Lyla's prek Christmas party was special because Santa stopped by for a visit. He read to them and passed out presents for each child. The kids were very cute to watch. I didn't get to stay for the whole party because I had to get back to my preschool class for their party. Lyla didn't like that. She told her teachers later about it too. It was still fun though. 
I love crafts. I love for the girls to do crafts, even though it's messy. I wanted for them to do more this month, but we only did 3 sessions of crafting. One of them was decorating ginger bread houses at Joni's house with Reesi. Joni made these houses out of grahm crackers for Reesi's school and made a few extra for us. It was a quick project. Lyla ate more then she decorated. Oh well. One day I would like to do more work on the ginger bread houses.
Then they painted several Christmas ornaments. I found these great ornaments on sale for $.67 each at JoAnns. Grace and Lyla had one painting session alone and then Reesi came over for the next session of painting. I had to paint a couple myself. I love painting.
On Wednesday night she went to a sleepover at her best friend's house. The next morning when I called the mom said, "Well, we had a little emergency this morning. Grace's tooth came out during breakfast and she swallowed it." What?!?! She swallowed her tooth? It was kind of funny because Larry kept telling her that if she swallowed it the tooth fairy wouldn't come. On Monday night she was crying before she went to bed b/c she was afraid she would loose her tooth in her sleep and swallow it. I assured her that wouldn't happen. So, evidently, she was eating pancakes and when she took a drink she tapped it with her cup. She noticed it was bleeding and when the dad of her friend was holding a paper towel on it he finally looked and said, "I don't think there is a tooth there!" Grace didn't even realize it had come out! She swallowed it with her juice evidently! Crazy. Now here she is... She wrote a note to the tooth fairy explaining why there wasn't a tooth under her pillow. The sign reads "Dear Tooth Fairy, I accidentally swallowed my tooth. I was taking a drink and I accidentally swallowed it. Please leave some money. Merry Christmas!" This was Christmas Eve. Larry and Eric had also told her that the tooth fairy doesn't work on Christmas Eve. The next morning she came down and said there wasn't any money under her pillow. There was, but she was just too excited about it being Christmas morning to care. I asked her if she would let us pull the next one so this doesn't happen again. She said no!
This is Grace and her best buddy from her 1st grade class. She came over to play one afternoon and they were wild! I'm glad she has a good friend. Her friend actually had a sleepover the Wednesday before Christmas. Grace was very excited and counted down the days until the sleepover. She wasn't nervous at all!
These are pictures of Grace's hair one morning before school. She fixed it herself. She came down with it done up like this. She said the other girls in her class fix their own hair and can do clips and ponytails themselves. She's such a big girl. It makes me a little sad. Not because she's not a baby, but sad because I don't want her to be a tween/teenager. I love this age in Grace. She's sweet, funny, innocent, still wants to play like a little kid but is old enough to obey and be a really good kid. I'm trying to enjoy this time as much as possible and appreciate these sweet days with her this age. The teenage years will come way too soon! 
Isn't that the sweetest, purest, most precious little face? I think so!
I finally got all of Joni's pictures from Thanksgiving. I'm putting all of them on here because I want them to be in my "family yearbook" for 2009. There are a lot of them...
While Joni went on her trip with Reesi to Chicago, we kept Elye for the weekend. She's really an easy baby. I took her and Lyla to run a couple of errands on Friday. While we were out I told Joni and Elye is easier to handle than Lyla! I remember when my girls were babies I would think, "it will be easier to take them places when they get older". Well, not so much! Anyway, we enjoyed having Elye with us. Eric even had all 3 girls for the majority of the day on Saturday all by himself while I did grocery shopping and Christmas shopping. It didn't phase him a bit. I didn't think it would. 
Grace's top front tooth on the right REALLY needs to come out! It's been loose for a while but not it's REALLY loose. She won't pull it and she won't let anyone else pull it. Last year, when she was in kindergarten, she let Nurse Ruthie at the school pull one of her bottom teeth. I was very excited to hear that Nurse Ruthie pulled everyone's teeth. I thought this was great because kids will let someone else do things to them that they won't let their parents do. But this year Grace came home at the beginning of the year and said they made an announcement at school that Nurse Ruthie will no longer be pulling teeth. She will only be helping sick kids. So, we're left to battle this strong willed child. I would just let it fall out on its own but it's obviously irritating her gums now. It's bled 3 times in the last 4 days. Her gums above the tooth are red and puffy. I'm a little concerned that it may get infected. These pictures are of Eric trying to get Grace to let him pull her tooth. She just will not do it. So, we have to let her up and hope it falls out on it own soon.
