Magic

When Emily and I went to Santa's Village in July she asked Santa for a stuffed girl elf. This was surprising to me but then I realized why she was asking for this. She loves our elf, Johnny, and misses him when he leaves us on Christmas Eve. She wanted an elf she could actually touch and play with all year. Santa did not disappoint.

I can not imagine any Christmas being as magical as this one. We had a wonderful day.

Johnny is always in our tree on Christmas Eve so Santa can find him easily and take him back to the North Pole.

Santa left Snowflake in Johnny's place

so happy

December 24th... Odds and Ends

Doug handing out all the presents he bought for the kids

Emily laughing at the girls singing. Gifty is behind Emily, she is 9, and Emily loves to play dress up with her

It was interesting , the boys were the ones huddled around Avery, not the girls

Everyone!

Ice Skating

This year we decided to try something different with Doug's kids. The gingerbread house thing is getting a little old so we decided to skip right to ice skating. Only 9 kids were able to join and only 1 of them had ever been on skates. They had a hard time at first but after a while most of them were doing OK! Prince, who is 16, came off the ice after 10 minutes and said...

"besides school, this is the hardest thing I have done"

They kids loved it and we spent 1.5 hours there!

Avery

We were lucky enough to have Ricky, Kendall, and Avery with us on Christmas Eve. As you can see Avery gets cuter (if that is possible) every time we see her!

My Favorite Part of December 24

On Christmas Eve we took 13 of Doug's kids ice skating, and then we had pizza and presents at our house (more photos to follow). The best part of the night was when the girls broke out into song. They were great and totally into it. I wish I had videoed the entire song because they became more animated as the song went on.

Spring Skiing

On Thursday Emily and I were lucky enough to go skiing at Butternut with California Kathy. Butternut is the small ski area I grew up skiing at and I also taught there for 6 seasons. With no natural snow, and an entire day and night of rain were were unsure of the conditions. There were many trails opened and the snow was soft and actually pretty good. Kathy was thrilled with the 50 degree temperatures and Limey was happy to have a girl day!

Kathy spent the day tying to catch Limey...without much success

33 years of friendship in this photo

Recital!

On Sunday Emily had her first dance recital. The YMCA runs the dance classes in multiple sessions so Emily's session was 14 weeks and then a holiday recital. I like this option because you don't have to work all school year for one recital at the end of the year which seems like a long time for one event. Anyway, she was very excited for the recital. Her dress was adorable, I made my first bun for her hair, and Kellie did her make-up (because I don't have any).

The next logical question would be..is she signing up for the next session?????

stay tuned....

so happy

Emily and Avery

A lot of cute going on here

All Aboard The Polar Express

Yesterday we went to North Conway to ride to the North Pole on The Polar Express! We love the book and the train ride is quite popular. The only way to get tickets is to enter a lottery and then wait for a call on one certain day to find out if you can purchase tickets. There is a 20 minute train ride (each way) complete with hot coco and a chocolate candy. When we arrived at the North Pole you enter a large tent like area and listen to a man read The Polar Express and then Santa comes to visit. The reader of the story is supposed to be the boy in the story, all grown up. He was excellent! Every person was given a bell on the way home too.

Emily got to hold an elf's lantern on the walk back to the train

singing Christmas carols on the way home on the train

Starfish

Emily has been swimming very well lately. Now that all the lessons are taught in the big pool, as opposed to the little pool where the kids can put their feet on the bottom, it has made a big difference. The kids now have to work really hard! Emily as been doing just that. She got promoted to the next level and will be a Starfish!

Christmas Specacular!!!

Today we went to the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular at The Wang in Boston. We went with the Munoz family and our day was nothing sort of spectacular (for lack of a better word). The show was amazing! We also went to eat in the North End and walked around Faneuil Hall.

Great day!