Christmas Eve

 The boys watched the Santa Tracker the entire day.  It's fascinating to them.  Little Guy is still a little on the fence about if he still believes in Santa, but the tracker gets right back to firmly believing every year.  BB just thinks it's cool.  We made and decorated sugar cookies for Santa and got ready for our big dinner with the Altmans.

The dinner was delightful, and they stayed to do our Christmas Eve devotional.  

I think each of the children chose to play piano (or sing and play in Little Guy's case), because they had an audience this year.  Hannah and Blake chose hymns for everyone to sing.

Rebecca made this gorgeous ornament for me.  She's so talented!

Afterward we went to a Christmas Eve service.  Our friend is the music director of the church and he does such a phenomenal job.  The music is SO good!

I was panicking, because I couldn't find the pajamas anywhere.  Joel and I searched everywhere, and of course, the very last place I checked after I had pretty much given up hope, I found the Christmas pajamas.  I quickly wrapped them and the kiddos opened them before bed.  

Let the Festivities Begin!

 We're finally all on break, so we packed in all of our yearly traditions today.  We started with decorating gingerbread houses.  It's a fan favorite.

In the evening we met Joel downtown at Union Station to do the Giving Machine.  The kids were so excited those 2 things each to donate.  

We walked across to Crown Center.  It was such lovely weather.

They love this part probably the most.

Little Man's done after about 10 minutes, and Joel just tolerates being there.  The rest of them would spend the whole night there if they could.

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

Graduation Party

 We hosted Blake's graduation party, and it was so much fun to celebrate him and his accomplishment.

Recital Time

All the kiddos participated in the December Recital.  It was at a new church in Prairie Village that is just lovely.  

The children's choir was on the noon recital and then all of their individual performances were on the 1pm.

We celebrated afterward at Handels Ice Cream.  

A Musical Christmas Carol

I had heard about Kansas City Chorale, but I hadn't realized just quite how good they are.  Little Lady and I went to their concert of A Christmas Carol.  The music was sublime and the narration was fantastic.  You can see Little Lady up on the balcony.