Christmas Eve

We have begun a wonderful Christmas Eve tradition in our family, we take pictures in front of the Christmas tree, before we head to Mass in Celebration, 

 

 go out to dinner in Celebration,

 go ice skating

 take photos in front of more Christmas trees,

 ride the train,

 open a special Christmas present,

 put out reindeer food,

 set out cookies for Santa,

 and go to bed nice and early to prepare for Santa's arrival. We were so blessed to have Grandma with us this year to celebrate as well. It was a wonderful and magical Christmas Eve and Day!

Evan is a yellow-belt-decided!

 Boys were focused and serious despite Claire & Drew's antics!!

 The newest yellow belt decided!!

 The karate kids: Maxwell, Evan, Stevie & Evan

 Girls got into the action too!

Evan had his belt promotion on December 21. He LOVES karate, more like eat, breathes, lives karate. We just can't justify the cost ($150-$200/month??!!!) to put him in a real dojo, so we keep doing it at the JCC. But, he only has one more belt to go and then we have to suck it up. He loves it so much, it will be worth it. But for now, he loves doing karate with some of his best friends!

Claire's 1st bike!

Claire got this adorable bike for Christmas with Nani! She thinks she's as big as the boys now!!

Christmas Playdate

 Listening to the Gingerbread Story

 Claire loved Robert as the Gingerbread man!

The Overton family hosted our annual Christmas play date this year and we had a wonderful special guest who came to read us the gingerbread story. Most of the kids enjoyed the story and the real gingerbread boy (some were frightened silly!). We did our annual ornament exchange too and Evan was thrilled with his football and Claire with her shoes/purses and cowboy ornaments.

Craft Day in Evan's class

 Evan, Matthieu & Pascal-the birthday boys!

I got to help in Evan's class on December 19 for Christmas Craft day. There were 15 adults in there volunteering (there are only 18 kids in the class!), it was awesome! The kids made about 12 crafts, a dad sang Christmas carols to the kids and Mrs. Brown got a little bit of a break for once. Evan, Pascal & Matthieu even had the whole class sing them Happy Birthday with Matthieu's dad playing guitar as they all have bdays in the same week. Mrs. Brown also got her Christmas gift from the class and was very excited! It was a fun morning.

Christmas Jammies with Piggies

Claire's Christmas Concert-WUCP 2 1/2 year olds

Claire has talked about singing on the stage of the church at "Evan's school" since she began there. They day finally came on December 18 for her Christmas concert!!! She was adorable, sang every song and melted our hearts and perhaps caused a few tears. It was everything it lived up to be.

Evan's 6th Birthday!

 Lunch at Beast's castle, was very cool

 the magic rose in Beast's castle

We celebrated Evan's birthday with early morning present opening, attending Claire's Christmas preschool concert and spending the rest of the day at Disney with Nani. We had such a fun, relaxing day. I can't believe my little boy is 6!!! sniff sniff