Christmas Eve 2012

Christmas Eve!!!

Eric had to do some last minute shopping on Christmas Eve (no surprise there!), but luckily he arrived home just in time to leave for ice skating:



After about an hour and a half on the rink we all headed downstairs to have Christmas Eve dinner at Holstein's at the Cosmopolitan:



It was sublime! Seriously, go.

On the way back out to our car Eric and Sade delighted us (meaning me, Jackson and other Cosmopolitan patrons) with a bit of Gangnam dancing:




Megan walked ahead and pretended not to know us.

Random side note: As we were walking out of the Cosmopolitan a guy pulled me aside and asked me if my husband was "that famous movie star?" He couldn't remember his name, but told us he won an academy award 15 years ago and it made his career. He was quite insistent and pulled out his phone to google it, at which time his wife became frustrated with him and pulled him away. It was quite entertaining!

Upon arriving home we opened our traditional one Christmas Eve present:



Jackson opened up a glow-in-the-dark football:



Meg opened up some new boots:



And Sadie opened up a new Princess Spinbrush toothbrush that Jackson gave her. She was THRILLED and immediately tackled him:



I opened up some Christmas themed dishes from Sadie, while Eric opened up an awesome calendar Sade made for us at preschool. She was so excited for him to open it:



And Eric was so THRILLED with it he had to do a little tackling of his own:



After present opening Jackson and Eric went out to test the football:



But soon came back in so we could get the cookies and milk ready for Santa:



We finished off the night by reading in the Bible, putting the kids to bed, and then by Eric and I staying up until 2:30 a.m. getting everything ready for the big day!

I am pretty sure us moms and dads are just as busy as Santa on Christmas Eve.

Ice Skating 2012

This year we decided to try out the new outdoor ice skating rink at the Cosmopolitan with our friends the Bairds. The rink is quite teeny-tiny (and crowded), but the fact that we were able to skate in an outside environment more than made up for it.

They have these great ice skates with two blades that makes ice skating so much easier for the little ones:



Plus they have these awesome seal type contraptions that not only help you ice skate, but enable you to have massive amounts of fun pushing each other around on them:



This year Megan struggled a bit more than she usually does. She is used to smooth ice and this ice had quite a bit of snowy covering on top:



But both Jackson and Sadie showed marked improvement:



Eric and I were impressive as always and made sure to take some time to work on our couples routine:



Elvis was there!!!:



The whole fam damily:



This place is open until January 20th! A little pricey for the size, but I recommend it.

Santa's Village 2012

Sadie's one request at the beginning of the Christmas season was to visit "that one place with the Grinch." Happily we were able to make the request come true:

But just in the St. Nick of time:



They had quite a few new displays this year:




Along with all of the oldies but goodies:



Sade modeling an elf house:



Although the line was looooonnnnggg.....No trip to Santa's village would be complete with getting a cookie and hot chocolate (always the highlight for Meg):



Until next year.....

A Performing Week

Wednesday night Megan had her first guitar performance of the school year:

Waving to her adoring fans:



It was a packed, standing room only type of event. I was thrilled when Sadie and I were able to squeeze into the front row, only to become not so thrilled when I realized her guitar instructor would be standing in just the right spot to completely block our view of Megan:



Regardless, Sade and I enjoyed the music immensely and Megan and her fellow guitar students did a great job:



Then yesterday Jackson had his holiday performance. Jackson loves to sing and his been practicing all of the songs at home all month:



This performance had everything a performance should have. Including singing, dancing, and general third grade adorableness: