Christmas with Aunt Kelley

After the Christmas show on Saturday, Aunt Kelley brought over some Christmas gifts for the kids. As the first gifts of the season...they were VERY excited! Of course she bought them way too much, but they had so much fun. :)Delaney loved her new puppy purse! Okay the outfit is NOT what she was wearing that day! She was cold at lunch so she put one of the shirts Makenna wore for one of her routines and wanted to keep it on all day.Camden loved all his Megamind stuff!

Makenna has been very into scarves and loved her new sparkly purple scarf...her favorite color! And Aunt Kelley never forgets the nail polish and chapstick. Delaney is kind of obsessed now.

After opening presents, Kelley, Makenna and I went to see the Nutcracker.

This was her first time seeing it and she loved it!! She wants to audition next year, and I think she will be old enough to try out for one of the mice. She, however, wants to be Clara, of course. :)

Fund, fun day!!

Holiday Showcase

Delaney got to perform in her first ever dance recital this weekend. She has been learning a routine to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and was very excited to do it on the big stage. She did so great!!! She sang the whole song and was pretty much the only one in her group dancing!

The video is a little far away, but she is the 3rd from the left.



Makenna performed in one routine that night too. (She was in 9 the next morning!)Her teacher, Ms. Alyssa also performed at the show in a teacher duet. Christian went ahead and videoed that for Delaney to watch and she was so excited!

Polar Express

We have been wanting to take the kids on a trip on the Polar Express for a long time. It is a train up by the Grand Canyon that takes you all the way to the North Pole to see Santa! We have known several families that have gone, but wanted to wait until the kids were the right age. This was a perfect year to take them! The have been counting down the days for a couple weeks now and it lived up to their expectations!!

Our train didn't leave until 8pm on Sunday, but we headed up north about 10am. It's a 3 1/2 hour drive, so we made a stop at the outlet malls on the way. In Anthem we saw the tallest Christmas tree in the nation! This is actually a real tree!

Here is my proof that it is real!Here are our matching divas.

Neena came on this trip too. We were excited to have her there for our fun Polar Express trip!
I know I am biased, but how cute are they?!

We had a quick lunch, shopped, played at the play area, then we were on our way!

When we got the hotel, we had a couple of hours to kill until it was time for our train, so what movie do you think the kids watched??? Polar Express of course!

Now, if you've ever read the book or seen the movie, you would see that on the Polar Express, the kids wear their pajamas because the movie/book takes place late on Christmas Eve. Of course the kids had to get new pajamas and slippers, right? Also, Neena bought each kid these really cute Sing-a-ma-jig things that are just so funny. (The Sing-a-ma-jig's did not go to Polar Express with us!)

Here is Makenna with her new jammies and cupcake slippers.

Delaney would not wear her slippers (remember she is obsessed with her backpack and boots, right?)

I love Camden's new pants and slippers! He got flannel pants with a Cardinals bird on it and football slippers!

Neena, the kids and the sing-a-ma-jigs.

I cannot pass up the opportunity to wear comfy pajamas instead of regular clothes, right?

Off to the Polar Express...

We had to wait for the train before ours to get back.

All Aboard!

So excited!!!!

Right after we started heading to the North Pole, they gave everyone cookies and hot chocolate.

Okay, so we went throught a time warp, got the North Pole and I took no pictures!!! We saw Santa there, with his reindeer and elves and a HUGE bag of presents. Then Santa got on our train! He gave each kid their very own bell.

After we went back through the time warp and arrived safely back in Williams, AZ, the kids got to sit and tell Santa what they would like for Christmas. It was quite a rushed visit with a LONG line, so they didn't get to say much.

They each thought they could only say one thing, so here is how it went:

Makenna-a CD player with puppies on it (she REALLY wanted a real puppy for Christmas but we have explained to her that Santa will not bring something Mommy and Daddy don't want right now). She is so funny though. Her CD player doesn't work, so she wants one so she can practice her dances! What a serious little girl!

Camden-a chocolate tree (I blame Neena for this because she talked about it RIGHT BEFORE we got to Santa). Normally he has been asking for a Voltron toy because he loves to watch it with Daddy and "Daddy had a Voltron toy when he was little."

Delaney-a doggie and a kitty. Not real ones, just to play with.

He also signed a copy of the Polar Express book that Neena bought us.

We stayed the night in a hotel and left for home the next morning. We had a REALLY great time it made us more and more excited for Christmas!!!!!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

In keeping with tradition, the day after Thanksgiving we worked together to put our Christmas tree up. It was so fun to have all three kids so excited to do it together! They did a fantastic job, even if a ton of ornaments ended up at the bottom of the tree!

It was Laney's year to put the tree topper on! (Notice the backpack is on, like ALWAYS!)Great job kiddos!

We did put up the rest of the decorations the next day and now we have moved on to shopping!

The Mystery House

For school, Makenna had an assignment to write a story about a mystery house. It was supposed to be 3 sentences, but Makenna "loves" to write, so she added a bit more. I just love reading stories written by kids. It is so amazing to see their thought process. I retyped the story as she wrote it:


The door opined by it's self. I woked in. Evry thing was moving. I went up sters. Wen I got up sters the sters thrnd in to a slide. I ran in to the klosit as fast as I can. There was a gost in the klosit! I ran out of the klosit. I ran done the sters. The dor was shut. I thrid to opin the dore. It was locked. The gost was chasing me. wen he got up to me he seid BOO! I ran and klimed up the up the chimny and nevr went in the mystery House ugen!

Great story Makenna! Love the suspense!