All snuggled in.... er...on the couch!

Rylee and Santa

Rylee is the last one to truly believe in Santa Clause now.  I'm okay with that.  And it is so cute to see her get all excited,  She is not scared of Santa at all.  Her preschool had a little Christmas party on Thursday and Santa came.  They told the kids that they could go sit on Santa's lap and asked who wanted to go first.  All the other children shrank back.  Not Rylee!  She jumped up and shouted, "Me!" and trotted right up to Santa.  She told him exactly what she wanted (A Flashlight Friend, Stompees, and Flipees).  In the first picture, you can see how happy she is to get the little gift.  In the second, look closely at her face.  She was offended that I asked if she wanted to sit on Santa's lap.

Check out the third picture to see her awesome shirt.  The tree is green handprints!  I'm thinking I'm going to need to make a blanket with all the adorable handprint shirts she has from this school!

Doing the Mom Duty

The kids had a "Celebration" thing on Wednesday night.  I  am a huge fan of short and sweet events, and I guess the school tried to do that.... sort of.  The school split it into 2 events.  Since the it is K-8, they had the younger kids performance at 5:30 and the bigger kids at 6:30.  Between Callie's utter refusal to get on stage and sing in public and my lack of desire to sit through 2 hours of performance, we just went in at 6:30 for Joshua's stuff.

Here is the band.  This is only their second year of band at the school, and they are doing a pretty good job! You might be able to see Joshua in the very back center, nearly hidden by balloons.

There's my boy, all the way in the back. 

There was a lot of down time for the band, and this is how he spent it.  I got to enjoy some delightful vocalists and a rather.... interesting... play. 

Callie loved the play.  Delaney agreed that it was wonderful.  I didn't tell them any different.  Here is the after school Drama Club ending their performance. 

Delaney enjoyed herself! 

And here is Joshua, playing the grand finale!

When Chocolate Truffle Pies make a jump for it

I love Christmas

The housing office held their annual tree lighting and Santa event.  The kids didn't care about the tree or the singing, and ran around outside like lunatics.  Then we got to go inside and eat goodies and burn our mouths with too-hot chocolate.  That part they liked.  a lot.  Then Santa came.  They were good sports about getting together for a picture for me.  I love these kids!

Waiting in line.  Rylee was smart and brought her cookies with her. 

This picture makes me smile.  I can't remember what made them all crack up, but Marian never smiles like that for pictures and you can see Rylee has completely lost it.  Callie is in her "no smiling for pictures" phase and she's fighting it. 

Yeah, these are my favorite children! They are pretty awesome.

Merry Christmas!!