Delightful December and Dance (2019)

December was a crazy but wonderful month. December is also fun with the Christmas activities we enjoy, but it makes for a busy month trying to fit it all in.

I am behind as usual so I need to get this typed and ready to post! And on to 2020 which is currently flying by already! So here we go I will try to get this going!

We started off the month with a visit from Hans' family. We had Mary, Eric and the boys for 2 nights and Anna was there one night. Saturday Claire had a small dance show down in Shelton. A town about an hour away from our home. We headed down to watch her dance as well as enjoy the festivities in Shelton. They had a Christmas parade and then there was a world record amount of lit Christmas trees in one place.

Claire did great dancing as always and we enjoyed watching her perform. Here are some pictures and videos from that night.

A couple group shots before the parade.

This dance show was a little longer and inside which was a lot warmer!! Claire did so great as always. She is really developing into a great dancer.

After the dancing and some dinner we went to see all the trees! It was like 800 trees! It was really pretty and a fun (but easy) maze.

An intense game of Clue that night!

On Sunday, the kids had their Lightling show at the church that they had been working on. It was such a great play and the kids did a great job memorizing their lines and singing their songs. It was very well done. Mary and Eric and the boys were able to stay and see it, which was really nice.  These are some pictures from the dress rehearsal and then the actual show.

On the following Tuesday we did the show again for a local senior home. Again another great performance and the kids shined the light for the elderly in that home.

A few random pictures.

One of our traditions is to make gingerbread houses each year. Well not really make them, but decorate them. Olivia and Raelyn work together on one and Claire and Aubrey work together on another. It is always interesting and there is usually some fighting. They get bored half way through or run out of candy. But always a fun tradition. Maybe next year I will let each of them decorate one so they can have a friendly competition. I didn't get many pictures but here are a couple of them.

These are those action pictures unfortunately so that is why they have a play button on them. Oops!

The finished houses.

The weekend of Dec. 14th and 15th, Claire and Aubrey performed in the Just for Kicks Nutcracker. It was a crazy week leading up to it with practices and such and then they did 2 shows. The first night Claire was the mouse queen and in the Chinese dance and Aubrey was a bonbon under Mother Gingers dress. And the second day they were the same except Claire wasn't the mouse queen.

The Nutcracker was very cute. Different than we were used to, but very clever and cute. And the girls did a great job!

Here are a few pictures from the 2 days.

It was hard to get good pictures of Claire in her Mouse Queen dance. It was a fairly short duo and she only did it one of the 2 days so I didn't get a second chance to take pictures of her. Here are the few I got.

Chinese dance was next. There were just the 3 of them. They were super cute!

Then the adorable bonbons! Aubrey was the cutest one of course!

We all attended Saturday night so here are the pictures from after the Saturday night show.

Olivia with her friend Kayla

The second day just Raelyn and I went with Claire and Aubrey in the show. We started off with Claire forgetting her costumes at home and Hans needing to run them down to her. But he got there with plenty of time and disaster was averted. I got better pictures the second day as it felt less rushed and I knew the dances a bit better. It was a good second show.

The girls' pretty roses and the beautiful amaryllis I got from a friend for Christmas. What a treat to have a counter full of beautiful flowers!

We have a lot of traditions at Christmas time one of them is hiding the shepherd. Instead of Elf on the Shelf we hide our little shepherd named Kevin. Do I hide him every night...no, I often forget, but the girls love when I do hide him and finding him each day.

Another tradition we have is doing our Truth in the Tinsel ornaments. Again we don't get them all made, but we do try to do read the Bible verses and do most of the ornaments. Here are the girls working on their salt dough mangers.

On a Wednesday evening before Christmas a bunch of our friends decided to meet up at the Kingston lights and check them out. It was raining and yucky, but the lights were pretty despite it. We had a good albeit short time out in the cold and rain checking out the lights with our friends. I didn't get many pictures but here are a few.

Another favorite tradition we have is to make and decorate sugar cookies! Yum!  This year both Claire and I had done a little class on how to decorate the cookies with royal icing. It is a fun way to decorate the cookies really well. They don't taste as good as good old fashioned cream cheese or buttercream frosting though. This technique also takes a lot longer and is very detail oriented, but they did a great job and were really patient for the most part. I was so amazed by their creativity!

Raelyn's cookies

Raelyn's cookies

Olivia's cookies

Aubrey's cookies

Aubrey's favorite cookie

Raelyn's cookies

Claire's cookies

This was a crazy workout we did at crossfit, that made me knee hurt and a got a terrible cold right after, just in time for Christmas. UGH! Have I mentioned I have been doing crossfit this year with my friends?? I started the end of July and am still going 3 times a week. It is usually hard, but I always feel pretty good afterwards. Overall I am enjoying the health benefit of going to crossfit each week. It is a great group of ladies I work out with and I love the trainers too!

On Friday night before Christmas the girls were in two of Irene's Christmas recitals. This was so so fun!  The girls costumes were cute and they did such a great job! Their homeschool dances were so fun to watch and even their regular Irene's classes (Olivia, Claire and Raelyn are all doing ballet there) were fun to watch as well. And Olivia had her first pointe dance on stage which was extra special. She has really been enjoying her pointe class this year.

Olivia's pointed dance was first!

