Faithful Friends Who Are Dear to Us

As much as we are "used to" and "happy" living away from family, the holidays are always a time that you long to be together.  Fortunately, we have wonderful friends who help us through these times.  After Christmas, we kept busy enjoying the company of our dear friends.

First up, Dave's cousin Rob and his family had us over for dinner.  It is such a pleasure to spend time with Rob and Mary.  They are very gracious hosts, have wonderful children that our girls adore and we always feel so comfortable with them.  Mary is also an awesome blogger who lets me steal pictures!

A few days later, we had some friends over for the Champs Sports Bowl featuring Notre Dame and Florida State.  We ate pulled pork sandwiches and IBC rootbeer.  The game itself, if you are a Notre Dame fan, isn't really worth mentioning.  Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures.  This is for two main reasons: 1)No need to memorialize a Notre Dame meltdown and 2)I had a baby in my arms most the night as our friends have a two month old that I got to cuddle for a while :)

On New Year's Eve, Dave and I went with some other couples during the day to the temple.  On the way home we stopped for lunch at California Pizza Kitchen.  A very nice way to end one year and begin the next.
 
Later that night, we had another family come over and ring in the new year with us.  We had a Chick-fil-A nugget tray (yeah!) and lots of goodies.  In fact, I think that we were pretty much able to finish up all the Christmas candies and goodies (even all the Christmas candy I made - we thought we would have fudge forerver!)  We also had some fun games of Smash Brothers and Just Dance 3 on the Wii and even played a couple card games--Spot It and Rook.  At midnight we rang in the New Year and then headed straight to bed. 


Waiting for the ball to drop.  The only time I remembered to get a picture.

The girls slept in sleeping bags under the Christmas tree.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Fun Holiday Pictures

Here are few random pictures taken during the holidays this year:

Shopping trip to the mall, we could only convince Paige to come with the promise of a carousel ride:

When I was young, during the holidays we always had a bowl of nuts out with a nutcracker.  I decided it would be fun to have one this year too!  It was a huge hit with Paige.  She became the official nutcracker and would take our orders and crack nuts for free!

Brownies Christmas activity, I was the parent helper that day:

Holiday Magic at the Brookfield Zoo

Dave took the whole week between Christmas and New Year's off.  I also had some free passes to the Brookfield Zoo, put those two things together and you get a family outing to the zoo.  I wouldn't particularly recommend the zoo in December, although it has been so unseasonably warm with no snow that this was definitely the year to do it.  Another advantage of going at this time of year is that the zoo is open into the evening for what is called Holiday Magic.

The whole zoo is decorated with Christmas trees and lights.  When the sun sets, the whole place transforms into a "magical" light extravaganza.  Besides visiting the animals, there are also lots of special family entertainment events.  We saw a cool laser show, magic show, and watched an ice carving demonstration.  For the ice carving, the girls got right up close and were excited until the chainsaw came out and they realized that they were right in the line of fire for the ice spray that came flying in their faces.  They were a little too cold for that.

As for the animals, the polar bears playing were definitely the highlight.  What a fun family outing that finished with a yummy dinner at Portillos!

Christmas Day

I love it when Christmas Day falls on a Sunday.  Following Christmas Eve and other holiday parties, we generally have a small, lower-key Christmas Day.  I guess it's not really small, but peaceful.  And I can't think of a more peaceful way to start a day than to go to church, sit with your family, listen to beautiful Christmas hymns, and ponder the birth of Jesus Christ.

Usually, our girls aren't particularly early risers on Christmas morning.  We have never had to deal with overly excited children clamoring to open presents at 5am, so this year because we needed time to get ready to go to church in the morning we actually gave the girls a wake up time---7am. 

Paige came into our room at exactly 7am and said, "it's time to wake up.  I'm so excited.  I have been looking at the clock every 3 minutes since 6am!" 

Poor girl, I didn't really think she would wake up early.  So we hopped out of bed and headed downstairs to open stockings.  We also allowed the girls to open their presents from Grandpa and Grandma Smith, which happened to be new Christmas dresses they could wear to church.  We didn't open any other presents.  We would wait to do that until after we got back from church.

Bursting with excitement on Christmas morning





love beautiful Christmas dresses!!

We had a wonderful Christmas Sacrament meeting.  The ward choir did a wonderful cantata and I am happy to report that the Smith family was well-represented in the ward choir.  Ashley, Paige AND Dave were all in the choir this year.  Ashley and Paige really wanted to join the choir and since they needed a ride to practices, etc. one of their parents pretty much had to go with them and since I CAN'T sing, it was up to Dave.  I'm actually really proud of him for doing it.  Singing in a ward choir isn't really his thing, but he did it for his girls and they were so happy!  Ashley even was part of a small group that sang, "Mary's Lullaby."  Even though I had to sit by myself after the rest of the family joined the choir on the stand, I was full of love to see them all singing. 

After church we came home and changed back into our pjs to open presents. (Pjs are the most appropriate present opening attire!)



Surprise!  yes it's really a cell phone!



Singing Barbies!



The 2011 Holiday Barbie - I can't believe it!

After the fun of opening gifts we ate a late breakfast, then spent the rest of the day relaxing, talking to family on the phone and playing with our new stuff.  Later we had our traditional Christmas dinner of prime rib and twice-baked potatoes.

What a beautiful and blessed day.

Christmas Eve Traditions - Old and New

This year our little family of four spent Christmas Eve together, all by ourselves.  We did all our "old" traditions but also started some "new" traditions.

First off, we decided to join in an "old" Chicago tradition, but since this was our first time, it was "new" to us.  For over 100 years, families have been celebrating the Christmas season with a meal in the Walnut Room at Marshall Field's--now Macy's, on State Street in downtown Chicago.  The restaurant is located on the 7th floor, is paneled in dark walnut wood and in the center stands a 45 ft. Great Christmas Tree.  The large Christmas tree is surrounded by 14 smaller designer Christmas trees.  The prime seats in the house are of course, the tables under the tree.  And we were very fortunate to get one of those tables!!

