Happy New Year!

Wishing all of our family and friends a warm and happy new year for 2015!!!

Whoopsie - guess the internet in Puerto Rico wasn't so great - the picture didn't attach!

Bell Choir

The kids participated in the bell choir at Grummy and Pop Pop's church on Long Beach Island on Christmas Eve.  They played to "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear."  The music director would hold up a card with color squares on it and when the player saw the color that matched his or her bell, it was time to ring it.

After the bells, the children in the congregation were called up to help decorate the Christmas tree with ornaments:

And after the service, we stuck around to take a few pictures and chat:

We tried to get a picture of Clare with the 91-year-old organist, but Clare was not happy about that so we didn't get to take it this time.  Ah well.  We all went back to Grummy and Pop Pop's house after the service to enjoy some more Christmas Eve festivities.

Christmas in Philly

We took the kids into Philadelphia last weekend for some Christmas fun.  First stop, lunch!  We tried a new pub/restaurant that opened up and it'll be one of our favorite stops when we're in the Logan Square neighborhood - it even got the Sean "stamp of approval" due to the abundance of plain tortilla chips he was served :-)

After a potty break stop at Mommy's office building, we went to the Comcast Center to see the magical Christmas show they put on enormous LED screens.  We saw this show two years ago but Clare was a baby and Sean was sleeping.  This time, both kids thoroughly enjoyed the show, even the "snow" that fell from the ceiling as the show concluded.

After the Comcast show, we stopped at the Christmas Market in LOVE Park for some snacks and hot spiced wine - yum!

Then we looked at the time and saw it was time to move on - so we hurried over toward the Wannamaker Building (taking a "shortcut" through City Hall to see the Christmas tree there) and we arrived just in time to see the music and light show at Macy's.

Since I was holding Clare the entire show and we were kind of in a awkward corner, I didn't take any photos - here's a link to a refresher from when we saw the show two years ago.  After the Macy's show, we went back outside to slowly make our way back to the car - some posing at the Philadelphia Municipal Services building plaza (across the street from City Hall):

The plaza is decorated with larger-than-life game pieces from popular board games - the kids got a real kick out of that!

Then Clare got mad about something and set herself down the stairs (where Charlie Day leaves a package for the Mayor while dressed as Serpico in a very good episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia"):

Soon, it started to get dark so we got back in the car and headed home - what a fun day in Philadelphia!

Holiday Concert

Clare's preschool had a holiday concert on Monday - and Clare not only sang in the concert, but her dance class did a number, as a well! We arrived a little bit early to stake out seats and admire the set:

Sean enjoyed some time with his Grandma and Grandpa, as well:

After the younger classes went on, it was time for Clare's class - here she is going on stage:

And her little class altogether - they sang "Dreidel Dreidel" and "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" - Clare sang this year!  And she sang loudly!

Afterwards, Clare's dance class stayed behind and they five girls were supposed to do a dance to "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" but they seemed to get stage fright and the girls kind of swayed and twirled to the music - it was totally cute anyway :-)

Then, the whole school got up on stage together for a rousing rendition of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" - Clare kind of scowled through most of the song, but she sang the song, too :-)

Merry Merry!

Santa and Lights

We went to our favorite nearby farm to have a visit with Santa and go on a Christmas lights hayride.  First, we visited with Santa Claus - Sean was more than happy to sit with Santa and chat:

Clare was not as excited:

But she eventually edged her way up to the tractor and had a short conversation with Santa :-)

After seeing Santa, we went on a Christmas light hayride - the tractor was covered in lights and played music on a speaker.  The lights and music were even synched up!  The tractor took us around the orchards and fields to see some great light displays.