Christmas Part 3 - The Wii

As a reward to ourselves for becoming debt free, Adam and I decided our family would get a Wii for Christmas. I thought Kaylyn would enjoy it but I wasn't expecting her reaction...I love you Daddy!

Let's play! Adam and Kaylyn played the Wii all morning. Morgan and I only got to try it out a little bit. Kaylyn loves it! Wonder what that string is she's holding? No, it's not part of the Wii. It's the balloon she got from her cousin's William's birthday balloons yesterday.And hopefully hidden in all these pictures, is one of the only 2 pictures taken of me. At least I'm surrounded by beauty. But in an effort to be real, this is what I looked like this morning. Now you know one of the reasons that I post so few pictures of me. The number 1 reason is that I'm always the one taking the pictures.

Christmas Part 2 - More Presents

When I asked Kaylyn what she thought she and Morgan should get Daddy for Christmas, she knew immediately what she wanted to buy. So off we went to the bike store on Christmas Eve and bought his new headlight for his bicycle(s).
Aunt Norene, Uncle Matt, Nathan, Isaac and Esther sent books for the girls. Here are Kaylyn's books.

Morgan was excited for her new doll from Sissy.

Kaylyn was excited for her Einsteins from Santa.

And both girls were excited to get one of their favorite videos Signing Time. If you haven't watched one of these and you have young kids, you need to check them out from your local library - they are awesome!

Christmas Morning Part 1

Can you believe it? I'm already sharing our Christmas morning pictures. Kaylyn made the best faces with every present she opened. Morgan was excited too and tore into her presents, but just one at a time. And she waited patiently for Daddy to get her Einsteins toys out of their packaging before even thinking about another present.

Kaylyn's Christmas Dance Show

Friday night Kaylyn had her Christmas Dance Show at the church. Adam and I were at a Christmas party but I snuck away to see most of her show. Here she is doing the Freeze Dance. This was her favorite routine. But her favorite song was Jingle Bell Rock.

Because Adam and I were at our party, our friend Heather and her daughter Raven watched the girls and got them to and from the recital. Morgan just assumes Raven is part of her family, and so do we :)Here's the Dance of the Sugar Plum FairiesTheir final number, Feliz Navidad
And Kaylyn's bow with her teacher.

Brenna's Double Concert

Our "niece" Brenna had a holiday concert on Thursday night. (Thank goodness it was not the same nights as Kaylyn's performances.) For the first of the concert, Brenna played her trumpet (yes, she is following after her "Uncle" Adam) for 4 holiday songs. For the most part, the kids had just started learning their instruments in September. And they sounded good. There were like 30 clarinets and 15 trombones, quite a few flutes and trumpets.

Morgan did her part of helping conduct and cheering. She is becoming quite the accomplished conductor - maybe we need to sign her up for lessons with the local maestro. Maybe there will be a world famous 2 year old conductor next year - hmm.

Then they switched the stage around and Brenna performed in a Grade 5/6 Honor Choir. She had to audition in September to become a member of the choir. They sounded incredible.

Dance Performance at Rehab Center

On Wednesday night, Kaylyn's dance class did a preview of Friday night's dance show at a local rehab center. She was so excited because they set out cookies and bottled water just for the dancers - she felt so special!

Here's Kaylyn's Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies. The lady having fun with the girls is her dance teacher, my friend Isabel.

Nativity Celebration

Our Stake joins with another Stake and puts on a Nativity Celebration each year. Adam plays in the Nativity Orchestra and we loan our nativities for display. Each ward is assigned a day to provide hosts and cast members for the live nativity outside. So we took the girls the day our ward was assigned because that was the first night of Adam's performances (he had 2). Kaylyn's favorite part is seeing Mary in the live nativity. Note that the white spots are not poor photography but snow.

Kaylyn had two friends also enjoying the live nativity- Hannah and Kennedy.