December was a busy, busy, busy month! Not only were we in over our heads working on preparations for our pending move back to Houston (getting the girls into new schools, buying a new house...little things like that), there was this big event called Christmas that brought with it lots and lots of activities.
To jumpstart the Christmas season, the girls' school had a Christmas fair. Highlights were seeing Santa, petting reindeer, and loads of Christmas craft activities.
Both Olivia and Ashton had Christmas performances at school. Olivia was an astronaut in her space themed Christmas show while Ashton dressed as a reindeer in hers to sing about Rudolph. I don't have any pictures from their shows, but I can assure you, they were both super cute.
They also had Christmas jumper (a.k.a. sweater) day at school near the end of the term. They were so proud and excited to wear them!
While all that was going on, my mom showed up for a week long visit. Boy, she wore me out! We went all over the city seeing sites, had afternoon tea, visited Kensington palace and did other things that I can't remember since it was a bit of a blur.
The school term ended the second week of December, so that meant more fun stuff to see and do:
They wrote and posted letters to Santa.
We rode the Emirates Air Line cable car over River Thames.
We went to a Christmas carol sing-a-long concert at the Royal Albert Music Hall with some friends. The girls loved it and sang loudly along to all the songs that they knew (Jingle Bells, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and Away in a Manger).
We went to Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park. I took all three kids (Quinn not pictured) solo to the crowded madness of it. Somehow I survived.
The girls had their first afternoon tea. This was so special for us. They loved sipping their hot chocolate from fancy tea cups, eating little sandwiches and overloading on sugary cakes.
We spent Christmas day in Budapest (more on that coming soon), so when we returned home several days later, we had proper Christmas with stockings and gift opening.
And finally, for Christmas Olivia received tickets to see Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in the West End. Since learning about Ronald Dahl, the author of Willy Wonka, at school earlier in the school year, she's been very interested in all things Willy Wonka. So the tickets were a big hit with her. Geoff and I went along and it was special seeing her eyes grow big taking it all in.
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