Cookies and Presents with Aunt Rosi

Will and Maggie's age group also do a Christmas performance at church. This is Maggie's first year with this age group and she decided to audition for a solo and she got one! A few lines of the Little Drummer Boy and we've been practicing! Aunt Rosi & Uncle Pete caught wind of this performance and decided to visit TN to see Maggie sing on stage.

Since she was visiting anyway, we decided to get together to bake and decorate sugar cookies. We also had our Life Group Christmas party Saturday, so I only had until about 2pm to do the cookies. I thought the easiest thing to do would be spend the night Friday so we had plenty of time for cookies on Saturday (12/9). This also gave us the opportunity to do our gift exchange.

 My gift from Aunt Rosi (top) then one of her gifts from me. Maggie had to be a part of the opening (below)!

 Then she opened the blanket I made for her and loved it!

 The kids playing with Uncle Pete! Maggie loves the blankie too. :)

Saturday morning after breakfast was cookie baking time! We made a few for the kids to ice and decorate with sprinkles, and the rest we just put on sprinkles before baking. It was a fun afternoon! Allie was a natural rolling out the dough and decorating the cookies. My girl!

Now it's off to our next party!

Jake & Allie's Christmas Performance

Jake and Allie attend "school"/Mother's Day Out on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This helps me get plenty of uninterrupted school work done with Will and Maggie and also the time is more structured for Jake and Allie while we do school work. It's a win win. Today they put on a little performance singing Christmas songs. The seat I got gave me a pretty good view of Jake but not Allie so much. I only got a few pics, mostly took video.

It was a cute little performance. Short and sweet then they dismissed early. Got a pic of the kids in front of the tree before leaving... such a beautifully decorated tree! There was a line in front of the nativity, so we'll have to get that pic another time.

Jake's Christmas Program

Yesterday: Sunday, December 3rd, Jake's age group sang some songs on stage at church. They all dress up and it's adorable. Last year Jake was a donkey and this year a wise man. I was hoping Allie would be old enough to participate as well, but hopefully next year so she and Jake can do it together for his last year.

Then we came home and he wanted to pose by the tree. Such a little cutie! Love you Jakey, you did such a good job singing on stage!

Tracy, Becca and I along with the kids, also got together and baked cookies again this year. Apparently I didn't take any photos though. This year Steve joined us as well. I guess I was too busy baking and talking to take any pics! And the kids didn't decorate cookies this time 'cause we're doing that this weekend with Rose.

Tree Time

Now, for what pictures November lacks, December makes up for. All the things happen in December. Here we are decorating our tree (12/2) along with the annual tradition of cookies, hot cocoa and Christmas music in the background. This year we listened to plenty of Pentatonix along with our usual classics. Oddly enough, Wham's "This Christmas" came on multiple times even though my selection was a Bing Crosby album.

 Sweet Alana was ready to put up the tree this year!

 They pretty much lost interest for a large chunk of the assembly, but Maggie stuck with us the whole time. Our little decorator. Everyone came back out for the ornaments of course.

 Our trusty tree skirt adder. Love this girl. :)

Finished! Let Christmas season commence!

November

Poor November. For whatever reason, November is the month I historically take very few photos. I don't know why but that's the way it's been for the last couple years. I'll get to the end of November and I'm like, huh, I have 4 photos of the whole month. I've even been forgetting to take them at Thanksgiving.

That's it. I mean, there's several more photos of the kids in the powerwheel but they're even more blurry than this shot. But these are the only days I got out my camera and used it.

Also, Thanksgiving weekend marked the 5th Anniversary in our house and move back to TN. To celebrate the occasion, Daniel and I spent the weekend at the hospital for his appendectomy! Heh. The day before Thanksgiving his stomach started hurting but he attributed it to various things but by Friday night he was in so much pain he went to the ER. Appendicitis. Surgery scheduled Saturday.

In the holding room right before surgery

Then he spent the rest of the weekend recovering in the hospital. I stayed until Sunday afternoon until I had to pick up the kids. He was discharged Monday. It was quite a stressful weekend and not the ideal way to celebrate our 5th anniversary here (it's really not like we would've "celebrated" anyway...) but I'm glad he's ok and we caught it in time. Happy Thanksgiving! ;)

Halloween

We went to Steve & Becca's again this year but I didn't take very many pictures. 'Cause I was busy with the kids and the darkness. My pics didn't come out great last year.

Maggie saw a kid dressed as Pennywise and a balloon on the sewer so now she's really scared. Maybe next year we'll skip the scary houses.