Greensleeves

Jada is growing to be a beautiful ballerina! She danced to Greensleeves which is one of my favorite songs and she is so full of grace that it is really fun to watch her dance.  Here are a couple shots of her dancing:

And for after the recital, ROSES! :)

Blackboard scratching

Have you ever heard 120 4th grade kids playing the recorder? It was definitely hard not to cringe but it was fun to see the kids trying so hard!

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Grandpa has had some recent health scares so we were really happy to be able to celebrate this birthday with him! Here's to another year!

Shawn's brother Tamer, Shawn, Daniel, Samia, Shawn's sister Gihan, Grandpa and the rest of the crew!

Snow

How much snow does it take to scrape together a snowman?

not much

How much snow do you need for a snowball fight?

not much

How much snow does it take to cancel school?

you got it!

Traditions

Our family has some pretty strong Christmas traditions.  We always spend a day in downtown Seattle and the more the merrier! We started off at the gingerbread houses, which are always so creative!

Then off we went to the old fashioned carousel, where I take the pictures... I can barely watch it without getting sick!

And then we end with fish n'chips at Ivar's

 And even though the food is fabulous, it is feeding the seagulls that the kids look forward to!

Except Ethan, who would rather eat the seagull food...

And an added bonus, it didn't rain!!!

Family talents

For those of you who were not there, these pictures probably won't be all that interesting... I guess you had to be there.  For those of you who were there, enjoy!

sing with me: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Hum with me... da da da dadada.... Look he lost his fingers!

Spencer, Hannah, Claire and James were a hit! I think they prefer to be called vertically challenged people...

It was a Tim Tam slam kinda night!

Jolly Old St. Nicholas

On Christmas Eve, we had a visitor!

This is Kailey's third year as Santa and she's becoming quite a pro!

And then, with the stockings hung by the chimney with care and the children nestled all snug in their beds, the real Santa paid us a visit!

It's always fun to see the tree on Christmas morning! And for some reason I only captured a few moments this Christmas... probably because everything was going so fast! The kids have definitely perfected their tearing technique :>

 

My brother Nelson has always wanted a Santa suit and this year, Santa delivered!

Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas!