The Boot has been found!

It is a Thornburg Family Christmas tradition for the kids to search for Santa's boot. Each year Jason hides it and the finder gets to open the first present on Christmas morning. The kids are getting good, it had been hid for less than 24 hours this year when................CARLI found it! We are thinking it might be time to get a smaller boot now that the kids are getting older!

This is the second time she has found it she is definitely going to keep it and open the first gift! Amber has found the boot 4 times and Nicholas once. Amber, the sweetest girl ever, has given it away 3 of the 4 times so that her brother and sister could open first. Now that's the Christmas spirit!

Holiday Fun

The holiday season is in full swing around here. The tree is up, the stockings are hung, and the kids are counting down the days until Christmas! We have already had several fun holiday events.....

If you haven't received your Christmas card yet, it is on the way. We had a photo shoot of the kids for the perfect photo. Some cute ones that didn't make the cut.......

after all that we went with one that we had from last summer!

Carli is in the school choir, their Christmas Concert was this past week. Again she stole the show! It pays to be the most petite (she prefers not to be called short or small) because you get to be in the front row!

Mariana had her annual Christmas Party on Saturday and even though the kids don't go to her house anymore, they love to go and visit. Mariana always out does herself and throws a wonderful party. Great food and lots of presents for the kids! They love to see the other children and of course see Santa, who always comes with gifts for everyone! It is hard to believe that this is the 11th time that Amber has sat on Santa's lap at Mariana's!

Our Stars!

Carli and Nick were the stars (to us anyway) of the show. They did 10 performances of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory last week and enjoyed every minute of it! What kid doesn't love being on stage? We are very lucky to have a wonderful drama teacher at West Valley, Ms. Bailey, who takes our little stars and puts them on stage. On top of her cast of high school kids there were about a dozen "Little Oomps." There are also lots of wonderful high school kids in the show, Jamie (the "big Oomp" in the photos) took great care of the kids.

They have been practicing since October and last week they spend 2 school days, 2 evenings and all day Saturday at performances and hanging out back stage. They had to do all their school work in between shows, just like real stars. Grandma and Grandpa Goins were able to come and catch the final show with us. It was a long, but exciting week, and I am happy to say that we finally removed all the make-up!