Christmas Morning

We don't have a lot of pictures of Christmas morning, we had a lot of fun filming the entire event instead.  Here are a few highlights:

Santa had put all the gifts under the tree around 11pm, just to make sure all the little ones were fast asleep.  Everything ready for the morning!  A very special elf, who shall remain nameless(ok, his name starts with an R...) took about 4 hours putting that little kitchen together.  Amazing job mystery elf!  Also, notice how the tree only had decorations on its' top half.  Emma wouldn't leave any ornaments alone this year...

Anna in all her amazement Christmas morning!  She woke us up at 6:45am to let us know Santa had come!  We all hurried out of bed to see all the wonderful gifts!

Poor Emma couldn't quite understand what all the commotion was about.  We had to wake her up to join us, and she was very unhappy at first, until she saw that kitchen!

They played with this big beautiful kitchen for almost 4 hours straight!  They loved it!  I have to admit that Russ and I were just as excited about Christmas morning.  I didn't sleep very well, I was to anxious to see their little faces!  Both Russ and I agree that better than anything that we received this Christmas, was to see the joy and excitement of our little girls' faces.  This Christmas really was merry!

Christmas Eve Fun!

This year we got to spend Chritmas Eve with Grandma and Grandpa at their house and we had lots of fun with our aunts and uncles and cousin!

Anna and Emma enjoying some delicious treats at Grandma and Grandpa's.  Cute Emma has her face covered in dip.  In her defense, it was delicious, and if I could I would have gone in head first in that dip bowl!:)

Isn't this the cutest picture ever!  Grandma Sperry and all her little grandkids sharing a big hug!  Anna, Emma and Jack are just too cute for words.  I love this picture!

The annual Christmas cars race!  They all have their little race cars, Santa against Frosty, against Rudolph... you never know who will win.  (And I didn't wait around to find out, I was in the back talking... sorry).

See?  I was super busy talking to Jeanne and Emma.  We were having some great girl talk!

John, Nicholette and Jack.  The cute Sperrys.  Love you guys!

Jeanne and Jake, the cute Prestwiches!  Love them!

Anna, Russ, Vanessa and Emma.  The Super Sperrys!!!

Grandma and Grandpa Sperry!  We love you!!! Thanks for a wonderful Christmas Eve!

Anna and Emma put on a show for us on their "stage" in front of the fireplace.  It was more like Anna putting on a show and Emma just copying everything Anna did.

I love these two so much!!! My greatest creations, right there! :)

Preschool Program!

On December 22nd we had the pleasure of watching Anna and her preschool class do a Christmas program for us!  They were adorable!  They sang lots of Christmas songs and all had little parts that they memorized from "Twas the night before Christmas".  Anna's part was "When what to my wondering eyes shall appear, but a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer".  We worked on it the entire month, and in spite of a lot of coaching, what we ended up hearing the night of the program was "But what to my wonderful eyes shall appear, but a miniature sleigh, and like eight tiny reindeer!"  We loved it!  She was confident and ready, went right up to the microphone and did a wonderful job!  Here are some of our favorite pictures:

There she is, in the black and white dress.  They have this cute background, and they were singing Rudolph with their little antlers!  She knew all the words and sang very enthusiastically!

Some more Rudolph singing!  This was her favorite song!

What a cute little Christmas angel!

Here's a wider view of the background.  Ms. Janene is setting up still, I wish I had her facing forward... We love Ms. Janene, she's been a great preschool teacher!

Grandma and Grandpa, Vovo Nisi and Vovo Dutra, Tia and Tio, and Nicholette all came out to support Anna on her big day!  Thanks for coming everyone, you are so sweet!

Reindeer Cookies!

This year we just might have started a tradition!  After seeing these adorable cookies made by my friend Jyl, I decided to make them with Anna, they just look like so much fun!

Aren't these so cute?  This is a peanut butter cookie recipe, and we added the m&m's and pretzels to make the reindeer!

Anna did a wonderful job giving all the reindeer cookies some eyes, nose, and antlers.  Some were Rudolph, some were not.

Finished product!  They look good enough to eat!  We made a whole bunch of them!

Anna decided that we didn't need so many cookies just for ourselves, so we put them in plates and shared them with our family, because we love them!  We knocked on their door and sang "Rudolph the red nosed reindeer" and gave them cookies, and we received a lot of praises for our singing and our cookies!  We had so much fun that we will repeat this event again next year, so look for us at your door in 2010! :)

Christmas Cards

This year we decided we didn't need to get professional pictures made for our Christmas cards, so we tried a few times... these are our attempts:

This was kind of okay, Emma looks very serious and Anna's smile looks very forced.  We'll try again.

Again, Emma very serious, everyone else pretty good, but still very forced smile.  I didn't like it.

This is the one we chose!  Everyone looks sincerely happy, even Anna in her small smile looks a little better than her forced one.  If I hadn't deleted the awful ones I'd post them just for fun.  Still, here we are, the Sperry family, Christmas 2009!

Anna's first ballet "recital"

So this event actually took place on December 8th, and since life has been crazy this month, I'm only now catching up on blogging.  Anna's ballet class had a little recital for parents only, in her ballet studio.  She had lots of fun, until she bonked her head on a balance bar and pouted the rest of the time.  But everything leading up to that tragic accident was just wonderful!

Here she is, so excited and ready to dance!

This is Anna a little bit before her accident.  She jumped up and hit her head on that bar.  So sad.  But she was really adorable here!

This is more towards the end of her recital, still a little sad, but cute none the less.

Good job Anna, we are so proud of you and all the beautiful things you are learning to do!

Santa Claus!

This last Saturday we joined my family in Provo for their ward's Christmas party, and the kids had so much fun!  This was the first Santa of the season!  Very exciting moment.

Anna has become very fond of posing lately, and we love it!  Check Emma out in the background eying that piece of pie! :)

Check out Emma's look of death!  Do NOT take any more pictures, I'm done. hehehe.  Even still, she's so cute.

Russ and I, just so we don't forget what we look like.  Cute as always.

And here is the moment we've all been waiting for!  Santa!  Anna didn't lose any time telling him what she wants for Christmas.  That pucker you see her making with her lips are about to say the words "Princess"!  Anything princess is currently on her list!  She loved meeting Santa.

And here was my favorite part, Emma's very first encounter with Santa in her little life!  She stared at  him long and hard, and you could tell she just couldn't make an opinion.  Tough little cookie, though, not one tear was spilled!  She's awesome! :)  Just for that, I think Santa might be generous this year! :)

We loved our little outing last night, and can't wait to see what else this Christmas season brings.

Let the Season begin!

For FHE last night we had a great time decorating our Christmas tree!  Anna had fun putting things on, Emma had fun taking things off. :)  They are soooo excited about this tree!  I love Christmas time now that we have little ones in the house to make it magical!  Here are some of the pictures from last night.  (Sorry, my camera sucks, but Santa is not ready to bring me a new one, so... hehehe )

 

 

This is Emma after she found out the candy canes are not just decorations! :)  Sticky stained little angel!