Christmas Program at BCS

Thursday, December 19, 2013

The Bible Center Christmas show for the little kids was on Thursday morning.  For this show, it was just Kindergarten and 1st Grade.  The drama kids recited the scripture for the Christmas story and all the kids sang Christmas carols.  Emily did a great job with her lines which included: 

"For behold I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people.  For unto us is born this day in the City of David, a savior, who is Christ the Lord."

"For to us a child is born.  To us a Son is given.  And the government will be upon his shoulders.  And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

"Glory to God in the highest.  And on Earth peace among those with whom he is pleased."

She did a great job.  So proud.

My Christmas Angel.

Annual Gingerbread House

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Fully in the Christmas spirit after the neighborhood party (and with Mommy feeling better), we devoted Saturday evening to the annual building of the gingerbread house!  This year Emily was really into her creation.  Since Daddy was home for this year's construction, it was also much easier to build the house itself.  Although I would swear the roof always seems much too big.

Daddy and Emily building our very  first gumdrop trees!

Emily got very creative with her use of the candy decorations this year.  She used the dots candy to spell out her name on the roof of the house!  I should also note here that making the gumdrop trees was MUCH harder than it looks.  In the end, I thought we came out with a pretty good final product.

Here you can see "ILY" on the roof.  The other side had "EM."

Ta-Da! 

Kids Christmas Party Fun

Friday, December 13, 2013

Our newest neighbors, Paul and Molly Johns, had a big Christmas party for a bunch of the neighborhood kids.  Molly and Paul have 2 daughters, Abby (3) and Josie (1).  Molly set up a cookie decorating station for the kids first and then they all made reindeer food.

In between, there was lots of time for playing and sharing some Christmas spirit.  At the end, we were able to gather most of the kids up to watch a little bit of Charlie Brown's Christmas.  We all had a blast.  I had to miss the firm Christmas dinner to go to the party, but I was sick anyway, so this worked out way better.  And it was definitely fun!!

Birthday Fun!

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

EMILY IS 6!  I can't believe it. Where does the time go?  This turned out to be a great birthday after all(even if all the presents were already opened).

Every month at Bible Center School there is a special day when all the students who have birthdays that month get to sit at a birthday table and have a special lunch brought in for them.  This month the birthday lunch was on December 10 - Emily's birthday! She also got a special ribbon since it was her birthday.  Her special lunch request was a Wendy's chicken nugget meal with apples and a chocolate frosty.  I got to come sit with her and the other birthday kids and it was really fun.  At the end of the lunch, all the kids sung happy birthday and then the birthday kids got a popsicle.  We thought that was the end of the celebration for her special day, but we were wrong!

I got a call from Ashley later that afternoon and she invited us to come over for dinner and cake to celebrate with Reagan.  She knew Dan was on call so she offered to share Reagan's celebration (the girls share the same birthday) with Emily!  She even put Emily's name on Reagan's cake!  The kids all had a great time and it turned out to be a great (and not so quiet) night!

Birthday at Home...a Little Early

Monday, December 9, 2013

We had to celebrate Emily's birthday at home a little early this year because Daniel was on call on December 10.  So we had cake and presents after dinner on December 9, instead.  Emily got lots of nice presents on her birthday including a Barbie Mariposa castle, a new Ariel game, a crazy loom to make rubber band bracelets, Sofia the First walkie talkies, new tennis shoes, a Barbie Princess and the Pop Star dress up dress and more.

Sofia the First Walkie Talkies

Barbie Mariposa Castle

Crazy Loom - her most wished for item!

After she opened all of her gifts, she had her favorite red velvet cake with white butter cream frosting.  I think Emily would agree that it was a pretty great birthday!

Santa's Bakery

December 2013

I am a total sucker for photo ops (even though we already did the tree farm this year).  So when our good friends, Will and Danna Price at Price Portraits posted an opportunity for a mini session with Santa at his bakery, I could not resist.  I'll just get a couple of pictures, I said.  I won't spend much, I said. Well, I ended up with more than a couple pics and spent more than I intended, but it was totally worth it! Every dime.

Emily seemed to be pretty into the whole session.  She likes baking stuff anyway, but with Santa it was clearly much more fun.  They mixed and stirred and rolled.  They checked recipe books and even sprinkled a little magic here and there.

They even sampled a few cookies along the way.  It was pretty clear that Santa loved the baking/cookie eating session as much as Emily did.  Definitely good memories here and some fabulous pictures too!

BCS Thanksgiving Show

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Well, we had a white Halloween last year and this year we were threatened with a white Thanksgiving.  The fear of bad weather cancelled the Kindergartner's Thanksgiving show on the day before Thanksgiving. So...it was rescheduled to December 4.  But, that's fine because we are thankful all year long anyway, right?

The Kindergarten drama kids, including Emily, did a little play based on "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" only with Thanksgiving stuff: 

 

"I know and old lady who swallowed a pie. A Thanksgiving Pie.  Perhaps she'll die."  Etc...

Emily's line was:

"I know an old lady who swallowed a pot.  I kid you not.  She swallowed a pot!  She swallowed the pot to go with the turkey..."  

