Bringing up Baby Brang!: The Baking Challenge:"Christmas Barf"

December flew by like WHOA...like it always does, but I swear it gets faster every year as the school kids activities multiply! For starters we all got to go to Carson's 3rd Grade Musical "Up on the Roof Top"! The music teacher at Thornapple, Mrs. Forsland, is nothing less than AMAZING. She has every grade perform in musical every single year. And somehow, she gets the kids to really want to do it, to practice and give it their all, and do it all on their own. I've never met a teacher like her, I don't even know how she does it, it's a magical thing to be a part of. Carson has been so lucky with her. This musical was just as you'd expect, spectacular! We were so proud of Carson. He did so much singing and dancing along with his speaking parts and I had no idea he was even practicing all this stuff at school! He never mentioned any of it at home, per the usual. Carson also volunteered to take on an extra part for a child who was absent the day of the play, which was very brave if you ask me! You can tell Carson really enjoys music and acting.

Grandma, Grandpa, Auntie, and Maeve all joined us for the performance.

Evie LOVED watching the play,as did Maeve, the whole hour long they were entranced.

Way to go Carson!

Laney wouldn't have lasted 2 minutes in the snow at Everson's age, but Evie...she loves it! She just wants to be out there with the big kids no matter how many layers she has to stack on.

Even in the bitter cold we still bundle up and go outside for at least 10 minutes or so.

Then it's time to warm up inside by the fire!

All snuggled up with Grandma.

I found this in the basement when I was cleaning up one day...notice Carson's baby cousins Nicholas and Oliver made it into "the club".

Annual Christmas cookie baking! My favorite!

Hot chocolate after playing outside with the neighbors!

Carson and Laney were both a part of our church's Children's Christmas Program as well. Laney was the cutest little pig in the manger and Carson was a shephard.

Surprise donut breakfast from Grandpa!

Everson was pretty exctied to get to beep Nana's horn :-)

Gingerbread house making for Laney's class party was a HUGE SUCCESS!

Christmas Eve FINALLY! We are keeping true to our Grand Rapids tradition of lunch at Founders, then church, and then dinner and presents at Grandma and Grandpa's house! We did make one extra stop to deliver some presents and a meal to a special refugee family from our church. The kids all picked presents for their family instead of having us exchange presents between each other. Not like our kids were lacking AT ALL, I don't want to give ourselves a pat on the back, but it was something we enjoyed getting the whole family involved in and I hope they took something good away from the experience. There's always so much more we could do.

Christmas morning was full of excitement! I thought our roof might bust off! Laney got a dollhouse just like her cousin Eliana has and Carson got what he's been wishing for so hard....a hover board!

Evie had no idea why the other two were so excited, but she just went with it.

Evie got her very own ball pit!

Gymnastics time!

Christmas day was filled with family fun and even with all the snow, Grandma, Grandpa, Auntie, Uncle Adam, Maeve, and Nana made it over for dinner. Such a nice Christmas we were so grateful everyone stayed healthy.

She just loves to sit ON the table lately.

We celebrated Christmas with the Brang's a little late this year...it was nice to have something to still look forward to when the Christmas fun was over!

We had a day full of fun and laughter at Grandma and Grandpa Brang's house!

Aunt Sarah and Uncle Blake got Carson a Circuit Breaker game thingy...and when I walked into the kitchen and found them working together I'm not sure who was having more fun! Carson would love to work on projects with Uncle Blake everyday! Same goes for Uncle Nader!

Carson got Nicholas to talk to him and it was the sweetest.

So now that Christmas is over we still have 2 weeks off of school, you read that right, 2 weeks! We are trying to stay busy and warm...we've been to the Chidren's Museum and to gymnastics...

we saw our buddy Jake in "Elf the Musical" in Grand Rapids...

baking, baking, and more baking...

Laney's 1st MSU basketball game, for the win!...

(Laney was totally into the game, keeping track of the points and learning tips for her own game. Carson missed out because he was sick on the day of the game, but fear not, Patrick is taking him to the game this Thursday night. So he will get his 1st basketball game experience as well, and lucky Patrick gets to go to two basketball games in 1 week!)