December

Call it blog nesting... I am trying to get this blogging caught up before baby boy comes!!!! Here's what we were up to this December...

Here she is getting ready to go out in the snow and play.
Her preschool put on a winter program. They sung some adorable little songs about snow and winter. Nora had sung the songs for me a couple days earlier and they were so cute! You can see the little scab by her eye from where Jack got her when he snapped at her in the first week of December.
We got to help her with a craft, which was making cardboard gingerbread houses.
Later that week our neighborhood association had a haywagon ride throughout the neighborhood. It was the first time they had done it since we've lived here, and I hope they keep it up, it was SO much fun!! Very cold, but fun!


Beautiful horses!!
On the wagon



Her ballet class was in her teacher's production of "The Snow Queen" It was adorable!!Here she is with her teacher, Anna Bogdanova.
After her ballet recital we rushed to see Santa in Boulder. Nora was a bit apprehensive and shy, but she did talk to him.
Here are some pics I took trying to get a good shot for our Christmas card.
This is the one I ended up choosing.


Murphey's sister Erin and my mom both flew in for Christmas. It was so nice having them both here!

Hanging up stockings at Murphey's parents house. We also did our own stockings at our house but I didn't take pictures of that for some reason.
Sprinkling reindeer food that Nora and Charlotte made in front of our house so that Santa's reindeer could have a snack when they stopped at our house.
It's blurry, but too cute not to post. :)
Opening presents Christmas morning. She wanted to play with everything she opened and it took a LONG time to get through the presents, but it was precious.

Trying her first chocolate-covered cherry (yuk) on Christmas day. Unlike her mother, she loved it.
One of her and Grandpapa's games, "ruff-ruff"
The day after Christmas we went to see the "The Nutcracker" in Denver. It was a great show and Nora loved it.
She took some coaxing to get her picture taken with a ballerina from the show, the expression on her face cracks me up.

We went to the Butterfly Pavilion one day. In addition to a butterfly 'aviary/greenhouse' they have rooms full of spiders and bugs (roaches that they feed dog food, eww). The highlight of the spider room is that you can hold Rosie the tarantula. I held Rosie as well, we just don't have a pic. :)






Charlotte and Murf got me a complete lighting system for Christmas, so now I can take studio quality pictures. Here are some of the first pictures we took using the lights. Thanks Charlotte and Murf!!!
I was seriously not impressed with the pics the pro photographer took of Nora for her ballet rehearsal, so I decided to attempt to do some of my own.






Murphey and Phoebe, who is now 19 years old.