymn.
This Sunday was particularly calm, with everyone dressed and
ready before breakfast; everyone sang along. I wanted to
remember the morning. So ordinary, yet so special.

Some flour had been contaminated, so the
Littles asked if they could play in the "snow"

Some friends brought us a beautifully decorated cake

Princess, building her own Minecraft tower
with blocks made from gym floor foam pads.

Athlete, Mathlete, Creeper, Hi!

Superstar recently read a book about a pair of dissimilar twins, Athlete vs. Mathlete. I thought he might be interested in it because he is both. And more.

He took first place at UIL for Number Sense -
meaning he did a lot of math problems faster than any other
5th grader in several counties

During his first soccer game with the Rampages for this season
They won 10-2.

He got a speaking part in the school play.
He also danced front and center for everyone.

He turned 11, celebrating with Harry Potter,
Minecraft, and Mario

We got to Skype with my parents and my brother's family.
Here is Pop leading everyone in Happy Birthday

Accio Hogwarts letter!

Whaddya know? There it is!

Superstar was sorted into Hufflepuff, where he learned his patronus is a rattlesnake.

A Creeper! Aaaah!

Fun with the kids in Jan 2019

Starting in January 2019, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints encouraged families to take a greater responsibility for teaching the gospel in their homes. The new Come, Follow Me manual included several suggestions for how families could get more out of their study together. We discussed them as a family and decided we wanted to add a lot of variety to our family study. One of them included coming up with our own object lessons or drawings of what we were studying. So here is Princess with her gingerbread Captain Moroni and a Title of Liberty reflecting her recent reading.

Our family's favorite game since Christmas has definitely been Sagrada. A large group of dice are rolled and you take turns trying to place one die in your stained glass window. There is a delightful mix of strategy and luck. The only catch is that we have to take pictures of our game boards every few moves because some of us seem particularly prone to knocking over the dice....

Princess and I made some snow and a snowman
out of shampoo and baking soda. It was so ...
fragrant we had to triple bag it and hide it in a
drawer and it was still too potent to keep in the house.

I've also been teaching Princess woodworking.

I made gingerbread houses with each of the kids.
I build em, they decorate.

Nothing is so eagerly enjoyed than wrestling with Daddy

7 Happy Watsons at Christmas 2018

We were greatly blessed this Christmas to have my parents come to our house, instead of us driving to them. Between one thing and another, it was a good arrangement for everyone, though hopefully next year we will also be able to gather with my brother's family.

Pop and Grandma got to sleep in late at the hotel every day, then come to us and be pampered. We had a lot of fun together and are really looking forward to when they come here again for Princess' baptism this summer!

Christmas 2018 - Santa's coming

Inspired by a McDonald's, we decorated our front
door  and left it up until Superstar's birthday.

Our new tree - first large one in 10 years - the stockings,
and the Santa present for each child.

Princess got a fairy princess tent.
It is still set up in her room.

JT's punching bag was ... a big hit </Dadjoke>
He loved the feeling of power.
Sadly he destroyed it in a few weeks.

Superstar can now go fast, but he mostly lets Princess
play with it these days so he can focus on soccer.

Santa didn't bring this, but she's adorably happy
and I think that happened before my parents got here.

One happy Christmas!