She did a really good job with her lines. Then all the kids sang some cute songs including "Turkey Dinner" (to the tune of Where is Thumbkin):

"Turkey dinner.  Turkey dinner.  Gather 'round.  Gather 'round.  Who will get the drumstick?  Yummy yummy yum stick.  All sit down. All sit down.  Corn bread muffins.  Chestnut stuffin'.  Pumpkin pie - one foot high. We were all much thinner, 'til we came to dinner.  Me oh my.  Me oh my." 

and another thanksgiving song to the tune of Jingle Bells:

"Dinner bells.  Shot gun shells.  Turkey got away.  What are we supposed to do for our Thanksgiving Day, hey.  Dinner bells. Shot gun shells.  Turkey got away.  What are we supposed to do for our Thanksgiving Day?  (cue fake tears...)"

They closed the show with a thanksgiving prayer.  It was really very cute and it seemed like the kids really liked doing it.

Emily and Mackenzie

Special Light Show Preview

Sunday, December 1, 2013

After the tea party, Reagan and Owen came over to play for bit.  Poor Daddy spent most of the weekend (when he wasn't tending to turkey) tinkering with his lighting show - despite the cold, snow and some rain too.  BUT his hard work paid off and by Sunday evening he was finally ready to formally launch Creekstone Christmas 2013.  The very first viewers for the show were none other than Emily, Reagan and Owen.  They danced all over the yard and loved every minute.  I'd say Creekstone Christmas 2013 is a big hit already.

Symphony Tea Party

Sunday, December 1, 2013

The first Sunday in December (which this year fell on Thanksgiving weekend) is the Charleston Symphony League tea party fundraiser.  Emily and I have gone for the last 3 years and have always had fun.  This year Ashley and Reagan got to come with us and the girls loved that.  The theme this year was a Jan Brett book called, The Mitten.  It was about a little boy who drops his mitten and lots of little animals come upon it and try to get inside to stay warm.  They even had a cute little craft for the kids where they colored animals and put them inside a mitten they stitched up.  Everyone dined on little finger sandwiches and scones.  For dessert all the kids got a mitten shaped cookie and some ice cream.  It was a lot of fun and the kids really liked it.

Christmas Tree Farm

November 2013

Don't ask me why, but for some time now I have been wanting to get our family pictures taken at a Christmas tree farm and this year I finally got my wish.  Our photographer, Heather Smith, knew some folks who had a tree farm on their property so she hooked us up with a mini-session so we could get a few pics and some holiday cards.  Unfortunately the cards did not come out quite like I hoped, but the pictures were terrific!  And we had a great time too, as I think you can see.

Tree Trimming

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Thanksgiving weekend at our house not only means turkey, leftovers and lots and lots of shopping, but it also means its tree trimming time!  I was pretty wiped out from our other weekend adventures by Saturday evening, so lucky for me Emily, was a GREAT helper.  She hung at least as many ornaments as I did, I think, and we got both trees up (and all the other house decorations too) in just a few hours.  Christmas has officially arrived at our house!

A Little Touch of Christmas...Just a Little Early

Friday, November 29, 2013

Because Scott and Karen are spending Christmas in Raleigh this year, we had to have our Christmas with them a little early.  So Friday night we made a big meal of all the Thanksgiving leftovers and then set about to open presents.

Uncle Scott and Aunt Karen got Emily two new Barbie Princess & The Pop Star dolls and the Princess and the Pop Star DVD.  She was very excited.  One of the dolls even plays music and sings.  We got Scott some golf balls, 2 funny exam answer books and an Amazon gift card.  We got Karen a new lady bug top, two Harry Potter books and an Amazon gift card.

But Nora was the big winner in the gift department this year.  We got her several outfits (including one that looks like a snowman), an elephant ball popper toy, a Nora book, a stuffed Santa (see below) and a lady bug ride on toy.  She seemed pleased with her haul.

Buddies already!

We also got Emily and Nora matching alpaca/llama outfits.  Black was not my first choice of color, but you get what you can get when there is an alpaca on the front, you know?  I had a hard time getting a picture of 2 happy kids in their shirts where you could actually see the shirts.  Oh well...this one will have to do (never mind Zoey's tail growing out of Emily's arm and the fact that I did not have the tree skirt out yet).

Can't wait to watch these cute girls grow up together!

Thanksgiving 2013

Thursday, November 28, 2013

This year at Thanksgiving we hosted my family.  For the last two years we have had the Miller's.  So this year, Mom, Bob, Scott, Karen and Nora all came.  (Poor Dan.)

We spent most of the morning and early afternoon cooking and preparing feast.  Funny how long it all takes to prepare, but how quickly it can all be gobbled up.  You do not really appreciate this concept, though, until you are the one preparing the big meal.  Before the meal Emily, completely unprompted, told everyone that we had to go around the table to say something we were thankful for this year.  Very sweet.  She also said the blessing.  Finally, dinner was served.
Dan's turkey did not disappoint.  It was very good.  My corn pudding also got very high marks along with Mom's sweet potato casserole (Jane's recipe).  We also had 4 kinds of desserts including pumpkin pie dessert square (or PPDS as it is affectionately known in our house), sour cream apple pie, custard pie (new this year) and chocolate peanut butter pie. Needless to say, there was no shortage of food.

Emily's favorite part of the day was getting to play with her new niece, Nora.  Emily was very taken with Nora and it was pretty clear that Nora liked Emily too.  Every time Emily smiled, Nora smiled.  Emily laughed, Nora would laugh.  Emily did not even seem to mind sharing toys with her.  They had a really good time together and it was cute.  It was another very successful and very fun Thanksgiving.  Wow - so much to be thankful for!