Wordless Wednesday: Pink Eye...

.....reared its ugly head this morning in the Dever household.

Amoxicillin to the rescue!!!

A Visit with Santa

Last Saturday, before the Jingle Jolly party at Haegan's house, we attempted to brave the very long line at the mall to see Santa.  When we got to the stand, we saw that Santa was out "feeding his reindeer" and wouldn't be back until 2:00.  Well, that wasn't going to work with our schedule, being that the party was at 2:30.  So we grabbed lunch instead and decided we would come back after the party and our dinner plans.

After dinner, we headed to the mall, AGAIN.  Found another parking spot and got in a LONG line to see Santa.  Santa's elves were pretty efficient and the line actually moved rather fast.  Emerson was very excited and only stood still for a few seconds. We stood in front of Santa for a bit and just waved at him while Danny held our place in line.  Once it was close to our turn, we all got in line.  Emerson is over her fear of Santa and did a great job, hopping right on his lap and telling him exactly what she wanted.  I'm pretty sure this is going to be a yearly tradition until Emerson won't do it anymore, and from the looks of some the kids in line that day, we may be doing this awhile.  We are 3 for 4 years now.  Emerson wanted nothing to do with Santa when she was 1 year and 5 months, but every other year has been a success.  Here's to another Dever Holiday Tradition.

Christmas 2007

Emerson - 5 months old

Christmas 2008

(Too afraid to sit on Santa's lap, but not afraid of "Daddy" Santa)

Emerson - 1 year, 5 months old

Christmas 2009

Emerson - 2 years, 5 months old

Christmas 2010 Visit to Santa

The mall's Christmas decorations.

**I got in trouble for taking these pictures.  A security guard actually came over and asked that I not take pictures unless a family member was in them.  Really?  'Cause taking a picture with a family member in it is so much less harmful than just taking a picture.  Is this really the only thing this security guard had to worry about the Saturday before Christmas with probably 5000 + shoppers in the mall.  'Tis the Season, right!!!

I made sure Emerson was in the next few pictures, just to be sure I didn't BREAK any rules!!!

Emerson looked like a natural on Santa's lap.  I should learn my lesson and just take the pictures myself but I always get sucked into one of the package pictures.  

One more shot with mall decor.... (wink, wink)!!!

The Official Santa picture...

Christmas 2010

Emerson - 3 years, 5 months old

2nd Annual Jingle Jolly Party

Last Saturday afternoon (12/18) Danny, Emerson and I attended the Second Annual Jingle Jolly Party (view last year's party here) hosted by Haegan, one of Emerson's classmates, and her family.  The party was such a great idea...we all gathered at Haegan's house with her parents, brothers, and brothers friends and set out to go caroling around the neighborhood.  As we headed out, everyone got a special treat....it started snowing!!  There's no  better way to Christmas carol than to do it with snow flurries falling from the sky.  Haegan's dad guided everyone around the neighborhood in his police car.   Haegan, Aurora, Julianne and Emerson all had so much fun, singing all the new songs in their repertoire.  After caroling, we came back to the house for some much needed hot chocolate because it was COLD, and of course, cookies to go along with the chocolate.  It was a great party and fun afternoon!!  Thanks for inviting us Haegan!!

Trying to catch a snowflake on her tongue!!

The three amigos; Haegan, Aurora and Emerson

Sweet Haegan!  She wasn't feeling great that day but she tried her hardest to participate. 

The two peas in a pod!! 

Everyone trying to catch a snowflake!!

Caroling, Caroling, Caroling!!

Miss Priss!!

Sweet Aurora!!

Great ending to a great party!!

Four Ladies Dancing

In the original Twelve Days of Christmas song, there are nine ladies dancing but last Friday (12/17) in Emerson's dance class there were only four.  For the month of December her class had been working on a special holiday dance for their families.  At the end of the class we were all invited in to watch their performance.  This was, of course, a special treat for us since most of the time we have to watch the class on a monitor in the lobby of the studio.  All the girls did great.  You'll see in the video the girl next to Emerson is in her second year of dance and is an entire year older than Emerson....it's amazing what a year of age and an extra year of experience do.  I'm shown daily just how fast they grow up and change from month to month, but I digress!!  Anyway, it was a cute performance and it gets me so excited for the June recital!!!

Holiday Dance Performance - 12.17.10 from Brooke Dever on Vimeo.

Emerson's Christmas Pageant

Last Friday (12/17)  was Emerson's annual Christmas Pageant at her daycare.  You may remember last year's pageant , when Emerson was certainly the loudest singer in the two-year-old classroom.  Well a year has passed and the loud voice from last year didn't make an appearance this year.  The format was a bit different this year.  The two-year-old class all sang their songs like they did last year and then they went back to their classroom.  Then, Miss Gail introduced the show and all the classes filed into their respective spots on stage.  This year though, all the classes sang all the songs together.  I was a little bummed that each class didn't get the spotlight for a few songs.  So needless to say, the video would probably bore most of you and take way too long to upload. There really wasn't a stand out performance or funny moment.

Lining up for the show!!

Quick note about this picture: While I am an admitted holiday outfit queen when it comes to dressing Emerson this time of year, you will notice she has on one outfit in this picture and another in the pictures below.  One of Emerson's teachers mistakenly changed her out of the outfit she had been in and put this dress on her before the show, thinking I had brought it in for her to wear.  Realizing she had put another child's dress on Emerson, she had to do a quick change right before they came upstairs back into the outfit Emerson had on all day.  I thought it was too funny...obviously bringing two outfits is something I would TOTALLY do, but I wasn't the culprit this time!!

Miss Gail welcomes the crowd!!

Miss Colleen, one of Emerson's teachers, reads a poem about Christmas.

Ready to sing!!

Emerson's classmates

 Of course, Emerson and Aurora would be right next to one another!

Performing!!

 

 

One of the new additions to the show this year was to have every child speak into the microphone (in front of the entire audience) and tell everyone one thing they want Santa to bring them. I am, by-all-means, not a public speaker, so I was pretty impressed that three, four, and five-year-olds had the courage to do this.  For the most part, all of them did a great job.  Emerson's response was a "Barbie Doll House" (which she later changed to just a doll house).  We'll see if Santa heard her request!!

Miss Devona, another one of Emerson's teachers, closed the show with 

the Story of the Candy Cane. 

 A quick reception closed out this year's Christmas Pageant.  Emerson headed straight for the cookies.  

Merry Christmas!!!  

** Some photography provided by Chad Wesson (Julianne's dad)