December happenings

I took most of December off of blogging. We were too busy living life to write about it! It was whirlwind month, filled with parties, Christmas performances, and family traditions.  Sometimes it felt like life was spinning too fast, and the entire month seemed to go by in the blink of an eye.  It helped me to look at the pictures to realize that there were so many fun things we packed into December.  Here are some highlights of the first few weeks.

Decorating the Christmas tree.  The kids decided where to place their special ornaments (one for each year).

On December 4th Aubrey sang and danced with her musical theater class in a "Winter Wonderland" concert. As I snapped a picture of her after the show, Joseph had to sneak in to try to steal the limelight! 

Bailey helped me this year with the reading of Christmas books. She took time most evenings to read books to Joseph. Bailey approached this holiday season in a very organized manner. She made lists of our Christmas movies and books and made a schedule for reading/watching. We were not allowed to get off-schedule, or we would face Bailey wrath. Starting the day after Thanksgiving we were only allowed to listen to Christmas music in the car or house. She would sometimes walk around the house with her ipod touch piping out holiday tunes, determined to infuse every moment with Christmas cheer. Bailey was so enthusiastic about the holiday season - it really helped us all get in in the mood for Christmas festivities.


On December 10th Aubrey performed at our ward Christmas party. 

On the 11th we attended a "Festival of Nativities" in a nearby stake. There were thousands of nativities from around the world. It was fascinating, and the kids loved the interactive portion, where they dressed up in authentic costume (well, the girls refused, but Joseph dressed up) and played with some of the nativity sets. These are some of Bailey's favorite nativity sets.



On the 16th the kids and I painted ceramic ornaments.  Each person chose, designed, and painted their special ornament for this year.