merry and bright

The holiday preparations continue.... :)

On the 12th, all 5 of us went to church for an Advent Event. We made a Ninja Bread House, as Ben calls it, LOL, complete with a wood pile made out of Tootsie Rolls and a mailbox with a tiny bit of a Twizzler for a flag. We also enjoyed cookies and hot chocolate (and also leftover candy from our gingerbread house), and then watched the nativity play.

On Monday we had our annual Christmas card photo shoot. This is the one I chose to put in our cards:
I also got this one of Ben and Emm under the mistletoe:
and this one of Nick and Rudolph:
On the 15th, we all went to the Winter Music Festival at Emm's school. The choir, band, and orchestra all performed songs for us. The best part was the finale, when the choir sang a Christmas medley, accompanied by both the band and the orchestra ~ the kids all did a wonderful job! Emmalie is in the middle of the choir in this picture:
Emm and her friend Tori after the show:
On the 16th, Nick's class decorated cookies, and they each got to bring home a trayful, yum:
Later that evening, I took the kids to North School Park to see the lights before heading to church:



At the Advent service that night, Nick and the drama team performed a Christmas rap. He was one of the wise men:
When we got back home that night, Emmalie and I altered some clipboards for gifts. I made them for the boys' teachers, and Emm made them for hers:
Yesterday George and I went to Ben's preschool Christmas concert. It was so cute!! Here they are singing "Up on the Housetop":
I took several short videos of their songs, but this one of my enthusiastic little boy is the funniest! :) The preschoolers had already sung Jingle Bells once through, and then the teachers asked the audience to sing the chorus with them, and maybe if we were loud enough, a special someone might hear and stop by for a visit:

Santa heard us! The kids each took a turn sitting on Santa's lap, and he gave them a present. (The boys each received a toy bulldozer ~ Ben was thrilled!)
Afterwards, I took this shot of Ben with his two best friends in preschool, Alexander and Kassy:
Winter Break will start today after school ~ Emm and Nick can't wait!