Holiday Happenings

Here's a little rundown of what we've been up to this holiday season.....

Grandpa, Debbie, and Great Grandma Helen came to our house for Thanksgiving. Grandma Helen taught Matt and I some fun new card games, and she even got the chance to help Jillian learn to play Go Fish.

I cooked for two days straight, so literally, this is my only picture from their visit.  So it goes.

We hit the mall for a visit to our beloved Rochester Santa--real hair, real beard, same guy every year. It's pretty cool. I was relieved that we didn't have a repeat of last year.

Adrienne excitedly ran up to Santa

When he asked them what they wanted, Jillian said, "It's a secret. I'll write you a letter!" and Adrienne said, "Bubble Guppies stuff".

A still looks a bit unsure. J looks SO tall to me here.

Jillian has discovered the joy of wrapping presents. She literally spent 2/3 of a day standing in one spot at the table wrapping some of our old toys "for kids who don't have toys". I didn't have the heart to tell her that we can't donate used, wrapped presents, so I am working on a way to have her help me load them up in a bag so that I can unwrap (without her knowledge) and donate some day she is at school She has such a big heart.

I highly recommend present-wrapping as an activity for a busy 5 year old. Best entertainer EVER. I didn't even mind that she used FOUR rolls of tape that day.

After the present wrapping she wanted to make a necklace and requested some beads. I didn't have any beads, so she did what any resourceful kid would do--she made some. From paper.

Paper beads with a wrapping paper string. Resourceful, indeed.

Matt and I have had a couple of really fun nights out. First, we attended a Cloud Cult concert at the Rochester Art Center. Cloud Cult is a local-ish band that we were unfamiliar with, but went to this concert as a benefit for a man Matt works with who was recently diagnosed with ALS. Cloud Cult is unique in that in addition to musicians, they have 2 artists on stage who create paintings during the performance and then auction them off (proceeds to the family with ALS on this night). The music was amazing--acoustic and tight harmonies (total heaven for me), and the paintings were really cool. A fun night that we will remember for a long time.

Painting one

Painting 2. I wanted this one for our basement. Unfortunately, so did our friends. Matt didn't want to bid against his colleague's wife, so we let it go....

Just a short 3 days later, we headed to a friend's house for a Martin Zellar house concert. If you are unfamiliar, Martin Zellar is head of the Gear Daddies, and they originated down the road in Austin, MN. They are quite popular with the local crowd, and while once again we were not very in tune with the music beforehand, we were nicely surprised with a super great night. Martin was an awesome storyteller, had great lyrics to his songs, and did an fantastic cover of "Little Red Corvette". Pretty cool to have such an intimate, acoustic concert. He opened up the mic for anyone who wanted to play his guitar and sing afterwards, but despite my best nudging, Matt refused to play in front of anyone (even if I offered to do the singing!).

Martin Zellar tuning up

On Monday, we had Jillian's big school Christmas program. She prepared for months, and was so excited to sing all 6 songs at the top of her lungs, have cookies with friends after, and attend pajama day the following day. Unfortunately, the night ended with Jillian (literally) getting sick during song number 5.  Despite being devastated for missing the last song, the cookies, and the subsequent day of pajama-wearing at school, she was young enough to not be embarrassed, and for that we are thankful. The story of it all deserves its own post, and of course some video of the earlier songs, but I've yet to upload anything. For now, enjoy a pic of our beauties pre-performance.

About one hour pre-vomit...Adrienne wanted to wear her Christmas dress, too

Daddy and A, pre-show. I love this pic for so many reasons, most of which is the classic 2 year old fingers-in-nose pose.