First Christmas Program

Last week my baby girl had her first Christmas Program. I think she made the most adorable little sheep. She was so excited getting her costume on, and of course I had heard some of the songs several times since she was practicing them at home. Gigi came to Decatur and had dinner with us before we went to the church for the big show. Mitch was sitting on the aisle and was able to capture the adorable picture of her coming in with her class. Kiersten sat in her seat and said "baa baa" and then quickly occupied herself with a coloring book.

The program was for all the kids at St. Paul's who are not school-aged. They wheeled the babies in with a giant decorated buggy. The two year-olds were dressed as Angels. The 3 year-olds were dressed as sheep, and the four year-olds were dressed as shepherds. They sang several songs that included Shepherds Watching, Jesus in my Heart, Sparkle and Shine and we finished up with Away in a Manger. At one point during the show Leah yelled "MOM" and was waving at me. My heart smiled. She is growing up too fast and I look forward to the many Christmas Programs to come.

Christmas Goodies

Last night, as a family...we partook in some Christmas baking. It's not my strong suit, so I always eagerly hand the title of top chef over to my husband and I am the sous. Or to put it in terms for Leah, Daddy is the cooker and I am the cleaner. The girls LOVE to cook. They think it is so much fun to stir things in bowls and they love being daddy's little helpers. So why should this time be any different? Leah has her Preschool Christmas Program tonight. I'm struggling just a little bit with the fact that she is old enough to be in a preschool program, but anyway...after the program they are having "refreshments" which is just a fancy way of saying cookies and punch. So we decided in the spirit of Christmas to contribute to the goodies! I LOVE these cookies. They are yellow cake mix cookies. I made them for Easter and put pastel sprinkles and frosting, so this time we of course added the obvious red and green sprinkles and kept the frosting white. They are so YUMMY! They stay nice and moist and chewy and I could seriously eat the whole batch! Tonight after the program we hit the road running for Minnesota...let the Christmas Frenzy begin!

Cocoa and Cookies with Claus

Last week my friend Sidney and I took Leah and Charlee to Cookies and Cocoa with Claus at the Illinois Children's Museum...Oh, Meet Charlee...she is Leah's BFF. It cracks me up, they get SO excited to see one another. This is definitely something that we will do again, and next year we will have to bring Kiersten and Van (Charlee's little brother).

We started out with story time with Claus. Leah was TERRIFIED! She clung to me and buried her head in my sweater, desperate not to make eye contact...I couldn't believe it! She wanted no part of it. Charlee on the other hand went right up to him, hopped on his lap and gave him her list. When she was done she even gave him a little hug. After that we went over to the table where they had pencils and paper so you could write your list to Santa. Leah told me all the things she wanted me to write down, and then she signed her letter like such a big girl, put a stamp on it and put it in the mailbox.

Next up, we headed up to the second floor. They had a little kitchen area set up for all the little ones to decorate their Christmas Cookies, and doctor up their cocoa. Leah loved decorating her cookie...a tree with green frosting and mini-M&M's. We added some extra chocolate chips to her cocoa, but she wasn't quite sure about giving it a try. She heard "HOT cocoa" and I think it gave her the impression that it would be spicy, so she turned it down repeatedly.

After cookies and cocoa we turned the corner and went into the craft area. The girls got to do two simple crafts. The first one was to make a snow globe. Leah loved adding all the "snowflakes" to her creation. And we followed it up with a paper snowflake. As you can see in the picture, it turned out to be a REALLY big snowflake and it's hanging in our dining room. Once we were finished with our crafts, we got about 45 minutes of free play in the museum. There are lots of different areas and exhibits to explore, but the girls spent all their time in ONE place...The Bubbles! They are always a huge hit, and we left a soapy mess. It was a great time and I am so excited to see what other events the museum has in store for the New Year.

You Better Not Pout, I'm Telling You Why...

