Day 9... Christmas Party and School Pageant

So yesterday kicked of the THREE busiest jammed packed days of my month. Seriously and when I tell you I was laying in bad last night nauseous and tired, my husband was like "honey you are literally making yourself sick with how much you are trying to do..." But so it is in the life of Super-Mom right? ha ha! yeah right! I am a masochist... Here goes...



Yesterday was our third annual Christmas party and gift exchange with our Two Under Two playgroup friends. Trish had us over to her house last minute since our idea of a picnic at the park was spoiled by a random and rare occurrence of RAIN! She was so sweet to let us all pile in and destroy her house. And she made us pizza and had tons of snacks and cookies and coffee and MIMOSAS which is our Christmas tradition. Me, Trish, Stephanie, Keely and Danielle are such a tight group and I seriously love these ladies and their kids. So we were excited to toast to a great 2010 and to wish each other the best for 2011. Here are some pics... (but none of us Moms had any make-up on and almost all of us were complaining we looked like crap, so none of us, just the kiddos! LOL)

And we always do a gift exchange among the kids and the tree looked gorgeous surrounded by presents!!




The kids all sat around two tables and had lunch together.




And seriously anytime I wanted to know where Ryen was, I just had to look for Trish's cat. I swear this girl LOVES cats!!! But how cute that I found them cuddling??



And I cant stop laughing at this one... Ha ha!



We played for a bit...



and then it was time for presents!!



Then we decorated cookies...



... and then the best part... eating them!!!



I was just sad that Ella couldn't be there. She was supposed to be, but then her teachers at school asked if she could come to school on Thursday to take part in rehearsals for their Christmas Pageant later that night. Which brings us to the next event!

The Premier Learning Academy put on a Christmas Pageant and both my girls were invited to participate. Ella was a snow angel and Ryen was a sheep. LOL



My beautiful girl!



Ella and some snow Angels!



Here is Ella throwing snow on the ground with and then sitting with, the other snow angels!



Ella loves being on stage and performing so I knew she would be great and in her element. But I didn't know what to expect of Ryen. She can be really shy and intimidated easily. I thought she might run to me and spend the whole performance on my lap. But she didn't. She did great!



And here's the thing I love about these types of shows the most. Not the actual singing or dancing or watching my kids perform or even the silly photos ops. It is simply the way their faces LIGHT UP when they find you in the audience. Ella gets so excited and waves and smiles. She was even mouthing to me look Mommy SNOW and pointing at her cup of snow. It makes me so happy and my heart feels like it is going to burst.

And Ryen was so cute looking around and being shy.




And when she did find me in the crowd, I waved at her. And she smiled, raised her little gloved "sheep hand" and waved back at me. And that was that... my baby was not a baby anymore. :(

After they took a pic with Daddy :)



All in all the kids did a very cute job of telling the story of the birth of Jesus and all the parents were very proud. The kids and teachers worked VERY hard to pull it all off. :)