***Heirs of the Magi News Flash!***
Your favorite Magi Master twins are back to school again and starting their high school adventures in academics, sports, and more! While they are busy with all of that and their friends, Cassie and Michael are getting ready for their now-annual fall work trip and enjoying the home time with most of their favorite people. They are all going to have a lot of fun as they head into the fall season and you won't want to miss a moment of the action; so...
...Visit Witch Falls often to keep up with all of our latest stories; and Happy Reading!
We had a little treat, card, and best
wishes for Donnie, but mostly mention his special day because he’s one of
Brianna’s classmates – and no, that is not also for any future matchmaking
possibilities!As Brianna tells everyone
regularly, she’ll know her match when she meets him; so none of the boys close
to her age have passed that test!
While our day hasn’t been
birthday-celebration-great, we have had fun at school with the usual bonus
music time with the primary classes; and then we had our school band practice
after school too – this time to get ready for the Maple Valley Christmas parade
on Saturday.Our music fun wasn’t done
for the day, but we were on our own when we went home for dinner with Mom and
Dad; and then our friends came over for a Naomi and the Holiday Harmonies
practice that was both for the school Christmas dance and concert.That was definitely a fun highlight of our
day; and so was the group Magi lesson that Mom did with us before Naomi, Aiden,
Sophia, and Aaron headed for their homes.Okay, there was also a bit of co-ed cuddle and chat time in the lounge
before our friends headed out, but the only news we have from that part of our
evening is that we wish that we’d booked a sleepover and kept them! ;^)
Moving along, Mom wouldn’t let us do any
work in the office after that, so we’ve been winding down with our usual
bedtime twin chat and computing; and now the only ‘job’ left for this report is
our Christmas music video pick of the day.For that, we’re going with another song that we included on our own album,
and while this version isn’t one that we used for inspiration; it is still one
of our favorites; and we hope that you’ll love it too!
We’ve had a good day and got a lot done,
but don’t really have anything newsworthy to offer tonight.As far as most kids and teens are concerned,
the countdown is on to the Christmas break, so we’re pretty happy whether
tackling new lessons or playing music while practicing for the Christmas
concert.Ehlana and I went to play at
the lab or archives after school; we were home in time to help Mom with making
dinner; and then we’ve spent the evening working in the office on family
business and charity projects.Mom did a
Magi lesson with us too; time phasing allowed us to get more done without
staying up half the night; and now we’re pretty much ready to call it a night
and get some sleep.That is an option,
so let’s do our Christmas video pick; and go there!The fourth can only be with us in May, but
Pentatonix is definitely a musical force every Christmas; and their version of
this favorite song is what we based our version on for our Christmas album this
year.Enjoy this wrap-up to our update;
and we’ll head off to dreamland now!
The first Sunday in Advent is often also on
the Thanksgiving weekend; so we think that it is special on the occasions when
the start of Advent gets its own ‘special’ day!That is partially because Pastor John can share a dedicated Christmas
message, but there is also different music because it isn’t a teen-led service;
and we have a Sunday school class too.Add in spending some of our time helping out with getting ready for the Christmas
services that the teens and kids will be involved in or leading.Thanks to all of that, we had an awesome
morning – along with the amazing start to our day that included waking up with
our favorite cuddle buddies; Tai Chi by the river; and a hot breakfast – though
that meal was apparently not nearly as busy as the one Cassie and Michael
hosted for the Stone family while reuniting their overnight guests with parents
including Sophia’s Mom, Dad, and brother!
Ehlana and I decided to go and play at the
lab or archives this afternoon, so after having lunch with Mom and Dad, we
headed over there while our best friends were busy with their own
families.Try not to be shocked by that,
but we do actually share them now and then – though Aiden might have preferred
to play with us instead of helping out at the bakery today!After taking the rest of the weekend off, Dad
had a lot to get done today anyway; and we won’t write about what Mom might
have been doing while we were at the lab to distract him from getting that work
done!Dinner was an easy meal that we
helped Mom with after getting home from the lab; and our evening has been quiet
with only a short Magi lesson and a bit of family business work before bath or
Jacuzzi time was ordered along with an early bedtime after two late nights.
That’s pretty much all we have for tonight,
so let’s just do our Christmas music video pick of the day; and call it a
night.
While there is always a lot of new
Christmas music releases every year, there aren’t really very many new,
original songs that get added to our favorites list.This duet is one of those new songs; the
harmonies and amazing; and we expect that it will be a future classic!
Tai Chi was skipped this morning because we
wanted the extra time to get ready for the breakfast buffet at the Inn.With more than one-hundred shoppers
converging there along with at least that many more diners getting in on the
special deal and probably double that total for the rest of the morning; we
happily shared that culinary adventure with a lot of our favorite people before
even getting started on the main shopping and birthday events!We helped out with some of the youngest
cousins and kids during that meal; enjoyed the food; and will only add that our
toddlers made less of a mess than Zack, Eli, and some of the other guys around
our ages!There was birthday fun for
Rebecca and Caleb during breakfast, but while Luke was brought along on the
trip; Rebecca stayed for the Pizzeria.
When we hit the road, Sophia and Aaron were
matched up with Cassie and Michael for the drive; and they collectively had
Sierra, Stuart, and Luke with them in a borrowed minivan.The four of us went with Mom and Hannah; and
we won’t list all of the groups; since there is always a list kept elsewhere in
the archives if you’re really that bored!We should mention that Mom and Aunt Leanne had help getting quite a few
fathers to help out today; and we only had most of the Moms in our family
because of Caleb’s birthday party.
