The Mees Family: December!

A beautiful day at the neighborhood park!

This was the first year we went to the Doll House Tea. We got all dressed up, the girls took their dolls, and we went and had great Christmas cookies and "tea" with what seemed like half of Liberty! We got to spend some time with very good friends, too, and Santa made a visit! A really fun afternoon!

Hannah and I took a special trip down to Crown Center for a Girl Scout event. It was a leader/daughter event to the Coterie Theater for the Charlie Brown Christmas Performance. We got there early and had time to ice skate!, go to Chips Chocolate Factory, and browse in the toy store before the performance. Such a fun day together! It was Hannah's first time ice skating and my first time in a LONG time.

Santa came to the MOPS party too!

The First graders at Schumacher did a wonderful ocean-themed play in December. Hannah chose to sign up for a speaking part and got one! She was excited and did such a great job! We are so proud of her and her classmates for all of the hard work that they all put in to learning their songs, lines, and motions. Not an easy task! And they all looked awesome in their underwater costumes :)

Grandma came to Liberty and we took a trip to the mall with her where Lauren got her really special pink teddy bear, which she named "Cute". :) Lauren was so excited!

Lauren's preschool Christmas performance! An adorable performance of the Nativity, where the littlest kids are the animals :) She was a donkey. Their little songs were so cute!

For Hannah's birthday, she chose to have her good friend, KayCee, over for an overnight! It was her first slumber party and it was a great way to celebrate turning 7! We all went to the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, then out to Buffalo Wild Wings. Followed up with some awesome cupcakes and lots of playtime at home. I think they finally fell asleep around 11 and were up giggling around 6:30 a.m. :)

Happy Birthday, Hannah! On her actual birthday, we woke up at home and celebrated with decorations, cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and presents first thing in the morning!

We headed to Columbia, where we met up with the family and had a super-duper 7th Birthday Party with the theme of Masterchef Jr. This is Hannah's favorite show right now. We like to watch it as a family. It really is a neat show. For her party, there were two "challenges" for the teams...to make pizza from scratch and to decorate cupcakes. The kids all rose to the challenges! Led by their fearless team captains, Jensen and Grace, they cooked up a storm! With very, very little help from adults, these 10 kids had an awesome time in the kitchen! The judges (all the grandparents!) couldn't possibly come up with a winner, so both teams went home victorious ;)

Christmas celebrations begin! We had a great time celebrating Christmas with all the relatives! Lots of cousin play time, presents to unwrap, hugs and fun with grandparents, and Christmas memories!

Christmas Eve!

Christmas morning!

One of the best parts of Christmas morning is the girls giving their gifts that they shopped for at the Kids Mall! They pick out their very own gifts and are so proud to give them!