City Scenes

We spent our day after Christmas in San Francisco's Union Square, which was a lot of fun, but a bit exhausting too.  Here are 12 things we enjoyed in the city:

1.  Crowds 

2.  The huge Macy's tree 

3.  The department stores' Christmas window displays 

4.  Crowds 

5.  Festively decorated cable cars rumbling up and down the streets 

6.  Crowds 

7.  People ice skating in the square 

8.  The San Francisco heart sculpture

9.  Crowds 

9.  A giant gingerbread display and the famous "Meet Me at the Clock" clock at the Westin St. Francis 

10.  Sweet treats from Starbucks 

11.  Some amazing sales and equally amazing long lines to go with them  

12.  And, you guessed it, more crowds

And here are some pictures:  

Merry Christmas!

The past few days have been a blur of baking, eating good food, opening presents, sharing laughter with friends and even taking an outing to the city.  Once again, we're feeling so blessed and wanted to share a little Christmas JOY with you.  Since this post usually serves the purpose of showing our loved ones how much we loved the gifts they sent, I thought I'd enlist the help of the girls to write it.  They're going to describe each picture for you...

 "This picture is when Ella got me a Build-A-Bear costume and bed.  Now Lucy the bunny can cheer for the Chicago Bears!"  (Delia)

 "I knew that Mommy wanted a hat, so Daddy and I went to the store and bought Mommy the hat.  I thought it looked cute, so Daddy bought one for me too.  Mommy and me are going to be hat buddies share both of them!" (Ella)

 "This picture is when we got walkie-talkies from Auntie Kris.  When we opened it up, we both screamed 'WALKIE-TALKIES!!' Very quickly we started walkie-talking to each other.  Thanks, Auntie Kris, Uncle Eric, Cole and Miles!" (Delia)

 "My present from Uncle Kyle was a theme for Starry Night.  It came with a huuuge Starry Night umbrella and a kit full of stuff to help me make my own Starry Night painting.  We have also read the books he gave Delia and they are really, really funny.  Thanks, Uncle Kyle!" (Ella)

 "At the Christmas Festival in Napa we saw a super long line for a clown making balloon animals.   Instead of waiting in line, Daddy said we should get our own balloon kit.  Anna must have seen this on our wishlist and got it for us.  We've been making balloon animals every day!  So far, we've made 11 hats, dogs, cats and flowers.  Thank you Anna!!" (Ella)

  

 "Grandma and Grandpa sent this clothes for McKenna.  I was smiling very happily when I opened it.  It was a new outfit, pajamas and shoes.  Thanks Grandma!" (Ella)

"This is a tea set for me and Kaya from Grandma and Grandpa.  Right away I set up a tea party on the little table.  McKenna came too." (Delia)

"The #1 thing Delia and I wanted this year was American Girl Doll horses.  When we thought all the present opening was done, Mommy and Daddy pulled out 2 more surprise presents and guess what they were?  AMERICAN GIRL DOLL HORSES!!  We were so excited and love them so much!  We play with them every day!  Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa!" (Ella)

*** 

On Christmas Day, we had our very nice Christmas church service.  The pastoral staff traditionally serves the coffee and treats for this service and the girls got really into that.  We had some down time to play (and make more balloon animals) at home.  And in the afternoon our good friends Sara, Arend and Anja came over to play Wii Just Dance and board games with us.  Together, we also ate a nice turkey dinner and my attempt at a fancy Christmas dessert-- homemade salted caramel cheesecake.

  

Merry Christmas to you, dear family and friends!  Hope your holiday was full of love and laughter too!

Visions of Sugar Plums...

Our interest in the Nutcracker began last Christmas when we stumbled on a Battle of the Nutcrackers Marathon on TV.  Watching about 5 different world-class ballet companies and their interpretation of this story made us real experts.  And then we got the book.  The Nutcracker and its characters are household names around here and a regular thing that gets played/acted out in the girls' rotation of imagination.

We knew this was the year to take the girls to see their very first ballet...

We have a local and beautiful performing arts center where The Nutcracker is performed each Christmas.  We bought the tickets months ago and have been counting down excitedly since.  We ladies spent the morning painting our nails, curling our hair and picking out our best dresses for the show.

Our seats were up in the balcony, but we actually thought we may have had the best view looking down on the whole stage.  When the lights went out and the familiar music started playing, Delia was actually trembling with anticipation besides me!  It was so fun to experience this with the girls.  

I always love the scene that shows Clara her first glimpse of the fantasy world-- where the ballerinas are posed in a foggy winter world and snow actually falls!

Each part was colorful and fun to see-- the high-energy Russian dancers, the Chinese ribbon twirlers, the Sugar Plum Fairy, etc.  Delia was most looking forward to seeing this character (above).  She was called "Mother Ginger" in our show.  She's a lady who floats out wearing a huge dress, from which her dozen children emerge to dance.  Ella said her favorite part was the end where the whole cast comes out to bow over and over.

