Christmas Eve

We did Christmas Eve with my family this year.  We started with chicken and shrimp fettuccini alfredo for lunch.

Then we opened presents!  The boys really got in to it this year which was fun to watch.

I made them some new Husker shirts, GO BIG RED!

Esme's big gift started with a scavenger hunt created by Nana.  It led her to the basement where she found a custom balance beam made by grandpa and Nana!

We followed this with our church's Christmas Eve service.  Esme and I did the final Advent candle lighting and reading.  There were some technical difficulties and Jimmy caught my face perfectly as I tried to get the lighter to work.

Esme was itching to get the beam set up when we finally got home.  She also got a new leotard and got them both broke in.

Merry Christmas!

Countdown to Christmas

Parker had strep and missed his second floor hockey game, but was back at it for game 3.  He gets pretty distracted by us being there, but I want him to get used to it.

They also got their first win of the season!  Go Robins!

I had an employee appreciation lunch on Thursday at work. We got some stockings filled with goodies and I won the raffle for a Stanley cup and some gift cards.  I do pretty good drinking water at my desk, but not elsewhere so I dubbed this my "upstairs cup." Jimmy found it pretty humorous.

Parker is not letting the snow keep him off the trampoline and I love it!

He sported one of his new t-shirts and looked too cute not to take a picture.  You don't choose the nug life, the nug life chooses you!

We had our final week of advent gifts.

Then went sledding after church.  Esme was so excited we could finally go and it was much earlier than last year.  Hopefully more to come!

This week's dog had cream cheese and grilled onions for our victory over Seattle.  We also borrowed some floor hockey sticks to practice some skills at home with Parker.

Winter break is officially here, bring on Christmas!

Esme in Frozen Jr.

Esme had 3 incredible performances of Frozen Jr over the last 2 weeks.  

She played Young Elsa which was a pretty significant role in the first part of the play.

She was also in the summer chorus with Olaf during "In Summer" and got to be a townsperson in a lot of other scenes.

She had special people at every performance and I helped with running the lights.  Grandpa and Nana came the first Saturday.

Her school friend, Ryley, and Chuck and Phyllis came on Tuesday.

Jimmy came for her final performance.

We also watched another cast on Friday night. She wore her Elsa Halloween costume and posed with her star.

She made so many friends and really came out of her shell this fall.  Here she is with her good buddy, Kyle, who played Kristoff. We are so proud of the actress you are becoming!

Christmas Kick-Off Weekend

We kicked out Christmas with back to back events after a busy morning Saturday.  We did Jimmy's extended family potluck first.  I made matching shirts for some of the cousins.

We hosted Jimmy's immediate family right after at our house and were able to grab picture for our last minute Christmas card.

The kids were showered with gifts and loved it.

Tird week of Advent gifts the next morning kept the fun going.

This week's hot dog was a deep dish pizza dog for our 30-12 win over the Chicago Bears.  Parker loves his new Polar Express jammies too.  They make him look so grown up.