Monday, December 24, 2012

Christmas Time

Lots going on with Christmas preparations underway. 

To start, a few of Tess' recent drawings:

A family portrait.  Gotta love the thousands of stairs up to our house.

Festive carolers, including a dog and kitty.

Tinkerbell and friends.



Drew's been creative too.  I was not happy about this.  Drew now knows the answer to:  "What do we color on?"  "Pa-pah."

A day with Nana & Papa.  Tess made cookies with Nana.  Drew loves playing Papa.




Tess finally got her birthday present from Nana & Papa.  And she was able to open fun doll clothes from Dipsy & Papa.

Last day of school, we attended a sing along at her preschool.  
The kids had fun with bells.




Dad's been home for a couple days and we are LOVING our time with him.  Ryan and Tess have been doing lots of projects, including making snowflakes and snowstorms.


Family outing to the Children's Christmas Pageant at the National Cathedral.  Tess' eyes were HUGE as we entered the immense church.  We could tell it made a huge impression on her.  The kids are invited to dress up and participate in the pageant, so there were lots cute angels, shepherds and animals running around.  Tess was having none of that, but she was an appreciative audience member.



Mary, Joseph & baby Jesus


Angels with the star.

Tess' favorite were the wisemen.  They were impressive.


Lots of cute cherubs all around.

Tess also loved the big animals which came to worship;
 some of which I don't really remember from the biblical version.

This is a really bad picture of a camel.



Tess enjoying from a safe distance.







After the cathedral, we headed over to see the temple lights.  
We arrived at sunset and it was cold, but beautiful.




We were a bit exhausted, but Tess is insatiable.  
We saw all the new exhibits in the visitors' center, and she kept asking for more.  
Luckily, we still have lots of time off with Dad for more fun.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Camera Cleaning

 A little housekeeping--not like really cleaning my house, which I desperately need to do.  Nope.  Just cleaning out the camera.

I missed posting these gems from Tess' party.


 Saving her spot at the head of the birthday table.

 Totally random "Mr. Higginbotham" shot.

I totally neglected to mention that Nana & Papa came out for Grandparents' Day at Tess' preschool just before Thanksgiving.  How thankful we are for them!

So we've instituted "Sunday Family Nap Time" after church.  Except Tess refuses to take a nap. So she spends the time planning our Family Home Evening Lesson.  These were her cue cards for last Sunday's lesson.  She was giving us clues as to the lesson theme:
 "Who died a long time ago but is alive today?"  
(That's blood, in case you didn't know.)

"Who was born in a belly named M?"

 "Who is King?"

For our FHE "activity" we each had to draw a picture of Jesus.


This has nothing to do with FHE, just a cute picture Tess drew for Lauren.  
Tess has a fascination with the Eiffel Tower.  
She's made me promise many times that I will take her one day to see it.

We spent a day last week with Nana and Papa.  
We went to lunch and Tess & Nana did some major league Christmas crafting.  
Drew had fun playing outside with Papa and inside with their vintage Fisher Price helicopter.

I took our Christmas card photos this year with mild success.  








With enough cropping and cobbling, I was able to fashion something together into a reasonable Christmas card.  Maybe we'll get real photos taken next year.