Christmas 2012!

Merry Christmas, everyone!  Our started at 5:30- Emily was too excited to sleep any longer.  We held her off until 6:30, when Paul's parents  and grandma came over) and she forced a very confused Audrey to get up and go see the presents.  I think I speak for all of us when I say that this was truly the best Christmas we have had-- the girls were so excited about everything and their reactions were just precious.  Paul and I hosted Christmas Day dinner and we cooked our first turkey, ham, and lots of side dishes all on our own-- I have to say I am surprised that we were able to pull it all off like we did!

Wishing you and your family a happy holiday season!

Emily is 5 Years and 2 Months Old!

We are knee-deep in holiday madness around here-- something to do nearly every day/night...things are wild but we are so blessed to have our sweet girls and to watch them as they take in this holiday season.  Here's what's going on right now:

- Emily had a beautiful singing solo in her preschool's Christmas program.  It was a long, hard song and she blew us all away with her confidence and skill!  My heart melted, watching her sing up there- I was in the back with my video camera, filming her and choking up.  I don't have the video downloaded yet, but here's a few shots from my friend, who was sitting up front:

 After the program they had a nice little reception for the kids and families-- ours surely enjoyed the cake!

- Emily had an AMAZING experience performing in the Nutcracker!  She adored getting to wear her beautiful costume, and having her hair and makeup done, and getting to bow for the crowd.  It was great! We were so proud of her and how hard she worked.  Now that it's all over, she continues to do the Nutcracker just about every day-- only it's just her (playing the role of Clara, naturally) and poor Audrey, who is made to be the Mouse King!  Haha!  I asked Emily why Audrey couldn't be a party child or the Sugar Plum Fairy or something like that and I was informed that, "There's only one girl in this show"..... point taken!

- We have been cooped up inside for a few weeks now- lots of cold, rainy days.  Where is our snow?? We've only had the one, brief snowfall (back in October) but we made the most of it!  The girls really enjoyed playing outside, while they lasted....it was about 30 degrees out and windy so our fun was cut a bit short.  Hopefully we will get some more snow soon- we had a dusting the other day and it was pure torture for the girls not to be able to play in it.

- Emily continues to amaze us with her reading skills.  We downloaded a sight word app on the iPad and she can read almost all of the prek/K sight words..... she blows my mind!  I remember struggling with my NC students on their sight words so much- it's incredible to me that she knows so many and isn't even in school yet.  I hope she isn't bored in kindergarten!

- Emily performed in a kids' Christmas program at our church this weekend and did a beautiful job.  She had 4 long lines to say and she said them perfectly.  Paul's parents and grandma were present for the program and I know they enjoyed it. (No pictures of this as I was sitting on the floor in front of the kids, passing the microphone to each one).

- She is very much so loving our Elf on the Shelf, Tovey-- he has played some pretty funny tricks on us this year!  Her favorite was probably when he hung our underwear up on the stocking holders and hid the stockings in Paul's closet.  Too funny!

That's all for now- look for  a Christmas post coming soon!