Fun in Frankenmuth!

This is a random Santa we bumped into in downtown Rochester. We were eating dinner out, and Megan screamed, "There's Santa!" And sure enough, Santa was walking down Main Street! We paid our bill and ran out to say hi.


The next day we went to Frankenmuth to meet up with Mom and Dad on their 40th Anniversary. At Bronner's we met the real Santa! Jessi was too scared to go up to him at first, so we have yet another year of me in the kids' Santa picture. Hopefully this is the last year of that!



But after we chatted with him, Jessi gave him a big hug! She didn't have anything specific on her Christmas list, so Santa promised to bring her a surprise.


We had a lot of fun wandering through Bronners. There's just soooo much to see! Megan is in love with nutcrackers, so we had to snap a shot by this big nutcracker guy:

Here are Katie, Megan, and Dad, admiring the lights.

Mom & Dad with the girls in front of the Nativity:

Our little family in front of the Nativity:

Then we went to Zehnder's to enjoy the world-famous chicken dinners. And what do you know, we bumped into Santa in the lobby!! Yes, that makes 3 Santa visits in less than 24 hours!

Zehnder's was PACKED on the last Sunday before Christmas, but it was worth the wait. Everything was delicious!

After eating way too much, we went to a nearby hotel lobby to celebrate Christmas! Random, I know, but we weren't going to see Mom & Dad til after New Year's since they were going to Colorado for Christmas this year. The girls were thrilled to get to open their presents early:

Dad and Mom with the girls showing off their favorite presents - Megan's Rapunzel doll, Katie's Hex Bug, and Jessica's Cinderella doll.

It was such a fun day, and we felt so special to get to celebrate Mom & Dad's 40th Anniversary with them!

School Christmas celebrations

Megan was the STAR of the kindergarten Christmas nativity pageant. No, really, she WAS the star!!

It was so cute to watch! Her little arms got tired, but she managed to hold that star up throughout the whole performance (15 minutes or so). The cutest part was when the kids sang 'We Three Kings' and they all pointed to Megan during the 'star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright' refrain.

After the pageant, there was a party, and I got to be a helper. The kids made candy cane reindeer, reindeer food, a paper chain, and a decorated bag for all of their crafts and goodies.

Jessica made a bag, too! Look how well she is writing her name! (I know the last few letters are mixed up, but she does actually write them order...and if there's a little extra space somewhere then she'll tuck in the next letter in that space.)

The party included a birthday cake and serenade to Jesus, a gingerbread man game, Christmas book readings, and the most-fun game of all - Christmas light limbo!!

Now moving on to Jessica's preschool Christmas party...I was the helper in class this day. It was a lot of work - I had to help 16 three-year-old kids roll out cookie dough, choose a cookie cutter, cut out 2 cookies, and add sprinkles. Then I had to bake the cookies, keeping all of the names straight, and bring them back for the party to the appropriate kid/mom combination. Whew! I've always had such respect for preschool teachers, and even more so after helping out in class.

The other parents came in for the last 30 minutes of class. The kids sat in a circle, donning their reindeer headbands, and sang Christmas songs and fingerplays to us. Jessica has memorized most Christmas songs, so she loved this part!

Here's Jessica and her teacher, showing off the reindeer she made with her handprints and footprint.

Here are Megan and Jessi enjoying the sugar cookies (and a cupcake from a kid's birthday).

Finally, we went to Katie's Christmas celebration. The third grade had a "Jesse Tree" prayer service, where they described Jesus' family tree. The music was outstanding - handbell choir, percussion, singing, etc. Katie was selected to do a (short) reading, and she did a great job. Here she is in the spotlight:

On Friday of that week, we went to the school Christmas prayer service, but I didn't take any pics since neither Katie nor Megan participated. It was lovely as always, a re-enactment of the Christmas story, punctuated with Christmas songs.

It was a busy three days of celebrating Christmas in kindergarten, preschool, and 3rd grade!