The fire department brings a Santa around in a sleigh to local neighborhoods. They stop at the pool by our house, so we braved the cold (it was just above 20) to go see him.
The sleigh was pulled by a fire department vehicle, which was led by a ladder truck. They drove through the neighborhood, though sadly not down our street.
Shortly before heading to church yesterday, snow started coming down like crazy. Here’s Leah with her coat over her fancy smocked dress walking in through the snow.
After church and a quick lunch, it was out to the backyard for some winter fun. The house behind us to one side has a nice hill that runs into our side yard, which has a nice uphill to slow down the sled. The girls are ready to go.
They fell over when stopping, but they’re having fun regardless.
The girls sledded for much of the afternoon, but I did get a turn as well.
Even Mommy joined us (briefly) to sled down once. Looks like she had as much fun as the girls.
After a good little while sledding and making snow angels, the girls were freezing. So, they headed in to warm up by the fire.
After warming up, we headed back out for more fun. After a bit more sledding, we decided to make our first snowman. Leah went in shivering before it was complete, but Molly toughed it out till the end. Neither of us could feel our fingers for the last ten minutes, but we were determined to finish it.
I think this was the most fun we've had in the snow. The girls are now old enough to really enjoy playing in it. After the last two years of very little snow, they were ready to get out and have some fun. I'll likely change my tune after a really big snowfall, but right now we're all really enjoying the snow.
Molly's been doing ballet for several years, but this year she added a tap and jazz class. For their last class of the year, they invited parents and siblings to come see what they did in class. Molly's come a long way on all the skills and seems to especially love tap. She does a great job taking her turn, but I enjoy her "waiting patiently" for the others much more. Also, make sure you watch all the way to the end or you'll miss something (or someone).
In addition to the video, here are a couple of pictures from the class:
Jazz
Tap
Molly's been taking a drama class after school and we were invited to their last class to see what they've done. They've been working on a bunch of scenes from Disney theater productions. It included both musical numbers and dialogue. Molly had a great time, and we've been singing Disney songs ever since.
In addition to the video, here are a few snaps from some of the other dance numbers:
Molly's school had a Turkey Trot - a short (about 1 mile) fun run for all the kids. They invited parents to join in as well. When I asked Molly about this, she said she wanted me to come but not to run. She wanted me to just take pictures of her running. I asked her several times in the days leading up to the run and she was quite sure that's what she wanted me to do. So, when the day arrived I walked over to school with my backpack full, including my camera and 5 lenses. Molly was excited and ready to run with her race bib.
Of course, then she told me she changed her mind and did want me to run with her. At least I was wearing sneakers with my jeans. So, I ran alongside her with my backpack bouncing around. I didn't get any pictures during the run for obvious reasons. After the run, we met up with the rest of her class. These girls don't look tired at all.
And here's the whole class.
Leah's first school picture. She looks so grown up.
When she got home with it, she had to show Chad that she had "looked at the camera". She was so excited. Perhaps she'll be more willing to look at the camera when he's behind it now.
As a 1st grader, Molly's very experienced at this now. And she is indeed wearing the School Photo dress I made her for picture day.
As all schools seem to do these days, Molly had a costume parade at her school. All the kids march around the blacktop so all the parents can see their costumes. (Leah's preschool paraded around too. See the video here.)
Leah is ready to go with her giant hair. Molly decided to get herself dressed, and we did not realize that she actually had her costume on backwards until we were walking to our neighbors house to start trick-or-treating. Oops!
We joined a bunch of our neighbors at our backdoor neighbors house before starting trick-or-treating. Here are most of the kids who met up to trick-or-treat.
The day after Halloween, Molly and Leah donated 4.5 pounds of candy to Operation Gratitude at our dentist office. The program sends care packages to troops serving overseas.
They also made Thank You cards to send with their candy. They were both eager to draw pictures and tell the soldiers "Thank You for protecting us."
Sunday was our second day of Halloween festivities. We traditionally trick-or-treat Grams's house on Halloween, but given how late Molly gets out of school and the fact that Halloween is a school day, we had to move it up a bit.
We paused for a quick picture with Grams before heading back to church for more festivities.
After a two year hiatus, Trunk-or-Treat was back at our church. Before the treating began, there were some fun activities. Molly's making a spider from two hand tracings.
Leah had a bit of trouble eating the donut at the donut swing. She eventually got a bit, but then decided that was enough and pulled the rest off.
Then it was time to go outside to Trunk-or-Treat. There were lots of great cars with lots of treats. The girls' bags were full by the end.
Between Leah's wig and Pastor Matt's beard, there's a lot of hair in this picture.
Leah ended up winning a prize for one of the best costumes thanks to her giant hair. It's an impressive wig, but especially fun given her little head inside of it.
We picked up a couple of pumpkins from a neighborhood farm stand. This year, Molly and Leah were surprisingly happy to scoop out the insides.
"Look at all this goop!"
The girls each picked a design to carve. Molly traced her design onto her pumpkin before Chad carved it.
While Molly's pumpkin design choice was an easy one, Leah's was much tougher. I spent quite a while carving the intricacies of it.
The results…Rapunzel and a scary-face jack-o'-lantern.
We kicked off this year's Halloween festivities with our neighborhood's Fall Festival on Saturday. Molly requested that I make her a Belle dress (from Beauty and the Beast). Leah has been talking about being Merida (from Brave) for months, so we borrowed a crazy Merida wig from a friend to complete the look. Leah kept asking, "Why do you keep laughing, Mom?" I just couldn't get over all that hair!
The neighborhood party included a costume parade. Molly and Leah walked hand in hand.
They then decorated some pumpkins,
which included stickers and markers for decorating.
There was also a DJ who did lots of fun activities. Molly did not want to participate in the hula hoop contest, but she did want to play with them after it was over. Yes, she's hula hooping with 4 hoops there.
They had 2 moon bounces - 1 traditional one for those 4 and under, and one obstacle course for the bigger kids. Molly must have gone through this 50 times. She had so much fun!
