Olivia's class had 2 dances, ballet and hip-hop. Their ballet dance was from part of The Nutcracker, Polichinelles (clowns). The costumes were cute:
There were a few "hiccups" with their dance. They were told to stand on the wrong colored tape before going out and they all stood around looking confused. Ha! They got to start over.
This was the first traditional recital for Olivia. As in, she was in 2 dances, one at the beginning and one towards the end with lots of dances in between. Have you ever tried to keep a 1 year old quiet for a hour and a half or so? Not very fun.
Her 2nd dance was to Santa Clause is Coming to Town.
We hightailed it out of there when it was over. We decided to take a break from dance. Her gymnastics team is possibly moving from 1 to 2 days a week and she claims to want to try soccer again. We'll see how it goes!
Santa was kind enough to visit our house early that night, since we were leaving the next morning for the Tri-Cities.
Paige was not interested in opening presents. At all. The empty boxes were much more fun!
We packed up and headed out after presents!
The next day was Paige's party, which Brett and Rachel were kind enough to let us use their house.
She had lots of attention:
And still loved her cupcake:
She did slightly better with presents (possibly because of the extreme interest from her sister and cousins):
Thank you to everyone that came to her party! December birthdays are hard. :( After the party, the kids and I loaded up and headed to Granny's to spend the night. Santa made a surprise visit! Paige was thrilled:
That picture cracks me up. Note that Aiden is not pictured. He is still apprehensive of Santa and not small enough to force into the picture, ha!
We finished Christmas shopping the next day (cutting it very close!). Michael had called me that morning and said he wasn't feeling very well. When we made it back to Greeneville, he was pretty sick. It got worse that night and he ended up at Urgent Care the next morning (Christmas Eve). The girls and I went on to Dad's when I got the text that he had the flu. Fun! So, Daddy had a rough Christmas.
We were all spoiled by family. We missed all the fun last year (since Paige was only 10 days old), so Olivia was soooooo excited.
Papaw (my grandfather) had a game at his house. Each person got a number, he spun his Bingo balls around, and if your number was called you won. He had several "prizes," ranging from a roll of pennies, to a mini gumball machine, to a toy Ninja set. The kids were SO excited about this:
After the game, I attempted to get a picture of Olivia and Paige, since I had yet to get one of them together looking at the camera. Paige was getting tired by this point:
Ha! We moved on to presents:
Poor Aiden was surrounded by girl toys, ha! All 4 girls loved this piano:
Maggie and Aubrey are the coolest kids around in Olivia's opinion. :) We were winding down and I asked Rachel to get a picture of me with the girls. This was the series:
If Paige doesn't want to do something, there is no distracting/coercing her. Have I mentioned she's stubborn?
We headed back to Greeneville to check on Daddy, who was absolutely miserable. The flu is awful! Even on Tamiflu, he was still pretty sick. We left him alone and headed to bed, since we had another busy day ahead of us.
The next morning was Christmas! Here's Olivia (looks a little pale, doesn't she?):
And here's Paige (ha!):
Olivia decided to go ahead to Granny Stills with Mamaw while I came later with Paige. Michael was still feeling too sick to go. About 10 minutes before I left, Papaw called and said to bring Olivia some medicine for a headache. Can you see where this is headed?
Poor thing, being sick on Christmas is NOT what she had planned. She did manage to open her gifts.
The sickies:
Mamaw and Papaw got Paige this Minnie car. She loooooves it. Here she is trying to climb on it while it's still in the box:
You can now find us multiple times during the day like this:
I took Olivia the next morning to the same Urgent Care, where they confirmed that she also had the flu. Luckily, she had the flu shot and wasn't as sick as Daddy. Paige also started running a fever, so I called her pediatrician and he called her in Tamiflu. Although they weren't as sick, the cough and feeling run down has lasted awhile (for Daddy, too). Mamaw, Papaw, and I were fortunate to escape the germs!
Thanks again to everyone for a wonderful Christmas! Wish we could have spent more time visiting and less time sick, ha!
