December 2011

December was a busy month around here. At the beginning of the month we attended the town Christmas tree lighting ceremony which begins with a parade and Santa's arrival via firetruck. (As you can see, Libby isn't fond of loud noises.....although she likes parades).

In the past Sarah has always been petrified of Santa, but not this year. She was SO excited to see him that she ran up to him and was jumping up and down in front of him until he got her up onto his lap. :-) It was really cute to see. Visiting Santa made the season more real and they spent the rest of the month in high excitement mode.
The following week we went with our neighbors to ride the Polar Express to the North Pole. What an adventure! Seen below with the conductor from left to right are Sarah, Gemma and then my two Libby and Sarah M. You can see Ian and Daniel in the background. We all wore our pajamas for the ride.



On the train..... we had delicious hot chocolate and candies to eat during our ride North.
At the North Pole the elves sang Christmas carols with us and then Santa arrived to visit everyone. He presented the first gift of Christmas before we left to re-board the train.

(Libby's picture with Santa is at the end of this post.....I had the camera in video mode, but didn't realize it).

Sarah's class prepared a presentation for the parents to enjoy. They sang us three songs (for anyone interested, I am going to try and post the videos in a separate post).



Libby's class prepared a pageant. Each child had a non speaking role. Libby was the innkeeper whose job was to hang the sign that said "NO ROOM". She was so nervous the whole week leading up to the performance, but she did a great job as did all the others. (I will try and post her video too although I have been having trouble posting videos lately.)






We got a tree and the girls didn't have the patience to wait for us to get the ornaments out of the attic, so it was decorated with dress up jewelry. We thought it looked great, so we only took out one small shoe box of non breakable ornaments to add to it. It was a truly child friendly tree. :-)



Our little drummer boy.....
Christmas morning was relaxed and overwhelming all at the same time. We were very blessed this year to have my parents and my sister and her fiance join us for Christmas eve/Christmas morning. Santa was very good to all of us. I am so thankful for all of our blessings! We enjoyed a lot of family time over the holidays and it was great!

Once Danny T. opened his work bench he was done.....he had no interest in opening anything else. I guess Santa made a good guess for him this year. :-)
snack time in their new playhouse outside......
Daniel helped with filling the wood box for the week to come....
We use a string of popcorn and wooden beads (cranberries) to decorate our tree. A couple weeks ago I found a large stretch with NO popcorn left.....only empty string and wooden beads. I thought Dory (the dog) had eaten the popcorn as it is one of her favorite treats. Today, I learned that she had an accomplice. Daniel was pulling off the popcorn...one piece for him, one for the dog..... Did I mention that we strung the popcorn 4 years ago??!!! Yuck!

Libby with Santa at the Polar Express...