School at Christmastime!

Today was Anna-Kate and Ryan's school parties. Hers was at 11, his was at 12. (Just wait until you hear about the rest of my day/weekend. Ya, that's just how I live my life evidently).

So I arrived at Anna-Kate's party with sugar cookies, icing, sprinkles and knives in tow (and, bonus, I was even a few minutes early!). The kids came in a few minutes later and Anna-Kate immediately went from skipping down the hall life-of-the-party to whiny, needy and clingy. Say what? (sidenote, is this normal?) See, this is me making her play Christmas bingo (am I mean or what? According to this picture, it's a form of torture).



She changed her tune when she realized that a candy cane was the reward for finishing. She's showing us her prize.



Obligatory picture (with me tickling her to get her to smile. Sigh.).



After pizza, a few games and exchanging book presents with her classmates, it was cookie decorating time! Here she is with Emma:





Poor Ryan. I looked at the clock and saw that it was 12:15! (usually, Anna-Kate's parties are struggling to make it 20 minutes, so I never dreamed I'd be late...). I ran down the hall and in his classroom, he looked up from his meal of chick-fil-a, fruit, juice box and cookies (that I for some reason volunteered to make 2 batches of last night. Well, scratch that, AK and I made one batch yesterday and I decided this morning at 7 I didn't have enough for both classes, so I made another batch this morning. Ya, I did.) and this was his sweet face:



Sadly, I have no pictures of him with his little friends or teachers because as soon as I got him out of his highchair he immediately started saying and waving "bye-bye" to his teachers and threw a fit that I was there to stay and socialize, not leave.

So, we finally got home and everyone down for naps when I realized that in my (only)1 1/2 hours of no kids that morning (where I had cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed, put away laundry, eaten breakfast and finished addressing the new batch of Christmas cards that just came.) I had forgotten to go to Publix to get more sweet potatoes for the casserole I was making for our church home group potluck Christmas party tonight. Sigh. I just made the 5 I had and called it good. We got to that party right at 5:30 (and were the first to arrive, a first for us for sure). Everyone was finally ready to pray and eat at 6:25. Chris and I shoveled food (I'd fed the kids during appetizers) as we had to leave at 6:35 for Anna-Kate's school Christmas program. Of course.). We had so much fun and hated to leave!

We arrived at school, thankfully, the Crabbs had saved us seats near the front. Anna-Kate and I had been in talks for the past 2 weeks about not repeating the performance from Thanksgiving (as if a loyal reader of mine would need a reminder. Ha!) She said she thought she'd just sit by me and watch. I said that she would actually be singing this time. She said she was scared, so we prayed for Jesus to make her brave. I said, "well, since Jesus answers our prayers, if you do not stand up there and obey your teacher this will be a problem in your heart with disobedience, and we don't want that, do we?". Thankfully that, and a candy cane afterwards, did the trick. She did amazing! I am so proud of my girl!!

She sang her little heart out, did the motions and smiled the whole time. Way to go Anna-Kate!