Winter Break

We had a wonderful winter break!  I had an extra day off when the girls were still in school, so I joined Norah's class for making gingerbread houses and seeing some plays that her class put on:

We spend the weekend before Christmas down in Iowa.  Abby was in love with all of the babies!

 We were able to spend Christmas Eve/Day at home for only the second time in my life.  The girls enjoyed being able to open presents on Christmas Eve, sleep under the tree, and wake up at home to see what Santa brought:

My parents and sister came up on Christmas Day and we had fun watching movies, doing a puzzle, and making homemade ice cream.  The rest of the week was a nice opportunity to relax!

We ended the week with a trip to Albert Lea for Christmas with Dave's side of the family and a quiet New Year's Eve at home.  It was a great break!

Preparing for Christmas

Even though we had a long stretch of school between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, it feels crazy to think that Christmas is almost here already!  We started the season off with a trip to the theater to see a performance of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" with Nancy, Betty, Jenny, and Grace in November.  The girls always love time with Grace!

Nancy has found the easiest gingerbread kits from Wal-mart that we have used the past couple of years--his parents came up again to decorate with the girls!

We stopped at the tree farm after Thanksgiving to pick out the perfect Christmas tree.  This year, it was mild and muddy--no snow!  It took us awhile to find the perfect tree, but we had fun!

The girls had their church Christmas program, and were fortunate to have both my parents, Dave's parents, and my sister attend.  I played the piano again this year.  Abby did a great job with her speaking part!

Abby's first band concert

Abby had her first band concert at school--the choir and band both performed in the gym, then each class separated to different parts of the school and performed a cute play called called "Sir Bookworm".  During the couple of days before the concert, the band director had send Remind messages to practice, and Abby had said things weren't sounding so good.  So we were pleasantly surprised when the 5th grade band sounded pretty good for their first time performing!  My parents and Dave's parents were both able to join us.

The play was really cute--Abby played Dorothy from Wizard of Oz.  There was a character who didn't like to read, and so he dreamt of different book characters.  Each had a little monologue.  Abby did great!