December Highlights!

We had the nicest holiday season. I think 5 and 2 are just about the perfect ages for holidays. Here are some of the highlights!


Making the traditional Clark Family sugar cookies during Nana and Papa's visit. Unfortunately I can't show any pictures of the kids because they all involve nudity and/or truly disgusting hygiene. We kept these cookies to ourselves, naturally. :)





Caroline and her preschool buddies singing Christmas carols at the annual sing-along. You would have thought it was high school graduation by the level of mommy-paparazzi. I'm pretty sure there is nothing cuter than 60+ preschoolers singing. :)

For the 4th year in a row, we made our own gingerbread houses. I'm not sure why I punish myself like this since they are an incredible amount of work, but it feels good to bring out my mini-Martha at least once a year, I guess. :) Plus my kids start asking right after Halloween when we are going to do them and which friends will be invited, so I'm pretty sure it's a tradition that isn't going to end for many years.





Caroline and I went to the Boston Ballet's Nutcracker with our neighbors. The girls loved it. Caroline - my character stalker at Disney - refused to greet the characters. Here's MV with the teddy. Apparently that's the only picture I took from our outing.




We had our own Christmas morning at home before we left for Chicago. Love these monkeys!

One of the biggest hits of Christmas was the Annie costume and wig from Nana and Papa. Caroline has been obsessed with Annie for awhile now. She recently started a drama class, and to everyone's delight they will be performing scenes from Annie.

Both children starred in our church's Christmas Pageant. Caroline and MV (to the right of C, our next door neighbor and bff) were so thrilled to be angels.

The older children spent weeks rehearsing and learning songs for the Pageant. William, our neighbor Little C, (W's future bride) and another 3 year old church friend were invited to be stable animals. It was kind of a "wing-it" approach - they'd never rehearsed, and during the Pageant itself we just sort of pointed them to the front of the church and told them to make animal noises. Um, there was no stage fright from these three. They all quite enjoyed being on stage in front of a huge group. Two of these animals started getting a little wild towards the end, but I'm not saying which ones. :) We were actually just really relieved because William and Little C had been insisting for WEEKS that they were going to be penguins at the Pageant (they share a mutual, strange fascination with the birds), and we weren't sure they would even get into their costumes. But they stole the show. :)

We spent the actual holiday in Chicago with my family. On Christmas Eve we celebrated my niece Penny's 2nd birthday with a cousin trip to Build-a-Bear! Although this is obviously my nephew Quentin, not the birthday girl herself. :)

Christmas morning chaos in Chicago. My kids were ridiculously spoiled this year. The four cousins played so beautifully together for our entire visit. My brother in law Jay made his annual eggs Benedict and white Russians. YUM.

Steve and I are so blessed with amazing families and our healthy children. This holiday season was an endless parade of quality time with those we love, special events, good food, watching our children truly become a part of our church family, and joy. Tonight, for New Year's Eve, we'll do pizza and champagne with 3 families that we've grown to truly love here in Massachusetts. We'll celebrate with our kids and our friends, and still be in bed by 10 - how perfect is that? 2010, you were a great year for our little family, and I can't wait to see what 2011 has in store! Happy New Year, everyone!