December 2023

Three days after Christmas we celebrated Lauren’s 11th birthday! Dave took her, Sophie and her friend Michelle skiing. Despite the terrible conditions they had a lot of fun. Sophie switched over to snowboarding last winter and according to Dave, she’s really picked it up. They both really love it.

That night we all went out to dinner at her favorite Mexican restaurant in Manayunk. Lauren’s friend Naomi joined us and then had a sleepover. Overall, it was a pretty good birthday!

Skiing at Blue Mountain
Lauren, Sophie and Michelle
The gang at dinner
The birthday girl!

Since Lauren’s birthday always falls during the school break and a lot of friends are away, this year we had her birthday party with friends the first weekend in January. She decided that she wanted to do something at an arcade, so we went to Dave and Busters. Talk about stimulation overload! She had a blast and it was exactly what she wanted.

Like me, she likes to stretch her birthday celebrations for as along as possible. We did a pretty good job this year 🙂

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We hosted Christmas again this year, with a crowd of 27. It was a little chaotic and lot of fun.

We started with a quiet morning with just the family. Lauren was up at 5:30, but waited to wake us up until 6:30, and then we had to wake up Soph, who was slightly grumpy about it, even on Christmas morning!

The crowd came over around 1 and we had dinner around 3:30 (to be sure to catch the Eagles game at 4:30). Dave and his mom cooked the entire thing again and it was delicious.

After dinner we ate dessert and opened presents. The crowd was gone by 7 or so, and we had the rest of the evening to clean and relax. It was an excellent Christmas!

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This December was full of holiday festivities, including the Philadelphia Girls Choir holiday concerts and this year also three performances in the Nutcracker with Philadelphia Ballet. Mom, Becky and Ari came up to celebrate an early Christmas and watch one of Sophie’s concerts.

Phila Girls Choir Holiday Concert
Singing in the Nutcracker
Soph after a Nutcracker performance
Early Christmas!

The concerts were excellent and always get us in the holiday spirit. The girls are really good. This is Sophie’s last year with Cantata before she moves up to Concerto, which is the oldest group.

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