The Kingdom Kids Choir Performs "Christmas Starr"

Alyssa was very excited about their "dark entrance" this year! For the first time, the children entered from the back of the balcony in the sanctuary, in the dark with flashlights glowing. She was so proud of their dramatic entrance.

Singing her solo in "I Adore You." It was the longest solo she has ever had, and we were very proud, she did a beautiful job!

This is Alyssa's third year being part of the Kingdom Kids Choir, and she looks forward to the Christmas Musical each year. They practice each week from September to December, and she enjoys it very much. This year's performance was called "Christmas Starr."

Emma as Mary in the Nativity Scene

Shyly walking onto the stage.


Each year in the Children's Christmas musical, the Kindergarten class gets to play the characters in the Nativity Scene. Kahiwa was so excited, she was wishing for weeks ahead of time that she could be Mary. She did a great job and had fun.

Rebekah Playing the Tuba

The two year old class practicing with their teacher, Mr. Dave before going on stage.
Rebekah's class, one of her favorite little playmates is the blond boy in the front left corner, Sawyer.
Bekah and Mommy on the stage with her class.

The two year olds sang Feliz Navidad and had little motions that went with the song. I was surprised to see that Rebekah's favorite part was a tuba solo, she was very enthusiastic about playing her pretend tuba! All the childen (and parents too, were wearing their pjs)

Jingle Bus

Every Christmas season, we have a tour of our downtown area called the Jingle Bus. For $1 you get on the coach and tour four area parks that go all out with their Christmas decor, and you get a little history of the city along the way. When you return to the beginning of the tour there is hot cocoa, cookies, and coloring books waiting for you. It's become a fun family tradition. I couldn't get any good pics of the lights as it was snowing on our tour, but it was still fun. We got 6 more inches of snow last night bringing our total to well over 18 inces. It is higher than Emma and Rebekah's heads in many areas.

Christmas Carol Bears at the Mall

The mall downtown, where the Jingle Bus leaves from, had a really cute display of Teddy Bears singing Christmas Carols. All the Bears had names such a Bentley, Belle, Ella, and Violet. They even played instruments. Rebekah was a little leery of bears that could move and talk, but the older girls loved singing along with them.

Snow Day...Hooray!!!

Christmas vacation started a day early for us when we got 12 inches of snow overnight. School was cancelled and the girls could not have been happier to have the extra day at home to play and relax! The snow was beautiful to look at, and fun to play in, but very heavy to shovel. All of our girls enjoy the snow, but I think Emma likes it most of all.

Thank You, Aunt Laura!

Yesterday a box arrived from my Aunt Laura and she had sent the girls such a cute Christmas gift! She gave them the cutest little snowmen aprons (I unfortunately couldn't get Rebekah to leave hers on), a snowflake mold cupcake tray, and a dry erase calendar board and magnets to help you plan your holiday baking. Well of course, with the snow day today, they couldn't have arrived in better timing! Alyssa planned out the next two weeks for us on the calendar, so we should be set :) The girls woke up this morning ready to bake, and the aprons looked so adorable! Thank you, Aunt Laura and Joe!

More Baking Pics

Rebekah's favorite treat to make was the brownies. She kept thinking she was being sneaky tasting the batter, but when she realized I was watching she said, "This tastes...this tastes...DELICIOUS!" Alyssa and Emma loved the seeing how the snowflake mold came out on the top of each cupcake. All three girls thought they were experts at cracking the eggs, and although we did have one egg that Rebekah decided to smoosh in her hand, they did surprisingly well at seperating the yolk from the white part.

Christmas Baking

I knew the girls would be so excited to bake, and they kept taking turns measuring and adding the ingredients having lots of fun the entire time. There were a few spills, but nothing major! Usually Emma is the only one who stays with me throughout an entire process of baking something, it must have been the cute snowflake molds and aprons that kept them excited the whole morning!!

Christmas Artwork from School

While we waited for our cupcakes and brownies to bake, I photographed the girls with some of the Christmas art projects they have brought home from school recently. The small red and purple paper thing that Alyssa is holding in her hand is a candle holder made with paper that came from Germany. She was really proud of it, and Emma was very pleased with her coloring too :) !

Finished Product of our Baking

After spending the morning in the kitchen, we had 7 little plates of homemade goodies for our neighbors.

Christmas Crafts

We had a busy weekend making gingerbread houses and painting ornaments. The girls were probably eating as much candy as they were adding to the house, but considering they didn't use a kit for a prepared house, I thought they did a cute job designing their own. The ornaments they painted were a steal on clearance at JoAnn fabrics store, if I would have known how much fun the girls were going to have painting them up, I would have bought several more! You can see the two younger girls very proud to show their painted ornaments, and below Alyssa's cupcake already hanging on the tree (Ka'iulani ran off before I had the chance to take her picture with hers.)

Duckie in the Snow!

We had a snowfall at the worst time of day today. Dave had already gone to work, but the girls of course need to get picked up from school in just a little bit, so we headed out to clear our massive driveway. Rebekah loved helping me shovel! And yes, that is a sandbox shovel in her hand, so she was moving LOTS at a time :) She has a kind of funny expression in this picture because she loved eating the snow too! Her fingers felt like little icicles when we came in because she wouldn't leave the gloves on.

A Christmas Carol

My mom and I took the two oldest girls to see A Christmas Carol at Drury Lane Theater. I hadn't been there since I was a kid, and anyone who grew up in the Chicago area likely had a field trip to Drury Lane at some point during their school years. I was struck by what a neat theater it is, I guess it's one of those things that happens when you remember a place from your childhood mind's eye and then re-experience it as an adult. The girls enjoyed the play very much. Alyssa had recently seen the play for a field trip with her school and said the Drury Lane play had more fancy language used in it, she also loved the women's costumes. Emma liked when the Ghost of Christmas Past came "flying" onto the stage on the moon, and she was very concerned about Tiny Tim.

Family Pics

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, we had an extended family party at my cousin, Kathy's house. We took some generational pictures. One picture is my mom with 2 of her brothers, Uncle Bob and Uncle Chuck (one brother, Uncle Jim, and her sister, Aunt Laura couldn't be at the party). The middle picture is my cousins and myself, I think 10 out of 19 of us are pictured here. The top photo is all of our children. It was a lot of fun to see everyone, and awesome to see all the little ones playing together!

Amy's Triplets

My cousin has triplet boys that are close in age to Emma. They are identical and so cute, their names (Hayden, Houston, and Harrison) were embroidered on their sweaters to avoid confusion . I asked if I could take their picture and the three of them stuck their faces together to give kisses.

It's Beginnning to look a lot like Christmas...

Last weekend, we went to a Christmas parade downtown. It was very pretty to see the candy canes and ornaments go floating by, although the marching bands, and their flag twirlers looked quite cold! We played for a little while in a nearby park that was all decorated for Christmas. The girls were feeling really cold also, so we stopped by to look at Daddy's new office afterwards.