We had a few "divide and conquer" nights this week with all of the Christmas recitals and activities scheduled. Thursday night was the Orhcestra/Choir concert at the high school, but it was also Enlight Ballroom's Christmas Show at a venue across town. Jenna is in both the orchestra AND the choir, but she is also in Ballroom so she had to make a choice. The fact that her grade in two classes at school was dependent on her attendance at the concert made it a bit easier to decide, but she would rather have danced with her team instead. Since they couldn't just take her out of the routines they had to have an alternate come and dance in her place. She was sad to miss it, but what can you do?
Britton and Jenna leaving for the concert with AJ photobombing.
They did "Believe" from the Polar Express with the choir, orchestra and the band which ended up being really cool.
On Friday night Britton and Jenna had a piano recital at 5:00 p.m. and Adam and I had a formal Christmas party at 6:00 p.m. The Christmas recital is always a duet recital so Britton and Jenna played together on two different pianos. This isn't the best picture, but it was where I was sitting so we could slip out after they performed. Britton is on the piano on the right and Jenna is playing on the left.
Fortunately some friends of ours filmed the song from a much better angle.
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| Emily, Carrie, Lacie, Hilary |
This is the only picture I have from the party hosted by our good friends Dave and Erica. Dave was in rare form and we laughed harder than we have laughed in a long time.
Saturday was the day we finished the last of our Christmas preparations. At one point I said to Korinne, "Hey, it's Christmas Eve Eve" and she responded with "Actually it's Christmas Adam today because Adam came before Eve." Ha! I laughed at that one. Not only is December 23rd Joseph Smith's Birthday, but it's also "Christmas Adam".
I really liked having Christmas Eve on a Sunday this year. We only had 1 hour of church and Adam didn't have any meetings so he was home all day. It felt like an extra bonus Christmas day.
Adam having some "boy time" with Jameson and AJ watching the Polar Express.
Adam also made some sugar cookies (again) with the kids for Santa.
He also made sugar cookies on Saturday to give out to his home teaching families and a few others in the ward. I had to giggle when one of the ladies called me afterwards and left a message about how delicious the cookies were and asking me for the recipe because in her mind if Adam shows up with cookies then naturally I was the one who made them. I laughed because anyone who knows us knows that Adam is the one who does all of the baking around here. I stick with the cooking.
We spent the last 2 Christmases wondering how AJ was doing at the orphanage in Ethiopia and wishing he could be home with us. I can't tell you how nice it was to have him home this year all safe and sound.
I kind of love that as soon as we got out the hors d'ouevres on Christmas Eve Jenna, Korinne and Jameson all quietly disappeared and came back in their ugly Christmas sweaters. We got them for Christmas Eve last year and I think we started a new tradition. I went and put one on, too, but Adam and Britton slacked a little this year. I guess I need to find one for AJ next year. 😊
Jameson and AJ playing with the Little People Nativity
Super Jmo!
After our dinner of Reubens we tried to act out the nativity story from Luke 2 but things quickly got out of hand.
Before long AJ (our baby Jeaus) was riding the donkey and everything else was in shambles. It seems chaos is the new normal around our house and Christmas Eve was no different.
Jameson has been asking for footy pajamas lately so I went with that theme this year. They are hard to find in big kid sizes but we have an outlet store in town that sells them up to adult sizes. Jenna was a good sport and loved her footy pajamas, but I got Britton something else because I knew he would only wear them once to please me and then never again.
It is darn near impossible to get a good picture of the kids in their Christmas jammies on Christmas Eve. I have video that shows the chaos during our attempt. Standing still and smiling is just too much for about 60% of our kids.
The kids lined up early Christmas Morning (6:15 a.m.)
This was AJ's very first Christmas and he was surprised and delighted with everything.
Britton with his loot.
Jenna showing off her new latin ballroom dance shoes.
Jameson was thrilled with his new Paw Patrol boat.
Korinne had already changed into her new clothes and was pleasantly surprised to get an echo dot.
AJ loved everything and had a great time unwrapping his gifts.
Adam finishing off the nog (only slightly staged).
Usually Grandma is here and takes care of the Christmas morning breakfast ring, but since she is on a mission this year it was up to me. I hate to admit it but I've never actually made a breakfast ring myself, but don't worry, I nailed it. 😀
We missed Adam's rolls on Thanksgiving this year, but he didn't disappoint with the Christmas edition.
Every year Adam makes fancy Christmas jello for our Christmas dinner. It's one of our longest running traditions and his 3 layered jello this year was one for the books.
We decided the green, red and yellow jello was a nice shout out to Ethiopia. 😊
Merry Christmas to all!!
2 comments:
We truly missed all of our traditions with you but I see that you carried them on in great style. Thanks for FaceTiming with us. We loved it. The pj's look warm and cozy and those rolls look "out of this world, yummy!"
Really awesome to finally have AJ home this Christmas.
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