Christmas Dance Party

I really do not have creative titles for my blogs - I'll have to work on that. Anyway, for the last class before Christmas Maddie's dance class was a Christmas party and Ms. Charlene invited Davis to participate again. She said they could wear something "Christmasy" with their dance outfit.

Here are our little dancing elves!
Kallie hanging out in her car seat.

One of the dance moms holding Kallie

I think one of the ears on Maddie's hat must have come unsewn on the top, so it kept flopping down and it reminds me more of Dopey from Snow White! A little background on this picture of Maddie and Davis dancing together - Ms. Charlene told Davis to pick a partner and at first Davis picked a little girl named Claire. Maddie started crying kind of loudly and Ms. Charlene talked Davis into picking Maddie. It is pretty sweet that she wants her brother to participate in her big girl dance class and that she wants him to dance with her.

Notice the red nose and jingle bells? They were dancing to Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer.

A little blurry, but cute nonetheless.

Maddie hugging Ms. Charlene after giving her her gift. They passed out goodies at this party as well. We still have candy from the Fall Festival.

Kallie looks more like Robin Hood or Peter Pan than an elf.

Finally got to a Christmas Parade

After missing 2 parades due to rain and picture appointments we were excited to be able to go to the Cary Christmas parade. We parked at Matt's grandparents house and walked to downtown Cary to watch the parade. Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Russ graciously watched Kallie for us so that she did not have to stay out in the cold. It was a long parade, but the kids had a great time watching the floats and performers go by and especially running out in the street to collect the candy that was thrown to them.

All bundled up waiting for the parade to start.
Maddie and Davis had so much fun they didn't complain about the cold at all.

We love Monkey Joe's so I had to get a picture of him in the parade.

Enjoying the beads that someone in the parade gave them.

Davis loves lollipops, so I had to get a picture of all of the ones he had collected!

Bundled up for the ride back to Grandma Ruth's and Grandpa Russ's house. Davis associates parades so much with candy that one Saturday WRAL was rerunning the Raleigh parade and he went up to the TV and said "Candy, Daddy, candy" as if they were going to throw candy to him through the TV!

Decorating our Home

Here are some pictures of a few of our "decorations" that we had this past Christmas. I of course did not take pictures of everything. One thing that I did not take a picture of was the kids' Little People Nativity Set. They had the stable with the manger, Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, shepherd, angel, cow, dog, donkey last year and then this year Mimi gave them the 3 wise men which each came with its own tent and camel. Each morning at breakfast Matt would read part of the Christmas story from Luke to them and it was neat to then see them acting out what he had read with the Little People.

We let them put window clings on the window in their room and I let them put them up by themselves only helping when they asked. They really enjoy this and we have done this for Valentine's Day and spring as well.
I made this chain at "MAP" (Mothers at Providence) and each day one of the kids would pull off a link and either Matt or I would read it to them and then on Christmas I read the whole thing and it was a poem of the Christmas story.
I also forgot to take a picture of the quilted wall hanging that my mom made for them of a Christmas tree with buttons and pockets. In each pocket there is a little ornament for them to hang on the "tree" and there are 24 buttons so it is an advent wall hanging. We took turns each day - one would open the link and the other would hang the ornament on the wall hanging. I guess I'll have to come up with one more thing for next year and work out a rotation!

While we were decorating the tree I made some hot chocolate for Maddie and me. The boys were not interested.

We let the kids hang a few decorations before they went to bed and then we finished up.