Christmas Day 4: A Christmas Program

First of all, we got a Christmas-ed up this morning to go to church! Amelia wore her snowflake sweater jumper and William wore his green striped sweater.

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I really felt like the Christmas program snuck up on me. Before Thanksgiving, the coordinator of the Christmas play and I decided it would be super cute to have the preschool set play and small role in the Christmas play put on by the youth in our church. The toddlers would join the rest of the cast in our Christmas play for the very last scene in the stable as animals while the congregation sang a hymn. All they had to do was be cute. We outfitted William with a costume from the "Official Christmas Play Box" and I committed to whip up something darling for Amelia to wear. I also assisted in badgering other parents to get their kiddos to participate so ours wouldn't be the only ones being a distraction. Of course I left it until the last minute to pull something together for Amelia. It's a good thing she is darn cute on her own. I'd like to present our very own Christmas mouse:

Amelia the Christmas Mouse (turns out she is probably of the white footed variety)

Using white fleece, a white headband and pink flannel, I created these awesome ears in about 20 minutes. I then cut about 14 inches of the rough edge of the fleece, added a safety pin and voila! A Christmas mouse was born!

Add in a white pair of tights, a white onesie and the costume is complete!

I'm biased, but she is SO cute!

She was really good about leaving the ears alone - I was surprised about that!

William (the donkey) was not so great about this. Several times he reached up and turned his hat sideways leaving one ear above his forehead and the other ear on the back of his head. We don't have as many pictures of William because he wasn't as tolerant about his costume. I dressed him halfway through the program and was out of it moments after the conclusion of the program.

The mouse and donkey get along fine!

So, during the last song, the preschool/toddler/babies were brought up front to join the manger scene. William nicely took a seat with the other kids. Amelia took one look at the manger and pulled herself up on it to get a better look at baby Jesus.

Amelia stole the show at this point. Most of the kids were laughing at her as were the adults in the audience. She was fascinated by the baby Jesus in the manger.

She picked him up, poked him in the eye, chewed on his fingers and rolled him around in his manger.

William on the left, Amelia center stage.

In our rush, we didn't bring our new flash, so the pictures are a little dark. William has relocated to the far right side of the stage and Amelia continues harassing the poor, little Jesus in his manger.

It was wonderful for the kids to have little parts in the program that didn't affect the production as a whole. Several people stopped me afterward to compliment our mouse's role in the show :) We do have video, but it is too long for Blogger and I am unable to edit on our laptop. Will have to wait until we are home again to edit and post.

Christmas Day 3

Great news!

William is starting to tell jokes.

And Grandpa Kevin is responsible

While we were staying with the grandparents, we had spaghetti for dinner. William either really likes spaghetti or will NOT eat it. No inbetween. Of course, this evening was a WILL NOT EAT it kind of day.

So, Grandpa was making conversation with William in an attempt to distract him.

Grandpa said "Do you know what I like about noodles? They are so noodley!"

William stopped complaining for a minute and then completely cracked up. And then repeated the joke 400 times.

Interestingly (probably only to me), he is able to transfer this joke to other things. If I ask him : Do you know what I like about water? He'll respond: It's so WATERY! and laugh his head off.

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Outfits! I found these Candy Cane pants at a garage sale for a quarter. I totally love them.

Amelia's funny face...
Chewing on the finger...

The Second Day of Christmas

Wintery outfits!

William helping daddy put away the ratchet set after spilling it everywhere. There are a lot of pieces in there!

Antlers! How fun!

12 Days of Christmas

I love Christmas time. I adore Christmas music, the family gatherings, the cookies, the decorations and cards. It is so fun and a little emotional for me that William is finally old enough to participate in some of the fun activities. In preparation, I stocked up on Christmas attire for everyone. I think both kids have enough to compete in a 12 days of Christmas outfit competition. Maybe I'll get pictures to post every day for the next 12 days. Am I up to the challenge?

Here is Day One: Santa attempt #2! Santa was invited to the last day of our preschool session. Santa is a teacher at the high school where the preschool is held.

Here is William in his red Christmas sweater. He would NOT sit on Santa's lap, but agreed to sit with the preschool teacher and talk to Santa.

Talking to Santa about trains
William, Amelia with Santa (and a preschool teacher)
Amelia checking out Santa

And! We decorated a Christmas tree for the first time at our house! We always travel for Christmas and it has always been so much work to put the tree up just to take it down again when we come home after New Year's. This year, for the first time, it was WORTH IT. William was so EXCITED! Very fun. Although we ran out of branches after only half of our ornaments were put up. Bummer.

I Wish

William is currently singing "I'm the nap, I'm the nap, I'm the nap!" (from Dora the Ex.plo.rer)

He means to be singing this song.

But, I'd be heaven if it was a prediction for this afternoon.

UPDATE: success!

Over Thanksgiving, Amelia started making this face. It has taken us this long to catch a picture of it. My family reports that I make a similar face at the kids when I am being silly. I don't think I look like this though...do I?

Finally home...ahhh

We're finally home! It was wonderful to visit with family, see my cousin's beautiful wedding, have a date with some of our friends and help my mom Christmas shop. But, now it is back to reality!

I have all kinds of Christmas things to be getting done and a week less than usual to do it! ACK!

Anyway, on that note, I though I would share some pictures of Amelia's first snow this week (12/3/09).

Her first response: What is THIS?

Upon hearing William squealing, she took off crawling to check him out
Studying the snow...

Of course, it required a taste (see the snowstache?)
Happy girl!

What IS this?

Worth another taste....


Off to explore

Brr! I'm cold!

Standing is better than sitting in that cold stuff!
Pretty snow baby

William trying to catch some flakes

Santa has fallen! HELP!

Wedding/pizza crust

12/4/2009 Amelia had pizza crust for the first time. She loved it.

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My cousin, Ashley, got married the Saturday after Thanksgiving in Minneapolis, MN. Because of the distance, I elected to stay in MN with the kids for the week between Thanksgiving and the wedding to save the stress on the long trip with the kids.

Before the wedding, I called Ashley to see if she wanted me to come early with my camera to take some extra pictures of her and her sister getting ready together. Ashley thought that would be great as they weren't planning on having a photographer. I was instantly promoted to head photographer. A fun (and stressful) job! Sadly, I was so busy making sure I hit the shots for the bride and groom, I didn't get any pictures of my immediate family. Luckily, other people did.

The wedding was held at a tropical themed restaurant in the Mall of America called Kokomos. The couple invited their guests to wear their tropical themed attire - which we thought was very fun (and why you'll see my kids wearing summery clothes on a day when the high temperature was 18 degrees.

Uncle Mike and Mia. I hand made Amelia's headband flower to match her dress...and then I didn't even take pictures of her cuteness! She loved the leis people were wearing!

My mom and Mike - I handmade my mom's flower also :) I am so crafty!

Kelly the wonder photographer! I hand made the flower I am wearing in my hair :) Kelly the wonder crafty photographer.

William had a handmade flower also, but you can't see it very well here. Megan is to the right of William in this picture. Megan was my assistant today - which meant that she helped me EVERYTHING. Her biggest job was keeping Amelia happy while I was shooting pictures.

And because this sign made me laugh when I saw it while driving to the wedding : CONCENTRATE ON DRIVING. No kidding, people.

And, finally, if you interested in seeing the pictures I took of the big day, I made a quick (nothing fancy here) slide show of some of the pictures below.