All the World’s a Stage

Sophia and her classmates put on a stunning & colorful performance for the annual Christmas pageant.

Boxing Day Dinner

After the rush of Christmas, and having it seem like it is over so fast, Boxing day dinner is a wonderfully relaxing event. 

and Troy was able to play with his new lens…  Fun all around!

Merry Christmas!

So far, we have still been able to have a bit of a lie in on Christmas morning, and today was no exception!  The kids all slept until 8am, and then it was the chaos of presents for hours it seemed.  There is just nothing like Christmas chocolate for breakfast…

Christmas Eve

Our traditional Christmas Eve celebrations were so much more fun this year because the girls were so excited they could hardly stand still!  After dinner & singing around the tree, we could finally open presents.  YEA!!

Christmas Activities

I’m not sure who was looking forward to Christmas Vacation more, Sophia or I. She was excited for Christmas & I was looking forward to catching up on sleep & not having a 7am ritual on a daily basis…

We spent one day visiting the reindeer & camels that rest at Swanson's Nursery during December before their long night of work. The animals weren’t too interesting to the girls, but the train held their fascination for quite a while!

an afternoon at the play “The Best Christmas Pageant EVER” then it was decorating Gingerbread houses to make the hours of Christmas eve speed by faster…

Considering most of the candy was from at least 20 years ago when I used to do this, there was relatively little sugar eaten. But I think I did see at least one of the girls sucking on the end of the icing canister… And Lexa’s house had finger lanes all over the back where she decided there was far too much frosting (snow) and she had to eat it off. Luckily It was almost time to go!!

The Nutcracker Night

We spent the evening yesterday at the Nutcracker enjoying an amazing performance!  It isn’t the traditional telling with a Sugarplum fairy, but a bit of a modern take, with Clara/Marie being a much more important character.  We took Sophia 2 years ago, but being jet lagged she slept thru the last 30 min of the performance.  No problems with that this year.  Even Lexa was enthralled for almost the entire show!

The cool kids on the block

Playtime in the snow with Uncle Brehan, Sean & Sophia.

Sophia & I finally got a snowman made 2 nights before we left when it snowed 8 inches while we were at dinner. Amazing - I have never seen a Seattle winter like this!

Happy 2009!

Well, we are back, and given that I am writing this at 1am you can probably guess that we are beginning our weeks of jet lag fun. Troy and I are taking turns staying up, and since I was falling asleep at the dinner table tonight, I had the early 4 hours (8-12), and he gets 12 - 4am. Hopefully we will all be asleep between 4-10am, and then we start the day. Troy has to leave for Paris at 5am, so it is just me & the girls tonight. Poor man!
Any way, my plan for the late night hours is to add photos from Christmas, so be sure to look back (I'll do them chronologically).
Thanks again to everyone for making Christmas so special, and sorry about not being able to touch base with everyone at home. The snow made everything crazy this year, and we are sorry if we missed you!