  

Going for a Saturday matinee offered us a special opportunity to attend the "Sugar Plum Fairy's Party" on stage after the performance.  All the principal dancers were lined up to meet and greet their little fans.  The ballerinas complimented the girls' fancy dresses and chatted with them about their favorite parts.  They answered questions and showed Delia how their ballet slippers work.  They signed Ella's program and posed for pictures.  The men who played the princes in the show told Ella and Delia they looked like princesses, which made the girls just beam.

We even got to meet the REAL Sugar Plum Fairy, her prince and Clara!  It was impressive to me that the dancers would so generously give their time to kindly and genuinely interact with the kids.  This made such an impression on these girls, I do wonder what will be remembered more from this experience - watching the show or meeting the cast!

Sunday School Program

This past Sunday night our Sunday School performed their annual Christmas program at our nighttime church service.  I don't usually post about this because it's just another thing in an already jam-packed season.  But, this year being our first in while with no preschool program to attend, we all particularly appreciated the Sunday School program-- especially since they pulled out the adorable costumes!  Both Ella and Delia were angels and had speaking parts.  They have yet to meet a microphone they don't love, so they each did a fine job sharing some Bible memory work.  Delia sang "Away in a Manger" SO enthusiastically that Pastor Bruce asked if the girls would be willing to sing another special song together in our upcoming Sunday night Christmas Song Service.  It is such a blessing to see our young children involved in leading worship!

Traditionally, the prelude on Sunday School Program night is played by all the young pianists in our church.  Ella played for the second year now, which I'll share-- if you haven't yet grown tired of videos of her piano playing. Special this year was sharing a duet with Natalie, Ella's piano lesson buddy, who is a high school senior and one of the most gifted piano players we know!  

The kids sang familiar songs, rang bells and recited pieces of Luke 2.  For the fourth year now, Dave's message at this special service was based on a children's book that he invites all the students to sit on the stage and listen to while the congregation follows allow with the illustrations he's scanned into Power Point slides.  This year's program was yet another success in reminding us all, that despite all the noise and chaos of the season, it's about the peace God brought through Baby Jesus.

Feeling Festive

This weekend we enjoyed full on Christmas and family time!  Delia has been working through a Polar Express unit in kindergarten, so we concluded the week by watching the movie together as a family on Friday.  When the movie turned off, we used this idea, found on Pinterest:  We got the girls all ready for bed and were ready to tuck them in when they discovered the golden ticket on their pillow.  Instead of going to bed, they put on robes and slippers and were escorted to the "Minivan Express" where hot chocolate with marshmallows was waiting in their car seat cup holders and a tour of Christmas lights was the destination. Watching the entire song loop at our favorite "dancing lights" house was the grand finale.  As you can imagine, this was a HUGE hit!  Delia totally bought into the magic of it all and plans to bring her ticket and story of this experience for show-and-tell this week.  

We also did the traditional gingerbread decorating this weekend.  Instead of messing around with that kit and its walls that never stay up and its finished product no one ever really wants to eat, we made homemade gingerbread men for the first time.  They were delicious and surprisingly super easy to make!  (I liked this recipe, again, found thanks to Pinterest!)

Since we each had our own stack of gingerbread men to decorate, we could get pretty creative!  Some gingerbread accessories we made included: hula skirts, sunglasses, mustaches, birthday hats, hair bows, floaties for swimming, wiggly teeth and ski boots.  The picture above shows the best of the bunch: gingerbread reindeer, gingerbread screaming and bleeding when his arm got bitten off, snazzy tie-guy and gingerbread with a real broken and fixed-with-a-frosting-cast leg.  Can you tell we had some fun with this project?  :)

Sinterklaas!

Last night, December 5, was Sinterklaas Eve, so we once again pulled out a favorite Christmas tradition-- reading the true story of St. Nicholas (Sinterklaas in Dutch) and then leaving him and his white horse treats in our klompies in hope that he'd exchange them for some little gifts.  We started this tradition as a Santa alternative and opportunity to teach the girls a little something about their history and heritage.  Each year we get something a little different out of it.  This year I realized how great it is to give some small gifts early in the season.  As soon as the tree went up, the kids got present-hungry and started asking if they could "pleeeeease just open one present?"  Sinterklaas holds them over until Christmas...like a little snack. :)

One consistent thing we've always appreciated about this tradition is the laughs it brings us.  This year was no exception.  Delia got over her funny fears, but Ella was concerned about giving Sinterklaas a head's up regarding a small problem we've been dealing with.  This was what her note said: "WARNING Sinterklaas!  Please do not go in the bathroom! We have sprayed poison in it.  Because we have a problem with ants."

You'll be happy to hear that we didn't kill Sinterklaas with ant poison fumes this year.  He came indeed and he left a small pile of treats.

Ella nearly cried with joy when she opened this little silver piano charm necklace.  This gift was also a huge hit that we recommend to anyone whose kids also need to keep track of their reading minutes.

And Delia's favorite gift from Sinterklaas was her very own sparkly Cubbie hat!

All She's Missing is the Coffee