Annie Premiere

Last night was opening night of Annie!!! The girls have been working on this for a long time now and they did such a great job! They were all orphans together which was really fun. Here they are waiting back stage for the show to begin. I told them I wanted to see them in character as really sad orphans. But here is how they were really feeling!

Maddy is playing Pepper. The bully orphan. She was a little nervous cause she has to say "Shut-Up" to Annie in the play. I told her that is was okay to say it in the play! She thought it was really funny because the girl who plays Annie is her best friend, but in the play they are supposed to really not like each other. I told her she was just going to have to pull out her acting expertise! She did great!

Julia was the orphan names Lisa. Her and Josey practiced and practiced to get down their signature move in the play. They do cartwheels and land in the splits! It is AWESOME! Julia is a really talented dancer and I know she helped Josey on her splits. At one point they orphans do can can kicks in Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile and Becky and I were cracking up because Julia's kicks were like up to her nose and totally pointed! She was so fun to watch.

Josey was the orphan named Zoe. She told me her back story was that her mom and dad had to give her up to an orphanage because they didn't have enough money to keep her but that she knew they were going to come back and get her so she isn't AS sad as some of the other orphans. She was SO nervous for opening night! But she was so adorable up there!

And cute little Georgia! She played the orphan named Didi. Normally you are supposed to be 7 to do these plays but the director let Georgia and another little girl who is 5 participate this time and it is the CUTEST thing to see them up there! Beck and I were amazed that Georgie could remember all the dance stuff to Hard Knock Life and Never Fully Dressed. She did amazing!

After the play was over the kids could come down and give autographs and take pictures and stuff. Here was Josey giving her teacher her first autograph. I think it was what my girls were looking forward to the most.

She has the nicest teacher. She even brought her flowers! How cute is that? There were a few teachers there and quite a few kids from school in it and they all brought their students flowers. Josey was so proud.

Maddy got flowers from a little boy that was in the play this year. He is such a sweet little boy and always brings Maddy something after her plays.....and gives her lavish Christmas presents.....and Valentines Day presents........she says she is pretty sure he has a crush on her. But he has done this since the second grade! I think his mom is just really nice!! But he gave her a big bouquet of flowers and a stuffed cat. I think I need to get him a box of candy or something??

Maddy and her best friend Kelli

Annie and Pepper

Pepper and Duffy, the two bully orphans.

This is Seth the little boy that brought Maddy the flowers. He played the dog catcher.

So after the play was over there were flowers being given out everywhere. Beck and I didn't bring any for our girls because we thought we would get them for closing night. Well Georgia was just CRUSHED! It was the saddest thing EVER! She didn't understand why everyone else was getting flowers. We tried to assure her that her flowers were coming on a different night but that wasn't really cutting it. So as she was standing there in tears one of the teenage girls from the show ran over and gave her this little pink carnation and it was like Georgia won a million dollars. She was so happy for that one little flower and Beck was really thankful to that girl!

Beck and Georgia

Beck and Jules.

I will have to take some with my girls as well but at that point I just wanted to get home. We had been up since 3:30a.m. because they were on the morning news for the show and it was 9:30 and we were exhausted. I had one more surprise on the way home though......I got pulled over! I was so mad! I wasn't even speeding either! Apparently my tags had expired and we hadn't remembered to put the sticker on but I was so tired and annoyed......oh well. Can't wait for the next show tonight and the next night and next week.............

Cheese!

Officially my new favorite picture of Ivy! Could you get a happier picture??? I love it! And I think this is my new favorite picture of Lilly. She looks so grown-up and beautiful!

Here are a few more funny pictures from Lilly and Ivy's impromptu (and I add that because Ivy's face is really dirty after eating dinner and I hadn't cleaned it off yet) photo session yesterday.

I don't think I have seen a creepier picture of a baby........

or of a 4 year old........they get their "ugly face" making ability from the Moyes side......am I right??

