Brielle's 1st Preschool Christmas Program

In mid- December, Brielle had her first Christmas program at school.  In the weeks leading up to it, she was very excited about it and kept telling us how she was going to be an angel.  Right after Thanksgiving they started learning & practicing all of their songs. Her class of 13 sang to parents, grandparents, siblings, other family members... and all the kindergarteners and 1st graders.  They sang at least 10 songs... it was so cute.  Brielle is the angel on the far left.  All of her preschool classmates did a great job singing :)

The angels: Brielle, Isabella, & Payton

Brielle

John's pink tie

John noticed his pink tie from Jenny & Jef's wedding (September 2010) hanging up high in my closet a couple weeks ago.  Though I'm referring to it as a "wedding" tie, he actually didn't wear it during the wedding... buttoning that very top button on his dress shirt PLUS the tie must not have been his idea of comfort at age 2... so he went for the more casual look :) 

So on this day, he had a fun time playing with his clip-on tie.  

He put it on his favorite pal, "Football Player"

 ... and then on his own t-shirt.

We didn't really discuss how it is supposed to go on a dress shirt... and this was a couple weeks ago.  

But then THIS morning we were getting ready for church, Brielle was picking out a dress to wear.  She likes to choose her own outfits, and especially to pick out dresses for church... whereas John usually wears a long sleeved t-shirt.  On church mornings, Brielle will often say, "John, don't you want to wear something more handsome?"  His usual reply... "No."  This morning, he wanted to wear his Superman t-shirt (which he has been wearing for the last couple days).  He agreed to not wear the velcro-attached cape to church, but he did plead to wear his pink tie clipped on to his Superman shirt.  So, we started explaining that it has to go on a shirt with buttons... but that didn't really hold up since he remembers (refer to photo above) that it can go on a shirt without buttons!  Tough to win that discussion with a 3 year old.   Well, somehow we created a diversion or changed the subject and he didn't wear his pink tie to church today.  :)

Painting at home

A fun indoor art project for Brielle & John... they each picked out a $1.00 wood craft at a local arts & craft store to be painted.  Brielle chose a horse and John chose an airplane.  We came home, got out the paint shirts, paint brushes, and paint and they went right to work.  They both did a great job, and their projects have been on display in their rooms for the last month :)

Sugar Cookie Cutouts

Another Christmas season... another reason to do sugar cookie cutouts with John & Brielle :)

Making the dough

 Cutting them out

(John referred to the candy cane shape as a "J" the whole time) 

 Time for sprinkles

Tasting the sprinkles :)

Ready for the oven

 Finished product.... yum :)

Unpacking the Christmas boxes....

After we brought home our freshly cut Christmas tree, it was time to get out the boxes of Christmas items & decorations.   These sure are fun things to do with kids in the house :)

One of the highlights for John & Brielle were the dozen Christmas books that are packed away in those boxes.  They would get excited and say "I remember this one! I remember this one too!"  They couldn't wait to open the books up and look at all the pictures inside.  Bedtime stories were fun this last month too, as they were always very excited to choose a few special Christmas books for us to read :)

 After Tim & I got the lights on the tree, John & Brielle were ready to help with the ornaments.  Again, it was fun to see them remember some ornaments from last year.    They learned how heavy ornaments need stronger branches... and how to spread ornaments out in the tree.  I still did a little rearranging, of course, but not as much as I expected :).  We also talked about being careful with the ornaments.  Even though we have VERY few glass or breakable ornaments on our tree, if one dropped, they were quick to tell us "It didn't break!"  And no ornaments did break :)

They look deep in thought here... planning their next move :)

A final exciting project for the day... setting up their Little People Nativity Scene. 

Christmas Prep 2011

Time to play catch up...I had to purchase more storage space for all the photos on this blog!  

So here we go...

The Sunday after Thanksgiving:  After mass at Grandma & Grandpa B's church, there were fun activities for the kids including arts & crafts, Christmas cookie decorating, a Santa visit, doughnuts, and Christmas music (provided by Grandma Berning on the piano).

 The 3-year-old cousins: John, Lincoln & Karley.

Then we all set out to cut down our Christmas trees at a nearby tree farm.

What's for dessert? Spinach!!

A book we love to read at home is called "Little Pea"

In this book, Little Pea has a great life as a pea and gets to do all kinds of fun stuff.  But the one bad thing about being a pea is that every night for dinner he has to eat... candy.  His mom says that before he can have dessert he has to eat all the candy on his plate.  So he forces it down.  Because once he finishes all his candy, only then does he get to have his dessert.  And what's his favorite dessert?  Spinach!!  After Little Pea scarfs down his bowl of spinach he says, "Yum, yum, extra yum." :)

Last week, after we finished dinner, John asked if he could have dessert.   Tim told him excitedly, "Tonight for dessert we are having spinach!"  John fed right off this excitement and said "I love spinach!!  Brielle, we're going to have spinach for dessert!"  Brielle was not interested, but fortunately that wasn't enough to stop John's excitement.  Tim got out the spinach and John happily ate 3 leaves :)

John's scuba-diving clothes :)

I ordred long underwear for the kids from landsend.com since I thought it was time they had better "wicking" layers for the upcoming winter... versus cotton.  

When the box arrived, John & Brielle were excited to try on their new long underwear.  It's a polyester material, and it is kind of shiny.  John, all on his own, told us it was his "scuba diving clothes"!  He kept telling us over & over that he's going to wear it for scuba diving!  And he didn't want us to call it "long underwear."  He'd say, "NO! It's for scuba diving."  

Brielle & Willa

  When Tim picks the kids up from Becky's house, he sometimes comes home with a couple extra kids :).  The same thing often happens to Jolene, as all of the cousins like playing at each other's houses.

On this day, when Tim was picking up Brielle & John, Willa said "Can I go with you Tim?"  And it worked perfect since Natalie had to take Aloysius for his 1 year check-up that afternoon.  So Willa came over for a couple hours to play & she joined us for dinner.  

More photos from November

Styling a new outfit...   Brielle was very excited about the sparkles on her tights and the belt on her sweater dress. She said she wants Santa to bring her another new belt for Christmas :)

Then John wanted his photo taken :)

Brielle likes to play a few kid games on Tim's iPod Touch.  

She's a good big sister and shows John how to play... and lets him watch over her shoulder the whole time that she plays.  John has figured out how to play a couple games on his own.  It's so funny to watch their little fingers at work :)

Trick or Treat

(Obviously I'm a little behind, but I couldn't skip these... )   

Here are some photos from our night of Trick-or-Treating

**Rapunzel & Batman**

And who is that scary person on the left? 

Grandma Carol!

And the next week this conversation took place:

John: "Grandma, what were you dressed like?"

            Carol: "I was a bad guy."

John: "Yes, you were a bad guy. I did not know who you were. You tried to scare me. You were all black with red eyes."

Headed to the first house of the night:

This was a fun year of trick-or-treating as John & Brielle learned:  if lights are on, you can stop at that house; if no lights are on, you cannot trick-or-treat there.  After figuring this out, they liked telling us which houses they could go to, and which ones they could not.  They also had fun seeing the Halloween decorations throughout the neighborhood and figuring out the costumes of all the other kids.  

And one hour later they told us they were ready to go home.  

This is one of the last houses we stopped at:

 Back at home with their candy:

Since there was still one hour of trick-or-treating left, John & Brielle had fun hearing our door bell ring a lot, and then running to help Grandma Carol pass out candy.  It was just as fun as trick-or-treating themselves :)