December

December 1st we took the girls to go see Santa. I love the "Workshop" that Southcentre sets up, and there were no lines. Charlotte asked for a Tiana Dress and a Cinderella dress.

When I got our the Christmas decorations box, Charlotte thought it was just a new dress-up box. She insisted I put as much of it on her as I could.

Charlotte used my scarves to dress up as Mary for the entire month of December. It was not uncommon for Charlotte to ask me to put all of my scarves over her head at once. Are you noticing a theme of Charlotte's lately? Playing dress-up and using her imagination are her favorite things to do these days. The other day I found her ripping toilet paper into tiny pieces all over the house and calling them her "magic golden band-aids" She doesn't bounce or throw balls, she covers them with a blanket and puts them to bed. This is all a little new to me since I never played with dolls and was more of a tom-boy.

Charlotte had the honor of being Mary for Christmas Eve with all of her cousins at the Low's house. She took it very seriously and did a little improv where she felt it appropriate. Spontaneous singing of Christmas Carols, engaging with the other "actors", and kissing baby Jesus were a few of her interpretations of the role of Mary.

It was a wonderful Christmas Eve program at the Low's and the fact that all of Dave's siblings were there for Christmas this year, made it one to remember!
Charlotte sang "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" for part of the program. When the song was nearing its end, she apparently wasn't ready to give up the spotlight since she dove right into an explanation of how Santa Claus works with all the expression and hand-gestures she could muster. She was quite a ham and it was hilariously cute.

Who knew that all we needed to get Charlotte for Christmas was a couple boxes of treat cereal. After she found them in her stocking she really wasn't interested in opening anything else for a while.

Opening more presents after getting home from an early church service. Santa came through on her wish! This is stage one of the costume...

Stage 2

Dave knocked it out of the park this year for my Christmas present. He secretly booked time off to watch the girls and bought me a plane ticket so I could go to Arizona with my parents and siblings in April. He wrote me a really nice note saying how much he appreciated all I did and that he thought I deserved a break. To be completely honest, there are sometimes during the day when I will just say the word "Arizona" to myself and it makes me feel warm and happy.

I got Dave a really nice new tennis racquet that he mentioned he wanted a while back, and also cleaned out a big spare room and turned it into a little exercise spot for him with some free weights etc. He gets an allowance through insurance to use on fitness stuff, so we're going to buy an exercise bike for the room. He feels like he doesn't have enough time to workout at a gym, so I think he really appreciated it.

Later some of my family members came over for a Christmas Day brunch

Dave's brother, Mike got married to Jessica Smith over Christmas break and we couldn't be more thrilled for them. We sort of like Mike, we love Jessica, and she fits in so well with the family.

I kinda thought I had the cutest junior bridesmaids there :)

Dave had a tux for the wedding and he was looking mighty good-looking in it. I kinda turned into a 16 year old girl again when I first saw him in it. That lucky tux :)

I would have to say one of the highlights of Christmas for me this year was getting to see Charlotte play with her cousins. They are so sweet to play with her (she's younger than most of them). I just wish I took more pictures of them together!

A while back Jordan got Beauty and the Beast tickets through his work, and when it got closer to the event it turned out Dave was on-call that evening. I took Charlotte as my date and it was so thrilling to experience it with her. She cried at intermission because she thought it was over, she hugged me during the scary parts, sang along with all the songs, and got up to twirl around during the dancing scene.

Coming up next, some 2012 updates!