Christmas Concert

N2's Christmas concert was last Tuesday.  They performed The Itsy Bitsy Spider in Spanish (that's really Christmas-y, don't you think?), Ho, Ho, Hosanna (which they sang over and over and over again at home) and Jingle Bells on the handbells.  Then they performed 2 more songs with their afternoon teacher.  They sang The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy and Jesus, Oh What a Wonderful Child, both of which are long songs.  I didn't great pictures because they were farther away then they were in previous years and I didn't bring my zoom lens.

 Here they are with their teacher Mrs. Kathy whom they love!  They had her last year for preschool and we loved her then too!  So glad that she is teaching them this year as well!

Gingerbread Men

Before N2's holiday concert we made gingerbread men with Grandpa Dueber.  N2 made some for them with very little redhots, some for Grandpa and Daddy with lots of redhots and some for mommy and Grandma with some redhots.  They had a great time decorating!

Grandpa made the big one that is half and half.  Half for him and half for Grandma.

Visit with Santa

We attended the tree lighting ceremony at our Park District on Friday the 6th.  We braved the cold to watch them light up their big tree and watch Santa arrive via firetruck.  How fun!

Then we went inside to wait our turn to see Santa.  Strangely enough Santa did not ask the kids what they wanted for Christmas or whether they had been good.  It was more like a photo opportunity.  Hope my kids are OK with that because I think this is the only time we are seeing Santa!  Noah really didn't want to go up there.  Not sure what he has against Santa or if he is just being difficult.  Mrs. Claus tired to have Noah by her so it would balance the picture but he wanted NOTHING to do with that!  Oh well.

After seeing Santa we went to play some games (where they got candy as a prize for each game) and some crafts.  It was a fun event!  Here they are throwing Christmas cards in baskets.

 Here Natalie is playing another game where you had to put on gloves and try to open hershey kissses.  It was not easy!

Decorating the Christmas Tree

Later in the day after we chopped down the Christmas tree (and after the Christmas tree stand fiasco where we discovered a crack in the plastic after the tree was set up), we decorated the tree.  N2 were great helpers!  They loved putting up ornaments!  They put up more than I did!  They each put up their first ornaments-Santas from Grandpa Weidner.  Then we set them free!  They did much better than they have done in the past.  We only had 1 clump where there were multiple Natalie ornaments!

 

Picking Out Our Christmas Tree

Last Sunday while it was snowing we went to cut down our Christmas tree.  I really considered getting a shorter needled tree this year like a Concolor but Brian wanted a White Pine so we went with that.  Richardson's had beautiful and tall trees this year!  I had a hard time finding a tree that was short enough and small enough!  It was pretty cold but N2 stayed warm enough and had a good time searching for trees.  They stood by trees that we were considering and they practiced fighting off the people who might steal their tree (don't worry, no one tried to steal the tree-Dale, Mary Kay and Brian just pretended to).   Grandma and Grandpa Weidner brought new hats for N2.

Here's the tree that we picked out.

After Daddy cut down the tree, N2 insisted on helping them carry the tree to the wagon.  I'm sure they were a great help!

More Peanut Antics

Here's a little more of what Peanut has done in at our house.  He decided he wanted to help decorate the house for Christmas.

Then Peanut raided our marshmallows and had some fun.  He roasted marshmallows with on of the firefighters.  Then he made a snowman with marshmallows (which Natalie left alone the first day but then broke off the arms to eat them the next day).  This morning Peanut was found having a snowball fight with an army dude (not sure what he is really).  By the time I got up this morning, most of the marshmallows were gone and there were a TON of them!  Their forts were totally gone!  Sound familiar Marcie?

Poor Peanut was trapped outside one morning and wrote N2 a message.  They had to figure out how they could help.  They decided to open the window part ways so he could crawl out while we were at school/work.  It was a chilly night for Peanut to be outside! (There really is an H and an ie in Natalie's name-some of the letters didn't show up as well).

Peanut was also very helpful in recovering toys from the couch!

Lastly, N2's laundry as folded on the couch so he decided to wear some socks and underwear!

Peanut the Elf

Peanut the Elf returned on Sunday and N2 were quite excited to have him reappear.  They knew he would come after Thanksgiving sometime and they looked each morning for him.  The first thing they told us on Sunday was that Peanut made some mischief.  Here's what Peanut did.

N2 had played with the flour by the time I got up in the morning so they were having fun with the mischief that Peanut caused!  Here is Peanut the other days.  He thought about going fishing for our fish.  He talked on the phone one day.  N2 figured that Peanut was talking to Santa.  He played with Natalie's horses and took a ride on one of them.  He also needed some time to do his business!