Christmas Morning

We have a rule at our house that the kids can't wake us up until after 6:00. Without fail, we can hear them giggling long before that time, however, they are so great! They just hang out our door until 6:01 and then attack us and get us going.

This was a fun year... I think the kids were all happy with their stash of gifts. Jason's favorite gift was his new Ipod... imagine that. He really wanted orange... we had him thinking we'd gotten him green. So he was very relieved when he open the paper to find his favorite color. Vincent was totally excited to get "everything". He wasn't feeling 100% that day...

he ran a little fever and slept a lot. Rae's favorite gift is hands down her new kitten, Mona Lisa. (I'll get a picture later). She was so excited to open the box and have little Mona pop out. She started trying to think of a name, and I told her it was a boy kitty. She didn't want a boy kitty. So I told her we could take it back. No, she want's THIS kitty, she just wants it to be a girl kitty. After about a half an hour of telling her it's a boy, and her saying she wants it to be a girl, I finally said, "Fine. It's a girl kitty," to which she clapped her hands together and said, "Yeah!!!" That was that.

Nutcracker

Gotta love the Nutcracker!!! Rae and I have been counting the days down to go to the Nutcracker. And this was our first year going with Grandma Doris! She loved it. We loved watching Rae's reactions and listening to her cute little comments. It was fun to hear her memories from last year. When asked what their favorite part was, Mom and Rae both replied, "the sugarplum fairy". After the show, we went on stage for punch and cookies and waited our turn for pictures with the cast. If I ever get a good scanner, I'll get the picture on here. It was so much fun to see all the props, the sled, the bear costume, Madame Buffoons dress, etc. Very cool. What a fun girls day out!

A Christmas Carol

This was Rae's first year to come to the Christmas Carol at the Hale Centre Theatre. She loved it!!! Of course she did.... we ALL do! We took the kids to Chili's for dinner, kind of a tradition now. It was kinda cool, one of the servers used to live in Fillmore and recognized me. Usually Ben is the one that people recognize. I think she was in my ward when we lived there, but that was over 15 years ago! The play was awesome, they changed the scenery from a little town to just fancy christmas decore, but it was still pretty. I just really love feeling as though I'm in the town. They also changed a few props. The show was terrific... as always and I can't wait to go again next year.

Here comes Santa Claus Symphony

We took Sydney and Anna to our annual Here comes Santa Claus symphony. Rae was very excited to see Santa and Vincent and Jason were great and got the Santa picture for mom. :) Love ya guys!!! I have to admit that I think this is the best Christmas symphony they've done. I am really glad that Syd was able to come this year. After the symphony, we went to the Garden for lunch. Anna had never been there, so when Syd suggested it, she didn't have to twist my arm very hard. After lunch, we were giving Syd and Anna a little tour of the JSMB. It was really fun to check out the little nativities they had

from different countries. The kids had me take all kinds of pictures, but I really liked this one of them taking a break and just being candid. While we where looking at the little chapel, we were lucky enough to get a close up look at the organ. I believe it is french and the keys are backwards. The ivory keys are black and the ebony keys are white. It is a beautiful organ. We felt pretty special to have been able to see it open. Fun day!!!