Lilly's first haircut.......sniff sniff

So I finally took Lilly to get a haircut last week. Her hair has been so fun with her little blonde ringlets and everywhere we go people comment on how beautiful her hair is! Which she loves.... a little too much probably! But it was just getting to hard to brush and manage. It was down to her little tooshy. So I talked her into getting it trimmed.

Here is the end result. It doesn't look that different.....except most of the ringlets are gone! I am so heartbroken! Not is just curls in weird waves! She loved getting it cut though. However we recently saw the movie Tangled. When Rapunzel cuts her hair it turns brown. She was very interested to know how dark her hair was going to be after they cut it. I assured her it would stay yellow!

Oh well! Maybe with the curls gone it will help her not be quit as vain? She is such a crack up!

Christmas Day

Here are the girls waiting on the stairs for daddy to make sure Santa came. They had been up for a few hours but were given strict instructions to wait for Ivy to wake up. They were BURSTING, if you can't tell from the pictures. I think Ivy was a more confused than anything else. And then finally we headed downstairs.

This picture below is the best! They were SO EXCITED over every present! They were just freaking out all morning.

Ivy's corner had a ball popper in it.

Lilly's corner had a vanity.....because really nothing says Lilly more than vanity.

Josey's corner had her favorite Littlest Pet Shop play set she had been begging Santa for.

And Maddy's corner had a telescope in it. And pillow pets all around!

And unfortunately that seems to be all the pictures I took on Christmas! Things were crazy and fun and relaxing and we just played all day and ate yummy food and spent time together and forgot all about the camera....apparently. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years as well!

more Christmas Eve

So these are in complete backwards order, but if you want to see the true progression of the night just scroll to the bottom and read it that way! After the beach trip we headed home for some more traditional Christmas Eve festivities.

Here are the fruits of our labors over the last few months of planning and shopping and the marathon 5-6 hours of wrapping and assembling. It was well worth it!
That is a disgusting pile of presents!

So we maintained a few traditions and started a couple of new ones this year. This feast below is Dustin's and my Christmas Eve treat to ourselves. Since we don't really have anywhere to wrap and store without the girls seeing or it being a complete pain in the booty we have started just doing it all the night before. And to make things more enjoyable for us we started assembling some of our favorite treats and this is the end result. A FEAST of our favorites while we wrap and wrap and wrap. I will say it does make me look forward to the long night a little more.

Here are the girls on Christmas Eve in all their matching jammies! Ivy looks so old in this picture!

One of the new traditions we started this year was adopting an elf. His name was Ethan and monitored the kids for Santa through the holiday season. Sometimes he would move around the house and sometimes he would leave little treats. Once we even found him in the pantry trying to get into some frosting! What a silly elf! Anyway on Christmas Eve he goes back with Santa to the north pole so it was fun having him around for a few weeks. But he left the girls a special Christmas Eve present cause they were such good girls this year. They girls went out to leave the reindeer food outside and Ethan was standing there with three Build-a-Bear boxes behind him. Inside the girls found a stuffed animal in matching jammies! They were thrilled and so excited to sleep with them that night. Unfortunately Ivy didn't get one and she looks a little confused in this picture below.

One last picture in front of the fire place before it was off to bed.

Here is Dustin trying out Maddy's new Christmas present to make sure she was going to like it the next morning.

And here is Ivy's Christmas Eve dinner.....

We tried to take a picture together in our new jammies as well but a certain little one insisted on being in the picture. But that's okay shes hiding my big hips for me. That is a great Christmas present!

Here is Dustin trying to see if his jammies will really make him a superhero.

The girls opened their presents from each other and then opened up the last night of the 12 Days of Christmas from The Moyes. They were the cutest picture books for each of them filled with pictures of them and their cousins and aunts and uncle and grandparents! They are the best! Thank you thank you grandma and grandpa.

And that concludes our Christmas Eve! Now on to Christmas.