December Happenings

Because I am so behind on posting I am lumping everything together just to make sure I document it - sorry about that. So December, Molly had her Christmas show at her school and of course did a great job. Her class sang two songs so she was on stage all of 45 seconds but you gotta be proud right! They sang Jesus Loves Me and The B-I-B-L-E. They were meant to do the sign language to Jesus Loves Me and she nailed the finger on the palm of your hand move for Jesus.

See...fantastic with the Jesus sign.

This is the "cheeeeese" face 

Next, we decided to take her to Santa's Wonderland in College Station on a random work evening. It was great! She LOVED the idea of seeing Santa but as previous years have proved she is not the biggest fan when it comes to sitting on his lap. She wanted to stand in line for 30 minutes and looked in the window and was really excited but as soon as we turned the corner to commit the tears came rolling down. Of course I turn to the photographer and tell her she better get good pics and Danny plops her in Santa's lap with a look of terror on her face. It was great! As soon as Danny swoped in and picked her up she was fine and still got a peppermint so she was even more fine - not scared at all. ;) The rest of Santa's Wonderland was great. They had fake snow falling which she just twirlled in and loved then there was a petting zoo which she loved from daddy's arms and finally the hayride through the millions of lights. Her favorite were the different tunnels that we drove through. It was fun and we would definately do it again - not sure about next year though since we will have our hands a little full.....

This was the level of her excitement the entire night. 

On the hayride checking out the lights.

And our fantastic Santa pic! Third year to go strong with the crying. P.S. did anyone elses kid ask for cookies from Santa....that is all she said she wanted this year.

A couple days later we had the Christmas event at our church. They have camel and donkey rides, dress up, a mini live nativity (goats, sheep and a family dressed as Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus), music, snacks and crafts. M's favorite part was that her friend Liam was there, she rode a camel and the highlight was holding the baby goat.

Liam and Molly

Thanks Candace for taking my daughter on a camel :) 

Donkey ride. For some reason she was a little nervous on the donkey but not on the camel???

Dress up lasted for all of 2 seconds - enough for a picture.

And the most thrilling part along with the wassel mustache.

Then there was Christmas. A very important day that was filled with the celebration of Jesus and family time. This year Christmas was a 3 day event for us. On the actual day we started out at our house where Molly opened all of her 3 presents (one being unwrapped because Santa put it together the night before). Before you feel bad for her that she only got 3 presents realize that she has a lot of love from both sides of the family and she did NOT lack in presents this year. Apparently she was a very good girl. After we ate our fill of breakfast casserole and banana muffins we headed to my parents house. Once there we ate another round of breakfast then read Luke 2 and opened presents again. The big gift was the Big Wheel. Oh man.....M still wants to ride that thing everyday all day.

Here was our Christmas card this year.

Santa came!

Christmas morning pic. Side note: I had to beg her to wear Christmas jammies the night before and not a princess dress and these were the best I could do. I mean they have santa on them but my vision was the cute red and white pjs with her name on them......guess I gotta let go. ;)

Remembering the reason for the season.

Had to get in some cuddles after opening a super soft blanket.

A new blanket and a frozen chair.....what?!? 

What's in here?

A BIKE!!!

And this is what we have been doing the past couple of days.

The next day we woke up and had Danny's family over for another great Christmas. Lots of family fun was had. The one thing we didn't do which is a Struzick tradition was to have a little wrapping paper fight with all the left over wrapping paper rolls.

Because we are all still kids we had to go upstairs and wait then come back down to see if Santa came again. Can you feel our anticipation. ;)

Puppy suprise - did anyone else have these as a little girl? I very much remember having mine and of course M loves the little babies. 

Danny modeling the latest trend in frozen earrings. 

The moment she realized she has a braid in her hair just like Elsa! Priceless.

Family pic. 

Because we can be a little goofy. 

Driving cars and riding bikes is what we did for afternoon entertainment.

Day 3 of Christmas ended at my Grandma's house where we had my mom's extended family. Lots of kids and good times. All the kiddos played great and the adults had a good time doing the Chinese gift exchange which is basically white elephant except with good gifts. I ended up with a super plush blanket and a good candle. All of us forgot to take pics and the two that I did take were pretty sad.

3 peas in a pod

Of course as soon as we pulled out of the driveway M was out.