Christmas traditions...old and new

Well, Blogger has changed a bit, it seems, so my pics are in backwards order....ooops!  I'm just too lazy to try and rearrange them.  Forgive this tired mama.  But let's get down to the heart of this post...celebrating this wonderful time of the year.  It is definitely my favorite.  I love Christmas!  We have so many fun traditions and as the title says, we're also starting some new ones.  I guess it is appropriate that we started with the most important part of Christmas: celebrating the birth of Jesus.  In fact, today during our school time I told the girls that this week our focus was going to be on the true meaning of Christmas...Jesus' birth.  Last night our church had the annual children's musical and Sophie's 3 and 4 yr old choir class sang.  I loved this little song they did about Jesus being born.

 Friday night we had our annual Christmas night at the Nutcracker!  I LOVE going to this performance every year.  It doesn't matter that I've seen it so many times...it's so neat just to be there.  This year was special because I was able to take Sophie for the first time.  She had a hard time with the sitting still part, but it was still great to make this memory with her.  Afterwards she and her cousin, Layla, got a picture with their Mimi.

 I took this before it all started.  These two just love spending time with each other.  It's so sweet.  I hope they'll always be close little cousins.  After the performance one of the dancers I knew from years ago took us backstage and let us see some of the props and walk out onto the stage.  As we were walking out, Layla said, "Guys....this was awesome!"  : )

 Last Thursday we also did another somewhat new tradition.  We made Christmas ornaments at school and included Isaac and his little friend, Julia.  We made the cutest little snowmen (thank you, Pinterest!).  All the kids did a great job with their ornament!  Isaac is really proud of his ; ).

 Here's Julia...apparently she wanted to call her brother and tell him what we were up to : ).

 The girls with theirs.  I think I must've traumatized Sophie when she was a baby with all the pics I took of her with a flash. Now she will hardly ever look at the camera when I take a picture.  Look up, Sophie girl : ).

 All of our completed snowmen.  Apparently red was the popular color that day.  I chose the green just to add a little something different.  But don't they look cute?!

To continue the theme of our focus this week on Jesus, our special activity will be to make a gingerbread Nativity instead of a gingerbread house.  I'm excited....I just need to put on my thinking cap and make sure I get the ingredients we need.  I look forward to seeing how this little craft will turn out! 

God bless you this Christmas season!