Christmas Happenings

In a quick effort to "catch up" on blogging before Christmas, I'm throwing a bunch of things into one post. Here goes:

Christmas Tree
We went to get our Christmas tree the first weekend in December. We always go to the same place to cut it down--they have beautiful trees and it's close by. There's nothing like the smell of a freshly cut Christmas tree and then decorating it with red lights while listening to Percy Faith! For some reason, we didn't have enough lights for our tree this year, so we only had half of our tree lit and decorated for the first week until we found the kind of lights that we use (could not find them anywhere). Anyway, we had fun decorating it and enjoy looking at the glow of red lights.


Santa Claus
That night, we went to our ward Christmas Party. Well first, we went to Forest Grove and watched their Christmas Light Parade, which was pretty cool for a small town. They had some great floats! Then we went to our ward Christmas party a little late and had dinner and listened to the program and then took the kids to see Santa. Lydia went before I could go with her and Maggie had no desire to sit on Santa's lap. So we took Bella and Paige. Bella did not like it one bit. It was actually her nursery teachers dressed up as Santa and Mrs. Claus. We joked that she recognized their voices, because she still does not like to go to nursery without one of us with her.


Preschool Christmas Program
The next Friday was Paige's last day of preschool and her Christmas program. She was asked to memorize a part of the program (which was like 6 lines long), and so we practiced it a few times and she had it down. Kids have the most amazing memories!! So we get to the program and she does her part--the kid shows no fear. She walks up to the microphone and clearly, slowly and quite loudly says her part perfectly. Talk about a proud mama. I never could have done that. They continue with the program with other kids speaking and all of them singing songs and then the teacher announces that Paige is going to come up and sing a song. So she confidently walks up the the microphone and starts singing "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth" by herself!!! I had no clue that she was singing a solo. She told me numerous times at home that they were singing it in the program, but she never said that she was singing it by herself! What a kid! It was great! I filmed it with my older video camera and I don't know if I could get it on here though. It was SO cute. She loves to sing; she sings ALL THE TIME!

Her whole class

Waiting for her candy cane from Santa

Nutcracker
Paige is in ballet and they asked her class to participate in their annual Nutcracker production. Her class was the candy canes. So we went to watch her perform on Saturday. She didn't get to keep her costume, so I don't have a good picture of her in it, but here is a picture of her on the way to the performance.

And here is a video of them at the rehearsal. It's hard to see her very well because my camera doesn't zoom very far when you are shooting a video. She's the second one from the left.

Bella

This isn't anything Christmas-sy, but I had to throw in these pictures of Bella. They cracked me up!

She also has this new thing where she tells us to "atch" which is "watch" when she wants to show us something. Here's a video of her doing this.

RS Christmas Program

I planned and coordinated my first relief society activity since being called as "enrichment leader" (even though it's not called that anymore). I'm pleased to say that it turned out quite nicely and quite a few sisters came! I found this program online about different women's perspectives and testimonies that were there for Christ's birth. There were 6 ladies represented and they were: the mother of Mary, the mother of Joseph, Elizabeth, the wife of an innkeeper, a shepherd's wife and Mary. So, in between each of their parts, we sang Christmas songs or I had special musical numbers arranged. The spirit was there and I loved hearing the parts from the mother of Joseph and the shepherd's and innkeeper's wives. And singing "Oh Holy Night" together as sisters brought me goosebumps. My friend Kate allowed us to have it in her house and it added greatly to the atmosphere of the night. After, we had hot cocoa and a cookie exchange. It was simple and sweet.

Christmas Sunday

These are pictures of the girls taken this past Sunday all decked out for Christmas. Aren't they cute? Oh and I forgot to mention that Maggie got glasses last week. She's been complaining for a month that she was having a hard time seeing the white board at school, so we took her in and sure enough, she's a little near-sighted. She was SO EXCITED to get glasses, she could hardly contain herself waiting for them to come in. I think she looks terribly cute in them, too. I guess she'll take after me. I got my glasses in 3rd grade.

Bella was not really cooperating with me.

You can't really tell in this picture, but Lydia lost her 2nd front tooth. Now she can sing that famous song!

I guess this wasn't so quick, but at least I'm caught up!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Our Sugar Plum Fairy

I am really liking the new school that the girls go to. They actually did something for the holidays; whereas Maggie's old school never did a thing. Granted, it got cancelled due to the snow, but they still planned a "Nutcracker" Production for the holidays. Maggie tried out for the Sugar Plum Fairy dancer and got it, along with two other girls. They held practices once a week after school for about 3-4 weeks. Maggie was really bummed when they cancelled it, but I figured that they would try to do it after Christmas--which they did. They put it on last Friday night (9th). The 3rd and 4th graders were the ones involved and it was really well done. They had great costumes (thanks to Terri and Rose, among others), a fun choir and the actors did a great job remembering their lines. The turn out was amazing. It's great to see the community supporting an event like this. There were quite a few kids from our ward that were involved, also and they all did a great job! We are so proud of Maggie for auditioning for the part and showing her talents. I know it's scary up there on stage, but she did a great job and I think she had a pretty good time.



Here's a picture of her in her costume and stage make-up. I'm still working on a video of the dance.