Christmas Day

It is the close of another Christmas day. We have had some good cousin time over the past few days. I never get tired of witnessing the tender side of my kids as they choose their gifts for each other. We got some very sweet gifts from my siblings, the kind that make you feel closer even when you aren't together. This day was particularly good, everyone was just happy being together. It was a candle-making, game-playing, nap-taking, fashion showing, helicopter flying, book reading, candy-eating kind of day. We were kind of sad to see the day end. Ryan reminded us that we actually have 366 days until the next Christmas, because of the leap year coming up. Christmas is over, but we have New Year's Eve and a visit from Grandpa andGrandma to look forward to!

The Nutcracker Ballet

Lauren and Alyssa were new dance students this year and tried out for parts in the local production of the Nutcracker. We had no idea how much they would love it when we started in September! They took ballet and jazz, in the same classes, which was nice for transporting them to classes. Participation in the Nutcracker was optional, and they spent 3 hours each Saturday from September until last week working on this. They were happy with their parts and they had a lot of stage time. It was really a good performance. I was so happy with how well they both did; you'd never know they were beginners! They can't wait for the June recital.

Ice Skating

We planned early in the month on having all our Christmas preparations done so that we could go ice skating on Christmas Eve. (Funny how you make those plans so casually, not realizing the effort it will take to make it happen!) We made it, even though Lauren and I stayed up until 2:30 a.m. the night before doing what I would have done during the day. It was a beautiful day for ice skating and we had a fun group to skate with. Lisa and Brandon came, Nathan and Camille's family, and Matt came by with the boys. It was a nice way to use our Christmas Eve energy.

"I Got Christmas Lights"

When Tommy was about 3, we put Christmas lights on our house. He was so excited about it that he made up a little song (or chant) that we sing each year when we put up our lights. This year, Ryan, Lauren and Alyssa wanted to add the colored lights to the icicles. We think it looks pretty good.

The Mom Song Sung to William Tell Overture with Lyrics

This is my current favorite song these days. It's kind of catchy and I'm finding myself singing lines of this song to my kids. Enjoy!

Christmas PJ's

After the tree decorating, everyone gets new pajamas. These aren't epsecially Christmasy, but they are new and it is still exciting to open them. The girls were happy to get feety jammies!

Decorating the tree

We decorated our Christmas tree last night. You might think that with teenagers this gets boring for them, but it was so fun! We have a tradition that we buy an ornament for each child each year, something that represents an experience from that year. As we pulled the ornaments out of the boxes, each one brought up a flood of memories. We had fun talking and remembering the story behind the ornaments from each year.