Raelyn's tap class went next.

And then Olivia did her ballet dance.

Next up Raelyn and Aubrey's tap dance.

Then was Olivia, Claire and Aubrey in their jazz dance!

 Raelyn in her jazz dance. She is the youngest in her class and you can't tell first because she is just as tall as the others in her class and second because she is so good. A great listener who gets better with each dance class. She is dancing so much that she just keeps getting better! Raelyn had a couple quick changes because she had 4 dances in one show and she handled it like a champ going from tap to her other tap costume. And hence the adorable curly bun I put in her hair. She didn't have time to change her back and forth between a bun and pony tail so I just put her hair in a curly bun so she didn't look bad in either dance and I love curly buns honestly!! I miss doing them for the Irene's shows.

And then Raelyn was on to ballet!!  This class is on the easier side for her, but she handles it well and shows the other kids how it is done!

Last up for the first show was the older girls tap which is down to just 3, but these girls did so amazing!! I was seriously so proud of them!! Olivia and Claire and Sophie rocked this tap dance to Little Drummer Boy! I think this one of my favorite tap dances of all times. Ok, I might say that every year, but really...so, so, so good!!

 Aubrey received her three year trophy from Mrs. Irene. She was pretty excited about that. We left when she was just short of 3 years so now she finally got it even though she has now been dancing for 6 years!

The second show Aubrey got to sit with us and watch and Olivia did her ballet once more, Claire did her ballet (which she did not do in the first show), and Raelyn did her ballet and tap one more time. There were some other fun dances in the second show, but a lot of the same dances, so it was a touch boring, but still fun to see Claire do her ballet dance and the other 2 redo their dances. Here are some pictures from the second show.

Raelyn tapping again.

Claire's ballet was simple but beautiful. She did it well as always!

Then Olivia had her ballet dance again.  She is so grown up these days and such a beautiful dancer. I love watching her!

The teachers doing a silly dance! Raelyn's teacher was in it so I had to get a picture.

And last Rae came back out to do her ballet. This time in a different costume than the first show. Haha! Not quite sure why, but I liked it!

Here are some after the show and some were maybe before the show (not sure when I took them) pictures of my beautiful dancers!

The next day Claire had a fun little dance along at the library with her company girls. Just Raelyn and I went and she had fun dancing along with the "big" girls. It was a pretty good turn out and one of the most fun little shows Claire had. Afterwards Claire had a company Christmas party with her group and then went to one of the friends house till that evening when I picked her up.

After each solo they invited the kids up to learn a little dance with the soloist and then do it for the parents. It was really cute and the kids that were there had a lot of fun.

Chinese dance again.

Claire doing her lemon drop solo.

Her company girls!

Ada, Breanna, Amelia, and Claire

Ms. Bridget, Ada, Claire, Breanna, Amelia, and Ms. Chelsea

The cute little set up we set up.

Silly Olivia with one of her favorite cookies. She likes sugar cookies and doesn't mind the hard royal icing.

Aubrey made this soap tree at Homebase.

On Christmas Eve we had our traditonal Christmas eve dinner lasagna, bread and caesar salad.  Claire wasn't feeling well (had a fever and cold) so she stayed home with Hans and the rest of the girls and I went to Christmas eve service. It was a really nice service and of course we love the candle light part.

Love these families. Their kids were so little when we started at this church 16 years ago. We watched them grow up!! It is so fun to see them all at church now and then like Christmas eve.

I didn't get as many Christmas pictures as I would have liked in front of the tree, but I did get a few of the younger girls

Of course when we got home from the service we had to open our special Christmas Eve presents to get our special Christmas jammies.

Christmas morning!! Jesus is born!

Christmas jammies and stockings picture!

Christmas morning we opened gifts, had breakfast of cinnamon rolls, and eggs, bacon. Then we had a relaxed day of cleaning up, making phone calls, and I made a delicious Christmas dinner of prime rib with some delicious sides. It was a lovely relaxing family day. Oh and the other big thing we did over spring break was watch all of the Star Wars movies!! We were watching 1 or 2 movies a day. It was so fun and the girls really got into it.

The girls got clothes, their sister gifts, books, calendars, a lot of their "usual" things, but their big group gift was a new nintendo switch to play Mario Cart on. They love it and so does their dad!

My favorite gift!!

The day after Christmas we did what we called "guns and snow" with the Mills.  We headed up to the mountains and shot our guns and then went higher to find some snow to sled on. The kids had a blast and it was good for me to be able to shoot the pistol again. It had been awhile.

We went and watched Jada play basketball over Christmas break. It was fun to get to cheer for her even though her team lost that night.

We did a couple puzzles and this one got put away before I got a picture of it.

And for New Year's Eve we celebrated with our church family first at church with a game night. We played a group game of Family Feud, kids versus adults, and then played other games. It was a fun time.

We rang in the New Year with the Kopps at their house. We played some ping pong and then watched the ball drop and toasted the New Year! Always fun to be with friends that feel like family!

I was sad to put the Christmas stuff away and kept it up probably a bit too long. Especially since we ended up going on our ski trip just a couple weeks into the new year. But it was fun to have up and enjoy. Here are a last couple of pictures.

These are all the ornaments the girls made!

Another year in the books! Another great year!!