The week before Thanksgiving Cynthia and I took the kids to the Hospice Festival of Trees. This is a cause very near and dear to our hearts. My mom has been on the committee for years and spends lots and lots of hours planning, decorating and working the event. I hope someday to find a similar cause that I can contribute my time and talents to. Anyway, they always have a Santa that the kids can see. At first Leah was terrified. She didn't want anything to do with him. So we sat and listened to one of the celebrity story tellers. Colby was a brave little guy and went right up, had a seat and told him he wanted a green tractor. After seeing that Leah got a little more brave. She sat on his lap, told him she wanted an American Girl horse for her Dolly, happily took her candy cane and hopped down. Next up was Kiersten. I attempted to put her on his lap and she clung to my neck with a death grip and cried a cry I have never heard before. Needless to say we passed on her Santa picture this year. Better luck next time :)

The most wonderful time of the year!

When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. - Matthew 2:10

I absolutely LOVE Christmas! I can't wait to get the tree up, and decorate the house and now that I have kids I find that the excitement and anticipation are almost too much. I wanted to put the tree up the weekend before Thanksgiving but Mitch made me wait. Leah, just like me...could not wait. She saw the ornaments and was dying to get started. Kiersten could take it or leave it, but she isn't even two so I'll let the lack of enthusiasm slide this year :)

It didn't take us long. Of course that's because with a 3 year old and 20 month old, we have a small tree and minimal ornaments. Because we all know that the almost 2 year old repeatedly takes ornaments off the tree. Anyway, I got an "L" and a "K" ornament. Leah was super excited for those. "L is for me" she says. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...and a few other decorations were placed here and there. We've been playing Christmas music occasionally and the girls are starting to know the words. Bug has jingle bells down pat, and Leah of course loves Rudolph!

My favorite part of the holiday season this year so far has been the girls excitement about Baby Jesus. They recognize him in the Nativity and talk about him just as much and with as much excitement as Santa Claus. We read the Christmas Story, and we have a Nativity in the living room. I'm excited for the day when we can talk about the Christmas tree and what it represents oh, and Sunday School Christmas programs. I really can't wait for that!!!

The Sunday after Thanksgiving Leah and I got to share a really special treat. We were invited and went to Bloomington to see the Nutcracker. My cousin Sarah was performing the role of Clara for her ballet company. What a treat! I was a little nervous, but Leah did so well. She sat quietly and took it all in. When the show was over and I asked her what her favorite part was, she mentioned the Mouse Dance (The Mouse Queen) and she came home and told her Daddy about it too. I was so happy to share it with her. Sarah danced beautifully and I'm so glad we went.

Turkey Day...Gobble, Gobble!

We enjoyed a nice relaxing Thanksgiving this year, and hope you all did too. We enjoyed the morning in our jammies, curled up on the couch watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. For most of the morning I was curled up on the couch with them, but I just had to get a picture! Daddy was outside doing yardwork. One of these years I will get him to join us...they got so excited about some of the balloons, and loved some of the performances. Bug didn't sit still for long, but she would say "look at this, look at this" whenever she got excited. I think the Sesame Street performance was the highlight of the morning. Of course I treated them to cookies for a mid-morning snack too!

We ate a really quick lunch and then headed to Charleston. Mom was planning a 6:00 dinner but we thought it would be best to get there and let Kiersten take a nap before the festivities. I let them wear their new winter coats for the occassion. Leah wanted to dance and twirl in hers, and Bug kept saying "fancy, fancy" they were so cute. I LOVE the coats and am so glad I got them!

Matt, Cynthia, Macy and Colby came for dinner too! Mitch and Matt got to talk about hunting, and talked and talked and talked. The kids had so much fun playing and Mom cooked a fantastic meal. Kiersten got to sample the potatoes before anyone else. I love the picture of her licking the beaters clean. My little baby isn't so little anymore!!! I couldn't get over how excited Leah was for Thanksgiving this year. They must have talked about it at preschool because all she would talk about was how excited she was for stuffing and pumpkin pie...I don't know where it came from but it was adorable to hear her talk about it. Thankfully the stuffing and pumpkin pie did not disappoint.