I was very worried about trying to eat at the Walnut Room on Christmas Eve.  I didn't want to show up and find unmangeable crowds and unreasonable wait time.  It definitely, had the potential to be a disaster.  The other side of me kept thinking, "you never know until you try."  We went back and forth for a few days trying to decide whether it would be worth it to try and go, until Saturday morning we woke up and said, "let's do it."  We figured that there were lots of other places to go if we found Macy's was too crazy.

To our happy surprise, it wasn't too crowded.  We had to wait two hours for a seat (no reservations taken) but you get a pager so you don't have to wait in a line.  While we were waiting we went outside and looked at all the animated store windows.  Then we went back inside to Santa Land to visit Santa.  After a little refreshment and enjoying the Christmas decorations, our wait was over.



In Santa Land



Outside looking at the animated store windows



We were seated in the main room not too far from the big tree.  We also got a visit from one of the Walnut Room "fairies" who sprinkled each of us with glitter while we made wishes.  We had nice meal with dessert.  I wouldn't necessarily rave about the food.  It's good but not amazing.  Wait, I take that back.  My dessert was amazing.  It was Todd English's white chocolate bread pudding with warm caramel.  This was one of those desserts you think about eating long after it is gone.  We all had our own desserts, but hands down mine was the best, Paige couldn't keep her spoon out of it.  So good, it was more custard than bread, just the way I like it and if you don't know who Todd English is then your not enough of a foodie to appreciate it, - ha-ha!  We all agreed that it was a very fun experience.  We will definitely do it again.




We then came home and did some of our "old" traditions. 

We drove through the Aurora Holiday Festival of Lights. 

We frosted cookies for Santa.

Opened our Christmas pjs and read a Christmas storybook.

Sang some Christmas carols (the "new" part is that both girls can now accompany on the piano, yeah!)

Read from the Scriptures including Luke 2 and marveled at the humble birth of the King of Kings, our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Then off to bed to dream....

Christmas Vacation Bucket List

This year the girl's winter vacation started pretty early.  Their last day of school was December 16th, which gave us a full week before Christmas off.  I'm not complaining.  In fact, it was welcome break from the hectic pace and schedules we have been maintaining lately. 

The first day we literally just vegged out.  Dave was out of town on business so the girls and I slept in and literally never left the house.  We were all just happy to watch movies, read books, and basically have nothing to do.

Of course, being the busy-body that I am, I can't go for too long "doing nothing" so we made a Christmas bucket list to get us in the spirit of the season.  And we have pretty much done it all!

1-Make cake balls - we did a big batch of red velvet and froze half of them. 

2-Listen to Christmas music - loved the "Holiday music" channel on DirecTV

3-Write a letter to Santa and take it Macy's Believe mailbox - Paige wrote the cutest letter and even drew a picture, too bad I didn't make a copy before we mailed it.

4-Put together gifts for friends and neighbors - the girls helped to make IBC "Root Deers"

5-Read Christmas stories - this year I put all our Christmas storybooks in a big basket under our Christmas tree, so we would remember to read the stories throughout the season.

6-Frost Christmas cookies - we did this on a couple of occasions, some for us, some for friends, some for Santa.

7-Watch a Christmas movie - first time the girls watched "It's a Wonderful Life"  We also watched another classic called "The Search for Santa Paws."

8-Make gingerbread trains

9-Sing Christmas carols, read Luke 1 - both girls learned to play some Christmas songs on the piano, so we actually had accompaniment this year.  Paige did Up on the House Top and Silent Night.  Ashley can play the simplified version of many of the hymns, but also played Samuel Tells of Baby Jesus and The Carol of the Bells. 

10-Play a game -we have a new favorite game called SPOT IT.  It is so fun, for all ages, and you can play 5 different games with it.  The makers of Spot It also happen to make another fun, simple but addictive game called Double Shutter.

11-Drive through the holiday lights - we do this every year

12-Read the Christmas story in Luke 2 - our must do Christmas Eve tradition

13-Go to Brookfield Zoo Holiday Magic

It was a pretty good list and having made good use of our vacation time, I now think we are ready to go back to school.  Well, maybe...

Paige's Piano Recital

Paige began taking piano lessons this school year.  A friend and neighbor offered to teach her and so I decided to let Paige get started.  She has been in lessons for about 4 months now and I have learned two things:

1-She was more ready to start piano than I thought she was.  At first I thought she was trying to memorize rather than read notes, but as she has progressed, I realize that she is actually reading the music.  Basically, some of the songs she is doing are too long for her to rely on memorization alone.

2-She is totally different than Ashley.  Ashley is not always confident, needs encouragement and sometimes gets very frustrated if she can't play perfectly.  Paige on the otherhand, is the total picture of confidence.  Always prepared and never second guessing herself.

The week before Christmas, Paige had her first piano recital.  She played three pieces.  The first was a duet of "Heart and Soul."  The second was "Up on the House Top" and the third was "Silent Night."  She also asked everyone to sing along during "Silent Night," that girl is so funny!

She did a very good job, but that was no surprise to her.  All week I asked her if she needed to practice more, if she was ready for her recital, etc.  I always got the "I'm ready, mom," "I've practiced," etc.  When I asked her to play for me during practice and I would encourage her telling her she did a good job or she plays really well or she was going to be great at her recital, she would say, "Ya, I know, mom." 

On the day of her recital Paige was confident, not nervous or anything.  Ashley couldn't believe it.  It just made me smile.  Way to go Paige.



Paige and her teacher Miss Julia