A Weekly Update

I've been busy (and a little bit lazy), so I haven't gotten around to posting anything this past week. Today .... I'm correcting that wrong! Here are a few pictures we've taken over the past few days:



On Sunday we had our Christmas Music Service. The kids had been practicing for the previous few weeks to get ready for this special day. All three of them were in the bell choir and they did a great job!

For the Children's Choir this year, they actually sang opposite the adult choir. The adult choir would sing a verse, then the kids did. It was so beautiful!

On Tuesday, I had my last day of school. We had a Christmas party with my students and their mommies. They were so excited that morning, because they knew they were going to see Santa!! It was a great day!

A couple hours after I had the Christmas party with my students, Pete and I headed over to our own kids' Christmas parties. I was in charge of hosting Livie's party, so Pete went around and visited Noah, Madie, and, eventually, Livie's parties while I was busy. This is Noah with his best friend Nick.

Gee, Noah wasn't having any fun during his party, was he? ;-)

Here was Madie with her bestie, Ashley.

And, Livie is here, enjoying a great game of JINGO! We've had a fun, but busy week. And, between all that busyness, we've been lazy and just enjoyed being home together. Now, we're just counting down the days until Christmas!

Must Be Santa

Yesterday that kids had their annual Christmas program at the school. This was the first year I went alone. Livie was finally getting her chance to be in the program, after coming to watch for nearly 6 yrs. :-) Pete actually got a chance to come too, which was great! He didn't think he was going to be able to, but he made it and finally found me and got to sit next to me IN THE FRONT ROW! Very excited that we got to sit up there!



You can tell how excited Livie was to be part of the program this year. It was all about Santa and she had been practicing at home a lot, so she was ready to shine!

This is Madie first year in the band and she did a great job! This is her last year in the Christmas program, so it was a little sad to know we wouldn't be watching her next year, but the fact that we got to see all three kids in it this year AND see her in the band and do a dance, well, that was pretty awesome for us. :-)

Noah was very excited to see us there too and waved and smiled big for us. When the songs were over, he made a large bow to the audience. No. My kids are not hams at all. ;-)

After Madie's band performance to start the show, she finished by singing a song, then...

... by putting her 7 yrs of dance experience to work by dancing with their last song. Gotta tell you, she did a GREAT job! She knew those moves better than anyone there. Guess being in dance all those years really HAS paid off!!

She even got a moment to pause with her friend for a picture. They all did a great job and we were so proud to see all our kids perform yesterday.

The Nutcracker

We found out that our dance studio teams up with 2 other studios and puts on a show of "The Nutcracker" every year. When we heard this, I knew I'd have to take the girls!



That, of course, meant that the boys would get to have a special day all their own while we were gone. Pete, Noah, and Tater walked all the way down to the their school and played on the playground together. Sounds like they had a great time!!

We got dressed up and headed to Peru to catch the show. :-)

They had little Nutcrackers for sale there, so the girls picked one out to save as a memento of our day. :-)

We got to sit in the balcony to watch the show. It was a great view!!

The whole cast was great! And, because some of the kids were from our dance studio, we got to recognize some of the players. It was a great afternoon!!!

Ice Odyssey 2011

Well, we were in no danger of seeing the ice sculptures melt THIS year at the Ice Odyssey! It was FREEZING! But, we had to brave the weather and enjoy this great adventure in the downtown area. We've gone all three years now and love it every time!



Usually they have an ice sculpture on every corner. They did it a little differently this time. They lined the main road with two different themes. One side of the road was "The Christmas Story" theme and the opposite side was a "Charlie Brown" theme. We started on "The Christmas Story" side. :-)

Who could forget the tongue getting stuck on the pole?

Each year some guys get together and put up these pictures depicting the life of Jesus - starting with his birth and ending with his resurrection. I love that we are allowed to display these in a public park in the center of town. They were just restored and we wanted to get a close-up look at the new and improved signs.

Here we have an ice sculpture of Charlie Brown. They were all sooooo well done!

Because it was so cold, we stopped inside several stores to get warmed up. This is one of my favorite stores in the area. It's closed down in November for 2 weeks while they get it all decorated for Christmas. It looks just beautiful when they're done! You can kind of see from this picture how beautiful it is. We stopped in and got our teacher presents here. We also went to a few other stores and had lunch uptown too. We braved the cold and enjoyed our time at the Odyssey this year. Just hoping that next year isn't so stinkin' cold!

Ringing the Bell

Today, the kids and I spent an hour at Walmart ringing the bell for the Salvation Army. They liked it so much, we hope to do it again! The kids danced and sang carols and put on quite a show. Lots of smiling faces passed us as they watched the kids. :-) It was a great way for them to have fun and serve the community too!

80s Day

It's Spirit Week again! And, once again, they have 80s Day. The kids LOVED dressing up in their outfits. They would've totally rocked the 80s!!