The drive to the mall was uneventful and
entertaining; we got right to the shopping with our designated group of six
tweens and Leah, Hailey, Brianna, and Faith; and we blasted our way around the
mall with dozens of cameo moments with most of our favorite people along the
way!We were never far from parents or
other adults, but didn’t need any help as we checked off items on our gift
lists.Aiden, Aaron, and I helped with
one load of purchases out to Dad’s truck and Mom’s minivan before lunch; the
ten of us stayed together for lunch in the food court – paid for by the tweens;
and then we had another hour to shop before we moved on to our favorite toy
store.Our group was reunited for that
next round of shopping, but we didn’t actually need much time at the toy store –
beyond getting to check out some of the toys in-person.The biggest change from previous Christmas
shopping trips was that we next had a short time-limit for the stop at Wal-Mart
– or at least some of us did; since we needed to move on to Caleb’s birthday
dinner.We still managed to finish up
our shopping with a handful of final purchases that for Ehlana and I were
mostly for our extended group of classmates and friends.
Caleb chose a fast food restaurant for
dinner, and while some of the adults might have loved a better menu; timing was
an issue too; since we needed to eat and then move on to SportsFusion for the
play parts of his party.Let’s mention
here that Cassie and Michael had their tweens and kids with them and joined us
for the meal, but then they headed home so that they could get in on some of
Rebecca’s birthday fun that was happening around her work at the Pizzeria.Sophia and Aaron stayed with them; and they
are spending the night there too while also helping out with the kids so that
Rebecca, Lucas, Jake, and Stephanie get to have a kid-free night.We stayed with the party-goers to help out
with kid control; had most of the girls with us for the dinner; and then Aiden
and I helped with Caleb and the boys at SportsFusion while Ehlana and Naomi
played with the girls.The parents did
let us have a half-hour of tween time for a rock wall climb and zip line ride,
but we were busy for all of the nearly three hours we were at the play center;
and then it was time to load up and head for home.Shockingly to nobody, another fast food stop
was requested by the boys; those orders were picked up to go; and some of us
were ready to wind down with an hour and a half of quiet cuddling and
post-adventures chat time.Hannah took
care of the driving; we dropped her off at home first and unloaded the few
things that she had in the minivan; and then moved on to our house and got the
rest of the minivan unloaded.We can
skip the details of the deliveries that Dad and some of the other drivers
needed to do around town to multiple homes, but that took a while for Dad; so
we had time to sort through our purchases and put them away or set them aside
for pick-up by Sophia, Aaron, and others sometime tomorrow by the time Dad got
home and we repeated the process with everything left in his truck.It was past-midnight by then, so our ‘today’
references to this point are actually a day in our past now, but let’s not
quibble about that tonight.Once the
work was done, we had a little chat with Mom and Dad; we all came upstairs, and
while it was late already; Jacuzzi or shower time was needed after a long day
of shopping and sports play fun.The
four of us are back together now as we’re writing this; there are Christmas
music videos playing; and we’re enjoying the co-ed cuddle time while winding
down toward another sofa sleepover.We’ve
skipped over a lot of details, but don’t want to stay up all night writing
about our day – so we won’t do that and wrap this up instead.
Our last ‘task’ for this report is to choose
our Christmas music video of the day, and for our second day of December; we’ll
go with our favorite children’s choir and our favorite-so-far Christmas song
from them!We used it on our own album
too; and hope that you love it – and maybe even get to be that kind of happy
through the rest of the year!
Mom, Eli, and I helped to get Dad’s special
day off to a happy start and there was more birthday fun for him during the
school day, but we – the tweens in the lounge where I’m writing this – didn’t
have much to do with his celebrations since then while busy with the school
band and the Pinehurst Christmas parade.We are helping him out with a kid-free night; and don’t want or need any
details if anything more than catching up on sleep is involved!
Moving along, Ethan and Ehlana had gifts
for his future father-in-law when they came to pick me up before school; we had
fun with our academic adventures; and then we had time to go home and get ready
for the parade and have some food before meeting up at the school again in time
to help with loading the gear on a bus and then eventually heading out to
Pinehurst.We had some rain off-and-on
today, but it ended by mid-afternoon; so we were able to stay dry all evening –
though it did cool down to around freezing for the parade.We had a blast playing our music for the
crowds that included a contingent of family and friends from home.If there is one change from when Cassie and
Michael were in the band, it is that the Pinehurst citizens don’t jeer us
because of our football team successes over their team!Since Cassie and Michael were there tonight
and helping out with some of the cousins; we can also mention that at least
some of those football fans remember Michael very well – and did razz him about
his past glory days while the guys doing that seemed to have a very different
set of memories when it came to Cassie’s cheer squad adventures!
We were able to have some fun with our
family and friends after the parade; yes, we did couples’ pictures with Santa;
and I personally think that one of the junior elves ought to be on the naughty
list for appreciating my boyfriend just a bit too much! ;^)
The parade route took about forty-five
minutes to traverse at low-speed, but we were about mid-way in the pack of
floats, bands, and other groups and vehicles; so we didn’t make it to the
downtown park festivities until about two-and-a-half hours after we arrived and
began setting up our gear on the trailer.We packed up our gear again before going on to play for an hour or so;
and then we loaded up again and headed for home.There was more help at the school for getting
everything back into the music room, but it was also getting late by the time
we got home.My future parent-in-laws
were up and waiting for us, so we had a visit with them before coming upstairs
to get ready for bed; and now we’re enjoying some quality co-ed cuddle time and
hot drinks and snacks to go along with the Christmas movies that we probably
won’t stay awake for through to the end.Ethan and I have the nest on the floor tonight; we’re all happy; and
this has been an amazing start to December; so there really isn’t anything else
to add to this report – other than the first pick for Ethan and Ehlana’s
Christmas music videos!
They are letting me do that tonight; so I
pick the Bocelli family version of one of the songs we chose for our own
Christmas album.Hopefully, you’ll love
it as much as we do!
