Shelly's Christmas Party 12-23-07

Decorating the Christmas Tree

In the better late than never category, we have "decorating our Christmas tree"! We got the tree out and the girls worked on decorating it when I was on break from work on December 23. (One of the beautiful things about working from home.) The only thing they couldn't do was the angel, so that didn't get put on until Christmas Eve. They did a great job getting the tree decorated. Since it wasn't up very long before Christmas, we probably won't take it down until January 1st.

Pictures with Santa

I'll stop posting about Christmas stuff soon...either it will be January (and I really hate posting about Christmas in January) or I'll run out of stuff to post. I'm guessing January will get here before I run out of stuff to post though!

We went to see Santa in the Fashion Place Mall on December 21st. The girls didn't have school because it was the official start to Winter break, aka Christmas Vacation, so I thought it would be the perfect day to go see Santa. I think everyone else did too! They had a new system for seeing the big guy this year. First you go to the lady at the table and get a pager, like the ones you get at a restaurant. We got there when Santa was on his lunch break, so we didn't have to stand in line for that, but people after us did. Then, when they are ready for you, they page you. Except that the pagers didn't work that well. And if you went out of range, you were basically out of luck. So we stuck around where the Santa setup was and did a little shopping, but didn't go far.

Finally we were paged, although ours was one that didn't go off, and then we got to stand in line again! Some people got really upset about that and just left. We spent probably another 15-20 minutes in line after we turned our pager in. To top it off, the picture prices seemed to go up significantly this year, so we didn't purchase any pictures, just did the ones with my camera. And since we didn't buy any pictures, apparently we had to be rushed out. I was planning on letting B'Elana get a picture by herself, a picture with both girls and then a picture with Deanna by herself. Deanna felt like Santa was kind of pushing her off his lap after the one with both girls, so we didn't get the one with just her.

Anyway, both girls got to talk to the big guy for a minute. Deanna couldn't think of anything to ask for, so Santa surprised her and B'Elana asked for Barbies. Come back later to find out if the girls wishes came true!

Orchestra Christmas Concert

Deanna's orchestra Christmas Concert was on December 17, 2007. Deanna does an awesome job playing the cello. She played Marry had a Little Lamb, happy and sad, Ode to Joy, Jingle Bells, Twinkle, Twinlke, Little Star, Silent Night, Do You Hear What I hear, and Over the Hills and Through the Woods.

Cheering all the way!

B'Elana and her Li'l Devils have been busy in December. They had a dress rehearsal, 2 competitions and the Christmas concert this month. The next two months will be busy as well, but at least we won't have Christmas coming along with all the competitions!

Their first competition was at the University of Utah and they did awesome! They qualified for the COA Nationals in Las Vegas. The second competition was on December 8. They had some stiff competition from Planet Cheer and came in second place. B'Elana has assured us that they don't like second place and will be working hard to make sure they win from now on :)

Good luck BK and all the Li'l Devils!

Christmas concert

Okay, I'm finally getting to blogging all the Christmas happenings around our house. First off was the Elite Academy Christmas Concert on December 12, 2007. We thought we had all of the costume pieces, but it turns out we were missing a white long sleeve t-shirt for B'Elana's hip hop dance....so I drove like a maniac to the nearest Wal-Mart, found a new shirt and got back in record time. I missed part of Deanna's first dance, but mananged to see everything else! Deanna was in 3 dances this year. The first one was her Red Hots performance, second was her hip hop dance, and the last one was her Xpressions dance. The girls both did a great job, and it was a great way to kick off our holiday season!

Christmas is coming.

Christmas is coming and we are not ready in the least. We don't even have carpet in the room we put our Christmas tree in! I've been doing some shopping, and I've managed to get the gifts for my girls' cousins sent out. But I'm really not in a Christmas-y mood. Right now I'm wishing Christmas was over so life can get back to some semblance of normal.

We went to two Christmas parties today. One was a Christmas breakfast with Grandpa and Peggy. The second was the Teamster Party. The girls got balloon sculptures, got their faces painted and sat on Santa's lap.

I really want to go up to the zoo and see the lights they have up there and go see the lights around town. I think that would help change my outlook. Hopefully we'll be able to do something to get things going tomorrow.