On Thin Ice

Okay, so it wasn't really thin ice...More like an ice arena, but you get the drift. The weekend of November 19-20 we helped celebrate Christmas in Decatur. They had a variety of events, mostly kid focused starting early in the afternoon and into the evening. There were quite a few that I wanted to partake in, but of course at our house we plan around nap time. We managed to get out of the house just shy of 4 o'clock and we met some friends at the Decatur Civic Center where they had free skating from 3-5. Our friends: Scott, Julie and their 4 year old, Will hail from Minnesota so we thought for sure they would be up for some skating. Only to find out that they have never skated...but what troopers! Scott took Will out on the ice, while Mitch took Leah and Julie and I sat in the stands with Bug to watch. WHAT FUN!!! Leah was so brave. She didn't even use the guide that most kids her age were using. Instead she just held on to her Daddy's hand and gave it her best shot. She fell on her teenie tiny tooshie a few times, but got right back up. Now everytime we drive past the Civic Center she points out that is where she goes skating and is eager to give it another go. Way to go, Leah.

Bug was slightly less amused with the ice skating. She just wanted to eat ice chunks off the ground...Yuck! Then she had fun going UP and DOWN the stairs in the gallery. Once the ice skating was done we headed to the central park area of downtown. They had reindeer in the park and at 5:30 the parade started. The kids loved it...they were so excited by the floats and Leah was getting upset if she didn't think that they people were waving back at her, it was funny. They got handfuls of candy and were super excited to see Santa bringing up the end of the parade. Once the parade was done we went and had a quick dinner with the Harvey's before calling it a night. Now Leah is counting down until her next skating adventure.

Series of Fortunate Events

Some people recall Lemony Snickett's Series of Unfortunate Events...I like to think of our last 24 hours as a series of fortunate events. Which was awesome considering how the trip started. On Monday after Daddy and Leah returned from swimming we packed up and hit the road. I had made an appointment for us to get family pictures done up in Phoenix. We headed into Tempe and we repeatedly told Leah that if she was good for pictures she could go to Red Robin for dinner. This seemed to do the trick...she was Awesome! Posing left and right and I can't wait to get the pictures to share with everyone. Unfortunately Kiersten did not get the message. We tried repeatedly to get her to sit still to no avail. Finally, using a kid app on my smart phone we "May" have gotten a shot or two of her, silly bug!

We had planned to stay the night at aunt Laura and Uncle Jeff's condo, but they weren't having any of that. They claimed it was much too small. Mitch and I think they needed a break from the kids, but either way they put us up at the J.W. Marriott at Desert Ridge. So we left the photo shoot and hit the I-10...rush hour traffic did not agree with poor Kiersten and she threw up all over her pretty dress...I'm not even going to mention details, but we were very lucky that mommy didn't get sick too! We arrived at Red Robin, and the girls were so excited that you would have thought we arrived at the gates of Disney World! Those free balloons, Corn Dogs and Lemonades just can't be beat!!! They both ate all their broccoli first...that's my girls.

After we got our balloons Laura took us to the hotel. Uncle Jeff met us there. The girls loved playing on the balcony, it made me a nervous wreck! Aunt Laura and Uncle Jeff told us to walk around, check it out, have a drink while they stayed with the girls. So that is what we did. We went down to the patio where there was live music, and had some "quiet" time. After we went back upstairs we could hear the girls a mile away. Aunt Laura and Uncle Jeff rented them the Smurfs Movie and ordered room service, What a treat! They got a kids meal pizza, it had a bowl of fresh fruit and a bowl of fresh veggies. Leah ate the entire bowl of green beans, carrots and asparagus while Uncle Jeff turned up his nose. After Uncle Jeff and Aunt Laura left we finished the movie and got a REALLY good nights sleep.

Tuesday morning we got to swim in the wonderful heated pool, before packing up and heading to the airport. Thankfully our trip home was much less eventful...we departed and landed right on time. And drove home to Decatur without incidents. It was a great time, but so good to be home. Now we can't wait to see Uncle Jeff and Aunt Laura at Christmas. I hope they know that Leah is ready for them!