December Activities and Pictures

SO many things going on all month!!!  Here's all the stuff we were doing before family rolled into town!

For being in kindergarten, I thought this was a pretty fantastic rendition of Elephant & Piggy!

And of course Camille had to copy him!

Meanwhile, Ryder was busy making snowflakes!

One night for Family Home Evening, we acted out the Nativity.  It was a bit wild, as you can tell!  (I got to be the mean Inn Keeper!)

I made Ryder wear this goofy shirt, so he threw his sports coat on over it!

Still having fun with Quinn!

Colton's class had a gingerbread party that parents and siblings were all invited to!  Camille was SO excited!  And I was super impressed with how organized the teachers were!  A splendid time was had by all!

The teachers even went around snapping pictures for you on your phone so you could be in the pictures AND so you wouldn't get your phone all sticky!

Bentley got some weird disco light that attaches to your phone, so we had a dance party!

More gingerbread: for our church party, they had a gingerbread contest and Craig got very excited (and competitive)-- he taught himself how to do that kind of icing just for this AND he won for Most Creative!  Yay, Craig!

The actual party was very busy for me.  I'd tried to plan it so I wouldn't have to bring much, but that never works out, and I found myself transporting an enormous ham, chopped tomatoes, Bentley's gingerbread house, four kids, plus dropping off band cookie dough for Bentley's fundraiser on the way!  Ugh!  (And Craig was bringing his own gingerbread house and picking up Kendra along the way!)  And then once we were there, I was the MC, so that kept me on my toes, too!

The kids got to do a nativity, so here's Ryder as a Wise Man!

And Kendra as an angel!

See Colton being a sheep?

And Bentley was NOT in the nativity, since he's no longer in primary.  But he got to be on Santa's Elf Squad with his buddies, so that was adorable!

Possibly the worst Santa costume I've ever seen, but the kids still had fun!

 The church party was on a Friday.  Thursday had been dress rehearsal for my choir concert, and Saturday was the actual concert day (with shows at 2:30 and 7:30 and then a big party after).  So this was another really busy weekend!

And my Christmas concert!

This year our centerpiece number was Bach's Magnificat, which was amazing!  And we sang another song my Mortimer Lauridsen and his son attended, so that was cool!  And then, obviously, we sang a whole bunch of Christmas music (Ding Dong Merrily on High, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, O Come All Ye Faithful, Once In Royal David's City, the Candelight Choir).  Perhaps even more special to me, I've gotten to be really good friends with the girl I sit next to in choir, and it's just been so much fun!  We got ice cream after the concert and headed over to the party together-- I've been surprised at how much harder it's been to make friends here than it was when I lived in Manassas, so when I actually make a new friend, I'm truly grateful!