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As usual, our church had lots of of offerings around Christmas. This included a service on Christmas Eve Eve for those who wouldn’t be around Christmas Eve, five services on Christmas Eve, and a Christmas Day service. Two of the services on Christmas Eve were family services, led by and geared towards kids. Both Molly’s choir and Leah’s choir were involved, so the girls and I went to both of them.

Of course, fancy Christmas attire is not required for church but that doesn’t stop our girls. And fancy clothes deserve fancy earrings as well. Molly’s wanted hoop earring for some time, and Aunt EA and Uncle Scott were happy to oblige with a pair. They didn’t expect them to be so big, though. Of course, size matters not. Molly loves them.

Here’s Molly’s choir singing their special song. They also led the congregational singing.

I accompanied Molly’s choir with some fingerpicking.

Leah’s choir doesn’t use folders with music, which leaves their hands available for hand motions.

After church, we headed to Grams’s house for soup and sandwiches. Per tradition, we opened one gift on Christmas Eve.

Grammy gave both girls very nice backpacks.

After we got home, Jen presented the girls with their Christmas jammies. This year, she actually purchased the shirt, then made pants to go with it.

Here they are in their brand new jammies.

Cookies and milk for Santa, carrots for the reindeer.

We always read Twas the Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve. This year, the girls got G’Mom and Grampa to read to them.

Then is was off to bed for the girls to get a good night’s sleep before the big day. Well, at least one of them got a good night’s sleep. The other... well, more on that in the next post.

The girls are very much enjoying karate. Last week was Molly's first belt test, where she would test to earn a yellow stripe on her yellow belt (note that belt rank may differ from one form of karate to another). She's been practicing and studying for several weeks, and she was finally ready to test.

But, first, Leah got to show off her karate skills. Leah’s karate class is too young for belt tests, but they do have ceremonies to culminate a specific topic they've been working on. These include demonstrations for families. Molly and I got to watch, but sadly Jen did not. She arrived with us, but then had to turn around and head home when we realized the girls had forgotten their bag with gear and belts (which is why Leah is not wearing her belt).

Leah led their initial chant.

Left fighting stance

Nice punch.

Her kick was so quick, I couldn’t get it all in the picture.

A front kick requires an open mouth.

Strutting is important when you block an attacker.

When the target is up high, you need to be on your toes to punch.

Side kick

This session focused on balance, and all of them got a stripe for the belt and a certificate, as well as a high five from sensei. Since Leah was missing her belt, she had to wait to get her stripe until a few minutes later when Jen arrived with belt in hand.

Then it was on to Molly's test. It was intense, including terminology, techniques, katas, kumite (sparring) and something I can only describe as toughness (getting hit in the stomach, sat on while doing a plank, stepped on while on the ground). It lasted over 2 hours. Here’s Molly sparring a bit.

Sorry that I don't have more pictures of her, but the place was packed with parents and there's only a little window to look through.

Molly did great and passed the test and earned her yellow stripe. Congratulations, Molly!

Acquiring the tree was not enough for the girls - they wanted to decorate it as well. So, we broke out the ornaments and put on the Christmas music. Leah hung the first ornament.

And many more.

Trying to avoid having all the ornaments along the bottom of the tree, Mommy gave Molly a bit of a lift.

And a bit more of a lift.

I can lift, too.

And my shoulders get them even higher.

Eventually, parent ladders give way to real ladders. Leah wasn't up for climbing up high, but Molly was happy to.

I still do the angel on top, as long arms are required.

Here’s the tree, fully decorated. Oh, and some goobers in front of it.

Strike a pose.

And another pose.

Again this year we headed to Greenway Farms to cut down our Christmas tree. They have lots of trees to choose from and cut down yourself. This year we also tried out the pit beef, which was quite good. Sadly, the hay ride was not running since the ground was so wet from the rain the day before.

Before picking our tree, we had a photo shoot. For our Christmas card picture this year, Jen decided she wanted something among the Christmas trees. So, we set up a makeshift photo studio amongst the rows of trees. Between camera, tripod, Wi-Fi remote, external flash, wireless flash trigger, flash stand, and my hat as a make-shift lens hood, we got the shot.

Then we packed up the photo gear and walked the rows of trees to find the perfect one. Here are the girls with our chosen White Pine before cutting it down.

We’ve done a lot of painting around here lately. First, we painted our main level bathroom, then our bedroom, and finally the girls’ bathroom. The girls were excited to help on the latter two. As usual, they tired quickly, but were enthusiastic while they lasted. They even came up with a song.

