December 2019

Since Lauren’s birthday falls during the holiday break, her first grade class had a celebration for her the last day of school for the year, which also happened to be pajama day – bonus!

Dave and I came in and read a story to the class and she gave out pencils to everyone.

  • Lauren and her friend Janney
  • With her teacher, Ms. Gorodesky

Her actual birthday was the Saturday after Christmas and this year we did an American Ninja Warrior party at a gym in West Chester that has trained actual competitors who have been on the show. Obviously they adjusted the course for 7 year olds. She invited her entire class, of which about half came, and everyone had a great time!

  • With her friend Norah from Bala House
  • The birthday gang
  • striking a ninja pose
  • Rainbow unicorn cake, of course

That night we had a second family party at the house. The cake was huge so we threw another candle on it and sang happy birthday again. It was actually the same cake that Sophie had on her 7th birthday. Lauren saw a picture of it recently and insisted she get one too. Good choice, it’s delicious!

At 7, Lauren is always the first to offer help if someone needs it, whether it’s carrying something from the car or cleaning up a mess, even if it’s not hers. She loves her Mr. Benson and always has snuggles for him, even though he’s the smelliest dog in the world. She love to tell jokes and make others laugh. She’s also such a monkey, running and climbing on everything. Which is why the trampoline you see in the background was the perfect birthday present 😉 Happy Birthday to this amazing, kind, funny kid!

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For the third year in a row we hosted Christmas at our house with a combined Sharp/Rainer clan. This year’s total was 27 people! The new kitchen vastly improved the experience for everyone – especially Dave and his mom, who did all of the cooking! Overall I feel like we’ve gotten the hang of things and it was less stressful to pull together. We had a quiet, low key Christmas eve at the house and a nice relaxing Christmas morning.

I call this the quite before the storm…
The dogs enjoyed themselves on Christmas morning – doing what they do best -sleeping. Benson got this toy snowman and carried it around with him all day. It was pretty cute.
The girls before present opening. The big present this year was a Nintendo switch, which Sophie had asked for and Lauren had not, so the reactions were pretty predictable.

Everyone arrived around 1 and dinner was served around 4. We do it buffet style in the kitchen with everyone sitting in the dining room and living room. We brought out a folding table right before it was time to eat for the overflow.

After dinner there was a lot of dessert, drinking, and opening presents.

  • Shannon & Lauren
  • Elliot, Julia, Joan, Nana, Dylan
  • Zoe and Maddie
  • Carol, Don, Ed, Dave, Joey
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December kept us busy this year, including three performances. The first was different for us this year. Sophie got asked to as part of a small group from the Philadelphia Girls Choir to sing with a Canadian group called the Tenors who were touring the US with a Christmas show. The performance was at the Keswick theater in Glenside, PA and it was really great. The girls sang four songs with the Tenors, and they were amazing. It was a sold out show, which was also pretty neat.

Unfortunately she was standing in the middle of the girls behind a tall girl, so we could only see the side of her fact for most of the performance.
The girls got a picture with the Tenors after the show. Sophie is front row, fourth from left.

The weekend after this concert Sophie had her regular Philadelphia Girls Choir holiday concert at the Temple Performing Arts Center.

  • After the concert, Sophie with her friend Sophia Nagel, who she knows from Green Towne Montessori

And the final performance of the holiday season was Lauren’s ballet show, which was Hansel and Gretel this year. The performed at the Suzanne Roberts Theater on Broad Street. There were two performances in one day – one at 2pm and one at 7pm. I watched the 2pm show and then was a backstage parent for the 7pm show, which was a little insane. It was a long day for the little kids, and by the second show exhaustion was definitely setting in.

The full cast for the final blow. Lauren was a butterfly and is sitting front row, third from the right.
  • backstage butterflies
  • the ballerina after the show
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The day after the anniversary party we got our tree. That’s a week later than usual, but we didn’t want to have it up during the party to save a little space. The last few years we’ve gone out to a Christmas tree farm called Yaeger’s Farm in Phoenixville. They have tractor rides out to the trees and then give you a saw and you cut it down yourselves.

  • The perfect tree!
  • Dave doing the cutting with Sophie keeping a good eye on his cutting accuracy.

In this area there is apparently a shortage of tall Christmas trees, so we found the tallest one we could, which was only about 6 feet. But it ended up being perfect – and we didn’t have to smoosh the star on top.

Lauren had ballet rehearsal for his holiday show and didn’t want to change, so this year she decorated in full ballet gear – making her a perfect dance partner 😉

Later in the month we enjoyed two other Christmas traditions – visiting Santa, this year in the Macy’s Santaland, and going to the Nutcracker, performed by the Pennsylvania Ballet. The girls got haircuts between the two below pictures. Sophie wanted the minimum amount cut and Lauren went for more of a bob, which she likes wearing with one side behind her ear. So stylish.

  • Macy’s Santaland
  • At The Nutcracker
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On December 7th we celebrated Dave and Kathy’s 50th wedding anniversary!! Talk about an amazing milestone! We had a little get together at our house with friends (old and new) and family. It was also a great opportunity to use the new kitchen!

The happy couple!
  • Dave with his buddies from high school
  • Shannon, Sophie and Baby Maddie
The Sharp clan
The Fallon / O’Connor clan
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