Christmas Morning 2011

On Christmas morning, we went to Christmas Day mass, and afterwards, William got to open some more presents from Santa, who came while we were at church.



Santa has the coolest wrapping paper.



Here is William opening his new blocks. He has been asking for these for a while now. They have similar blocks at school. He can build many things and let his imagination run wild!



Building cities as the family looks on...



Nothing beats playing with new gifts around the tree on Christmas morning!

Christmas Eve 2011

Family Photo on Christmas Eve! Everyone is looking great, and the kids were so cooperative and well behaved during the pictures.



GGs and their great-grandkids!



Pamma, Grandpa, and the grandkids



Our family



Claire, Allie, and William!



Cute cousins!



Pamma and William





Cousins in their matching Christmas PJs! Thanks Aunt Laura!



Claire and William wrestling



Santa came while we were all eating dinner!!!



All smiles and laughs with this family!



Here is William helping GG put up the "Ord Christmas 2011" ornament I made for them this year.

Christmas Pics.

William was looking mighty handsome for this year's Christmas card photo shoot. He is such a handsome little guy, all grown up with his big boy clothes!



William and Nora looking good!

Fun in Belleville

Keeping with the family tradition, we drove down to Belleville, IL, outside of St. Louis, to spend Christmas with the Ord family!

Cousins Ryan and Kayla! They were so good with all the kids the entire weekend.



Jumba making one of his final deliveries of the season.



Watching Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, William's favorite Christmas show. He sang and danced along with Kayla!



Pamma and William watching Rudolph.

School Christmas Party

William had his school Christmas party on the 19th of December. I got to go spend the school day with William and all the little kiddos. I read a couple of books to the children and made some snow ornament crafts for the children to make. It was much more mellow than the Halloween party.

William was the weather man for the week. His job was to look out the window and see if it was cloudy, rainy, snowy, or sunny. It was sunny, which meant we got to go outside and play.



The science table in his classroom.



Snack time!

Jingle Bells and Merry Christmas!

The Sea Turtles singing Jingle Bells and Merry Christmas! The kids were so cute and funny throughout the show! William had some serious dance moves happening as well!

The Reason for the Season

The Sea Turtles singing Happy Birthday to Jesus!

Little Green Tree

The Sea Turtles singing Little Green Tree!

William's Christmas Show

This past week, William's class put on an adorable Christmas show. The kids all were very well behaved and enthusiastic, and had a blast performing and singing several Christmas songs.

They were so sweet walking in to Silent Night. It brought tears to my eyes.



William was front and center in the performance.



Jingle Bells!






William's Noel Angel!





After the performance, he was really proud, and all smiles. He was happy to have his parents and his Pamma cheering him on.



Stay tuned for videos from the performance!

Brunch With Santa!

This past Sunday, we had brunch with Santa at the Hawthorn Woods Country Club. William, Claire, and Allie were amazing and had fun taking photos with Santa, with no tears this time.



William telling Santa he wants blocks to build a city, maybe he will be an architect.





The Newton Cousins with Santa!



BIG SMILE!



Helping Grandpa build the new train!



Conductor William learned how to drive the train right away! It was cute to see him teach Conductor Claire how to drive it too.

Dentist!

Earlier this month, William had his first dentist appointment! He was very well behaved the entire time, and really enjoyed the experience.

He woke up with a visit from Jumba, who was hiding in the dining room chandelier on that particular morning. Jumba brought William a new toothbrush - how appropriate!





William liked wearing the cool shades, and thought the moving dentist chair was also pretty neat.



Action shot!

The Field Museum

Another activity we did on our fun weekend in the city of Chicago was visit The Field Museum! They are currently featuring a whale exhibit called Whales: Giants of the Deep!

In this photo, William is expressing his excitement for the giant whale above him.



Sue still looking great after all these years!



In this photo, he is inside a life size blue whale heart. That is one BIG hearted whale.



We got to listen to various whale sounds, it was pretty neat. The two skeletons you see in this photo are not the biggest whales, but are still the size of a school bus.



We made a quick stop at the Mexican Nativity Scenes exhibit.



And of course we had to stop and check out the shoes, my favorite.





It was so strange to see Rocky Mountain Goats at the museum after seeing them just a couple months ago for real in the Rockies!