Merry Christmas!

Here's some of our Christmas morning photos.

Christmas Eve

Sophia has to be at church at 4:00 for practice for the 5:00 service. She's singing with the cherub choir tonight and she's really excited. Last Sunday they sang at the 8:30 service and wore their robes. That was great fun for her.

Here we are getting ready to leave.

Cookies for Santa

This morning we made and decorate cookies for Santa. Boy did the recipe make a lot of cookies. It's a good thing we're going to a Christmas Eve party tonight and can take most of them with us because I don't think Santa or Mrs. Claus could eat them all. These are only half of them and the kids got sick of decorating them after only doing about 5 cookies each.

Build a Bear

Last week when I took the girls to the mall to see Santa we went to Build a Bear to look around for a while. Lilly actually pulled this car off the shelf and climbed in. It's made for the stuffed animals! Ha ha ha.

Lilly's holiday party

Sophia has been off from school all week, but Lilly had to go both days (Mon & Wed). On Wed she had her holiday party and parents were invited so Sophia and I went to it. It was cute. They sang a few songs then had a spread of food to share. I dressed the girls in red and white to celebrate the season. Look how cute they looked on their way out the door.

I forgot to take my camera to the party, but I did try to snap a few on my phone. They all seem to be blurry. Take a look.

Carriage Ride

A shopping center near our house called The Shops at Hilltop had free horse drawn carriage rides today so we went. It was a lot of fun. The horse, Fancy, pulled us around the parking lot for about 5 minutes in an old-time carriage. The girls loved it. Sophia asked where the windows were because it was completely open in the carriage except for a roof. She thought that was funny.

Sophia's school holiday program

Lilly has been sick all week with a terrible cold so she was out sick from school on Monday and Wednesday. Her holiday program was on Wednesday and we all had to miss it. I thought about just taking her in for the program, but wouldn't do that to the other kids. Doesn't she look miserable here?

Sophia's holiday show was also held on Wed. She sang and grooved along to the music a bit, but didn't seem to really be into it. Each class sang a few songs and then did a couple of group ones at the end.

Here are a few videos:

This is the one of her walking in:



Here's a video of a song:



Jingle Bells....and who knows why she was playing with her mouth. Gross.

2 hour delay

Since Sophia's school is on a two hour delay today, we decided to make Christmas cupcakes. Basically this means that she will be in school for an hour, but believe me, she's going! Actually I'm glad she had school today because we need to give our Christmas presents to her teachers.

She was up extra early at 6am so we've had lots of time to kill this morning. Sophia did all the sprinkles (and didn't make too much of a mess). Don't they look yummy?

What is going on?

In the past week it has snowed two times and it's been in the 30's all week. It's snowing right now, in fact. Sophia is outside in her rain boots and snow jacket. Lilly went out for about 2 minutes and then decided she was done. I have a feeling Sophia and Sadie will be outside for a while. Sophia loves the snow! I guess Lilly is like me...she doesn't like to be out in the cold. We're supposed to get between 1 and 3 inches. Yuck!

I finally found snow pants for both girls so when we head up to Northern VA and PA they'll be able to play outside. I even bought a round Dora sled for them to share. Perhaps I should have bought two?

Anyway, here's a quick video I just took:

Gingerbread House

It's a good thing I took these photos right away because 1/2 of the roof slid off right after I took the them.

Heading out for Sophia's church show

Here's a photo of the girls from Sunday. I thought they looked so adorable hugging each other.

Sophia's holiday show at church

Sophia was a sheep in the show. She had been practicing the songs along to the CD the music director provided for weeks. She knew almost every word. It was so funny to watch her in the show because she sang along to everything even though her part only required her to sing the refrain of each song.

Here are a few videos for you to watch. The last one is the best because she's singing directly into the microphone, but it's very shaky. Once she moved to the opposite side of the stage, I didn't have a good view of her anymore and gave Will the camera. He was holding Lilly and trying to tape so you can understand why it's a bit shaky...

Enter the stage.

Part 2



Another one

Riley's holiday party

On Tuesday afternoon we went over to Riley's (our neighbor) house for a holiday party. The girls decorated an ornament that looked like a Christmas present. Then they decorated sugar cookies. They had a blast. Take a look at the pictures.

Garden on Lights

We went to the Botanical Garden last weekend with some of the girls' friends (Haley, Carlie, Cameron, Trip and Addie) for their Polar Express program. It was cute. They had hot chocolate and cookies for everyone. We strung bells and beads on pieces of ribbon to create necklaces. Then the kids listened to the Polar Express story. After that we all headed outside to the tram for an drive through their Garden of Lights. It was magnificent.

It was so cold so in addition to wearing our warmest clothes we also bundled up with three blankets.

Sophia was literally shouting and screaming in delight at each exhibit. She was completely mesmerized at the beauty of the lights.

The flash was a little too bright for Lilly. (smile)

Pretty ballerinas

There's nothing wrong with dressing yourself...

Flu and version 2.0 and 3.0

We had a lovely Thanksgiving at Don and Cynthia's last week. Dinner was fantastic and the company was even better. Christina and I went to bed early because we wanted to get up at 4am and hit a few of the black Friday sales. We were successfully out the door at 4. We quickly realized that Starbucks doesn't open until 5:30am!

After our shopping spree we picked up Sophia and Grancy and went to the Vienna craft fair. Sophia choose her ornament of the year. It's a cat.

On Saturday evening I was overtaken with extreme fatigue and eventually got sick (let's call this Flu 1.0). I actually felt better by morning, but over night Lilly ended up getting sick too. She and I slept together that night and boy is she a snuggler!

On Sunday Will woke up and felt like he was run over by a truck. I thought he had what I had, but as it turns out, he had Flu version 2.0. He slept all day because if he was awake he felt like he was going to be sick. He never ended up getting sick though.

I ended up getting version 3.0 on Monday at the exact time that Will began to feel better. I'm calling it version 3.0 because I kept getting sick over and over again and couldn't keep any food down at all AND I felt like I was run over by a truck.

We're all nice and healthy again as of this afternoon! Believe me, now I'm on a frantic dash to sanitize the whole house.