Merry Christmas

Here are some pictures and videos from Christmas in Chicago:

Christmas Eve outfits:

 Sarah was not a fan of Santa at all:

 Emma liked him though!

 Emma and Sarah wrote a note to Santa (it is kind of hard to read).  But Santa wrote back:

 Opening the presents Santa left on Christmas morning:

 Christmas day outfits:

The kids did a show (a very long, repetitive show that took 4 days of practice) on Christmas Day.  It was fun, but feel free to skip pieces of the performances, as they are long.  First up, Sarah's dance to the song "China" on the keyboard:

Next up, Emma's dance to "Sea Rock":

And finally, all the cousins (Alexis, Dave, Emma, Sarah and Kiley) dancing together to "Dance":

Holiday Fun Starts

Our marathon of holiday fun has begun.  On Friday, Sarah got to have a lunch with Frosty:

Santa came to our house early this morning.  And the girls were up bright and early to check out presents:

With the pile of presents:

This year, we got the girls a doll house for their actual dolls, rather than Barbie sized ones.  Brian and I put it together the night before, here was part of the assembly process:

The girls seemed to be fans:

They immediately started to play with it and that lasted all morning:

A little later in the day we had apple cider and gingerbread house building:

 Emma got a pink princess castle:

 Sarah got a blue Frozen castle:

 And then the whole family built a tiny village:

Christmas time

Immediately following Thanksgiving and the Wurtzel family Chanukah comes the putting up of the tree to start the Christmas season in our house.  Here are the girls putting up their new ornament for this year:

In case anyone couldn't tell, they are Skye (Emma's) and Chase (Sarah's) from Paw Patrol, the current fixation of both of them!

Happy Thanksgiving/Chanukah

We went to Mimi and Papa's this weekend for Thanksgiving.  And we are so lucky that Auntie Stephanie, Uncle Mike, Kayla and Allie were able to join us.  I didn't get a lot of Thanksgiving pictures, but did get some other fun stuff, including the Chanukah celebration!

Here were the 3 older girls setting the Thanksgiving table:

We also celebrated cousin Kayla's 3rd birthday.  Mimi let all of the girls sneak a finger full of frosting before cutting the cake:

The older girls helping Mimi and Papa out in the kitchen:

Emma and Sarah love babies. And apparently babies love them! Allie spent most of Thursday climbing on Emma and giving her hugs:

 Papa and his little ducklings:

Chanukah was tons of fun, particularly finding all the gifts on the table:

Sarah with her present stack:

Emma with her stack:

 Allie was less interested in her own presents that helping Sarah with hers:

Kayla got a new Ariel dress for her birthday.  So all the girls dressed up as princesses and put on a great show!  But first it was picture time:

Then it was show time:

Then show 2:

What a great weekend. Thank you Mimi, Papa, Aunt Steph, Uncle Mike, Kayla & Allie for spending the holiday with us!

Snow fun!

With all the snow yesterday, and the sunshine today, it was a great day for sledding!  Sarah was a little tentative at first, going down with daddy:

Then down came Emma:

Sarah getting braver, coming down with her sister:

Then came brave Emma on her belly:

And finally, Sarah braving it on her own.  After the first time, turns out she liked it best on her own:

Happy Halloween

 A little late, but here are the girls costumes.  Emma, sadly was sick the Friday before. So she missed all her school halloween activities.  But Sarah got to get all dressed up to go to school:

 Thankfully, by Halloween night, she was well enough to get in a little trick- or - treating.  They looked so cute together as Paw Patrol members!

Hip Hop

As promised, here is Emma's recital hip hop routine (at least the start of it).

Emma dance

Here is Emma practicing her Jazz recital number.  I hope to be able to video Hip Hop next week:

Pumpkins

We went to the pumpkin patch with Mimi and Papa 2 weekends ago.  What fun the kids had:

Family train ride:

 Learning how people washed clothes in the old days:

The favorite part might have been the hay stack:

Finally, the ever popular pig chase:

And our decorated pumpkins:

Sarah dance

Sarah has starting learning her recital numbers.  She has a really good attention span, at least compared to the others in her class. First up, ballet:

Then tap:

I will try to get videos of Emma learning her routines this week and post them too!

Golf

Mommy is catching up on some older pictures that there hasn't been time to post.  So here come a bunch of posts.  First up, Emma has gotten good enough at golf to start playing on real holes with her instructor.  She absolutely loves that:

Her favorite part might be the golf cart:

 Even Sarah likes that part:

But Emma is playing really well, when she pays attention:

Dance!

Emma and Sarah both started their dance classes 2 weeks ago.  What fun they are having.  Here is a little taste:

Sarah was so excited to start, she was striking poses at home:

First up, Ballet:

Then Tap:

And finally, Emma in hip hop:

Apple Picking

We went apple picking with Mimi and Papa last weekend.  Unfortunately, I have no pictures of actually picking apples, but of every other activity we did there:

Sarah horseback riding:

Eating donuts:

Face painting:

Emma horseback riding:

Emma's first day of school!

 Emma's first day of school is today.  Here she is, ready to go to school!

And here with her sister...

And in front of school!

And in front of her locker!  If you look over Emma's left shoulder, you can see her name tag.

Have a great day at school!

Random update

Here are just some random things:

Emma's favorite animal (Howly Barky Barky, otherwise known as Howly Stinky Stinky) got a bath and is now known as Howly Stinky No More.  But somehow, like a real dog, he seemed super sad to get a bath:

 Emma playing with her new Easy Bake Oven, which it turns out makes the most miniscule cookies ever:

 And our big girl lost her first tooth!  She was so excited and pointed it out to everyone she could find!

 Finally, the Wurtzel cousins all together (a rare opportunity)!