It's almost Christmas!!

Our past few weeks have been filled with the usual + a few special events!

On December 11th Reese participated in her first ever piano recital at the Yardbird Suite!!  I knew about this recital for weeks before but did not know that Reese could participate in it until the Tuesday before!  I asked Reese if she'd like to play in the recital and she very excitedly told me she would!  So I signed her up and we bought tickets :) It was a bit of a juggle that day with Blake having a hockey practice, Church pageant practice, Emerson's ringette game and BOTH girls scheduled for ringette pictures!  But we pulled it off like the pro's we are, hahaha. And Reese did amazing!!  She walked across the stage, said into the mic, "My name is Reese Cameron and I am playing Up on the Rooftop", walked to the piano, sat down and tickled the ivories ;) I can't say I really could get 'Up on the Rooftop' from what she played but I was so darn proud of her, I had tears in my eyes!!  After her piece she got up, walked to the centre of the stage and took a bow!  And off the stage she went.  Such a brave girl!!

Ready to perform at the Yardbird Suite!!

Then on the 14th Reese had her Christmas concert!  This year our school decided to split the grades into Christmas concerts and Spring concerts.  100 Voices, grades 1, 3 and 5 all performed in the Christmas concert.  Our music teacher is so incredibly talented and conducts such great concerts, it's always a pleasure to watch and this year was no exception!  I'm looking forward to what the Spring concert has in store for us!

Off to Reese's concert!

On the 16th the kids and I met the Stecyk's and my parents for our annual Santa photo's. For the 2nd year in a row, my Mom booked us into the Santa by appointment at WEM. This is such a great service, more than worth it's cost!!  Santa is so wonderful and this year he really brought the magic of Christmas to my kids :) Blake especially. I think he was really doubting the whole Santa thing but Santa was so good with him and I could see the magic in his eyes!  I had tears in my eyes while I was listening to Santa speak to all the kids!  The photo's turned out beautiful, thanks Mom and Dad for doing this for us all, these will be wonderful memories for all the years to come!!

Ready for Santa pictures!

On the 17th we had 2 Christmas parties!!  First up was the Crusaders party at St. Albert Bowling Alley.  It was originally scheduled for a ranch but with the cold weather, we had to re-locate!  We had fun bowling and had an awesome cake donated to us from another KC rep mom, which was pretty cool!!  The second party was my parents annual DWS Christmas party. We had fun visiting with family and family friends, eating and drinking of course ;) A great day of Christmas parties!!

Crusaders Christmas Party

The 18th was the kids Christmas Pageant at Church!  They did so awesome and were well-practiced from all the previous weeks of practice. Reese played Mary and loved on baby Jesus like he was a real-life baby, Blake played an Angel and had numerous lines throughout the play and Emerson was a shepard. They were all so cute and the play was awesome!  One of the Sunday school teachers wrote the play and I was very impressed. She's a talented lady!!

Ready for the pageant!

On the 20th we had our annual sugar cookie bake-a-thon, baking 5 dozen sugar cookies!!  I must say, my sugar cookies are delicious!!

Decorating crew + some boxes filled for the kids teachers!

Blake had a snowboarding trip with school on the 21st.  He always has a lot of fun on these field trips but this was the first time I wasn't able to go with him. But by all reports he had fun and was safe, he did not go on the chair lift, said he'd wait for me to go with him on the next trip.  I was grateful for that, the chair lifts scare me a little and especially the thought of 3 9 year old boys on the chair lift!!

And now it is the 22nd and Cal and I are off work for two weeks!  The kids have a 1/2  day of school tomorrow and we can't wait to begin the Christmas break :)

Talk to you soon!

~Tracy