Spring Concert

Emma's 1st grade spring concert was last night.  She was "a little bit nervous, but mostly just excited."  She did great and loved being up on that stage.  While it is hard to hear, and largely out of tune, here is Emma with her classmates singing various songs (most of them were simple songs meant to show various beats and rhythms).  Emma is in the middle of the screen in a blue/green dress with white polka dots:

This one was the last one of the concert for 1st grade.  It was clearly the kids favorite, as the volume was so much louder than any other song:

Science Fair

Emma did the science fair again this year.  She had fun doing home colored flowers, an idea we got off a kid's science fair project site.  She had so much fun making predictions and we are so proud of her for putting in the effort to do a voluntary science fair project!

Here she is presenting her work to her classmates (it is hard to hear, sorry):

Snow fun

It has been so long since we posted.  But here are a few things that have been going on lately.  We had 5 snow days lately.  It was hard to come up with ways to entertain the girls:

We made homemade slime during an art day:

 We built the most pathetic snow man ever (this is what you get when your mom grew up in warm climates):

And then they did some baking with both mom and dad (cake with mom, bread with dad):

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!