Three weeks later, when we painted their bathroom, the song had changed slightly.

And, in case you were wondering about Molly’s hair in that video, here’s a picture of her crazy updo. She needed her hair up to keep it out of the paint, but Mommy went beyond the usual ponytail this time.

We’ve had a lot of singing around here lately. First, Molly sang with her choir in church. Note that in her new older kids’ choir, she even has music in a fancy folder to read off.

The next week, Leah sang with her choir.

Lastly, the girls were a part of our church's Walk to Bethlehem. They were part of the heavenly host, and got to sing Gloria for each group that passed by. It was raining, so they wore ponchos over their angel outfits. Leah wouldn't go out without Jen, so Jen joined in the fun as well.

Molly had a heart procedure yesterday. Many of you may know some of the details, but I figured I'd tell the entire tale here.

When she was little, her pediatrician heard a heart murmur, which led us to a cardiologist for an echo cardiogram. The echo revealed that she had patent ductus arteriosus (PDA), a condition where the blood vessel connecting the aorta and the pulmonary artery does not close entirely at birth like it is supposed to. They said it may still close on its own, but if it hadn't by the time she was 7, we should intervene and close it. A couple months ago, she had another echo which confirmed the PDA was still open.

Fortunately, they can close this in the cardiac catheterization lab, instead of having to do open heart surgery. They go in through an artery in her groin and insert a tiny metal coil which closes the open ductus. It stays there, so she'll have a tiny metal alloy coil in her heart for the rest of her life.

This procedure is pretty low risk as far as heart surgery goes, but we were still scared. Operating on my 7 year old's heart is serious. But, we still heeded the advice of the doctors and scheduled the procedure. We were at least comforted that we would be headed to Johns Hopkins hospital, one of the top hospitals in the country.

Here's Molly before the procedure with her Molly doll dressed in her hospital gown as well, who stayed with her until the anesthesia knocked her out.

The procedure went smoothly without complications, though not without surprises. Once her doctor got in, he found that the ductus was only 0.8 mm in diameter. Had they known it was so small, they likely would not have done the procedure at all. Closing such a small hole is not worth the risk of intervention. He consulted with Molly's cardiologist, and they decided to go ahead and close it since they were already there.

The surgeon also discovered that Molly's heart murmur was not caused by the tiny ductus, but rather by a previously undetected ventricular septal defect (VSD). He said it was very tiny and would likely not require any treatment at all. But, of course, that meant closing Molly's PDA would not make her heart murmur go away after all.

All that said, we're just grateful that Molly is doing great.

Here’s Molly in recovery afterword, along with a toy heart Mrs. Christy brought her.

Amazingly, Molly had heart surgery and we were home by 4:00 that afternoon. We're making her take it easy, but she'd likely be out playing in the snow right now without any problems if we'd let her. She's needed no pain medication at all. Hooray for modern medicine.

Like last year, we met up with other kids at our backdoor neighbors’ house before trick-or-treating. Here’s a picture of most of them before they swarmed the houses.

This year I went trick-or-treating with the girls while Jen manned our front door. We spent most of our time walking around with Jordan, Haley, Madison, and their cousins.

As always, our neighborhood is great for trick-or-treating. As you can guess, the girls came home with a lot of candy after only an hour of walking around.

These two superheroes were happy to hang out with the speedy Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles.

Leah had her class Halloween party, which included the traditional singing in costume for all the parents to watch. She did great.

Lots of superheroes in the class, including several from comics and a couple (like Leah) of their own invention. And, of course, one Swedish pop star, as you’d expect in a preschool class.

Molly’s school had a costume parade for the parents as well. A huge sea of parents showed up for a very quick parade. I had to be fast to get a picture of Molly before she blew by.

And they’re gone, with only capes and tails in view.

We finally got around to buying a couple of pumpkins to carve. We got them from the Baugher Farm stand right near our house. These two were perfect choices.

Time to carve the pumpkins. But first, let’s scoop some goop out.

Molly looks like she might just take a bite. OK, maybe not.

They needed some help getting the last bits out of the pumpkin. Mom to the rescue.

Molly selected her pattern and drew on the design herself this year, then Jen did the carving. I drew on the pattern Leah selected and then carved it.

Here are some scary girls with their finished glowing pumpkins.

With the lights off, the girls are scary, but with the lights on they’re just scared.