Pre Christmas Fun!

Brian and a book of Christmas knock knock jokes before school one morning. We do the Elf on the shelf and one morning Brian found this book in our advent calendar. He brought it to school and shared some jokes from it for Show and Tell that day.

I love doing Christmas playdates with Brian's friends. Here he is making Gingerbread houses with his classmate Dru.

They both had a good time.

Little sneak. I caught Annie one morning trying to eat ALL of candy ordainments 

We went to a Christmas concert. Here is Brian with his great uncle and Annie with her beloved Gaga.

Funny story. The day after Thanksgiving is our day to get up our Christmas tree and decorate the house. We where sitting around that morning discussing all the events of the day. The next thing you know, we see Brian walking up the basement stairs with our tree in his hands dragging it. He wanted to decorate. So we put on Christmas music and made the house look like Christmas. 

We take turns letting the kids put the star on top. This year it was Brian's turn.

One fun thing this year that I did was help design the float for the town's Christmas parade. It was a soccer theme and it was so fun to put together!

Brian riding on the float!

Funny story.....so this little girl. She always has to get in the middle of everything and always do what big brother is doing! So, Gaga came to see Brian in the parade and had Annie with her. As soon as Annie saw her big brother, she ran away from Gaga as fast as her little legs could carry her and ran along side of the float until I put her on it. Then she acted like the parade was for her and she waved to everyone.

After the parade we invited his friends Jace and Weston over to decorate gingerbread and cookies. These boys always have a good time when they are together.

Annie in front of the tree one morning before a playdate. I love her smile and her big blue eyes.

We went to a playdate at the library with our friend Evie and she had a blast with the parachute! It was so fun to watch her enjoy herself.

Just a few more activities at the Libaray.

This is one of my favorite Christmas traditions. We have the most wonderful Jewish community. Every year they get together during the days of Hanukah celebrate. This year they let Brian light the menorah. They also celebrated 70th birthday of Jerusalem.

Brian's grade took a fieldtrip to see the Nutcracker. Here is Brian with his friend Dru. This was such a fun fieldtrip to chaperone.

Brian looks forward to this day all year. We go to his school and we watch the Polar Express and wear our PJ's. He had fun watching the movie and hanging out with his friend Eamon.

This was a fun project. I got to volunteer in this school to help with their grade level Paper Mache nutcracker project. I helped at the paper mache station one week and Brian was not a far!

This was such a fun project. They worked weeks on it. Here is Brian painting it. He still has such an eye for detail for projects like this. The finished project was pretty impressive and is on top of our piano. It was so cute to hear Annie pronounce Nutcracker.

This is backstage at the Christmas nativity pageant while everyone gets dressed and ready. Annie who always wants to be with the big kids got right in on the action too. I was glad both of them got on stage this year.

Annie was a sheep and went around for the longest time saying "Baaa"

These three... Two sheep and a wiseman.

My sheep!

All the kids before going on. I love seeing Annie there with all the big kids.

A member read the story from the book of Luke and kids sing. They both did good, especially Annie for being her first time. Brian stayed right by her side the whole time.

And someone thought their performance was that good that she clapped for herself.

My family hosted their annual Toy Drive. This year we where apart of a group that donated 45 bikes. It was such a good feeling!