Christmas 2011

Another Christmas has come and gone in the Edwards household! I was very excited for Christmas this year because Liam is now at the age where he can really understand the "magic" of the holiday and it was also Noah's first Christmas. Liam was very excited for Santa Claus, but we were also adamant about teaching him about the very first Christmas and birth of Jesus. Of course the one thing Liam wanted for Christmas... puppets! However, we awoke Christmas morning to a sick little boy:( We ended up taking him to the emergency room and found out that he had strep throat. He was such a trooper throughout the day and still tried so hard to have fun! You wouldn't have even known he was sick if it wasn't for the fact that he slept most of the day.

Playing with Noah's activity table.

Noah in his Santa suit from Auntie Carla.

This was Liam's favorite Christmas present-
his puppet theatre that Grandma and Poppa made.

Cuddles with Daddy.

Little Hudsyn in her Christmas dress.

Managing to make some silly faces with Uncle Sheldon:)

A couple of days after Christmas Liam was on the mend and feeling a little better, and luckily I had found a gingerbread house that I had forgotten about in one of my cupboards. So, I pulled it out and we had some fun decorating it.

Everything is assembled.

Notice the decapitated reindeer? Liam had to have a bite!

Liam's decorating skills.

Ta-da! The finished product!

The Festival of the King!

Since September Southridge Productions has been rehearsing extensively for its final annual Christmas dinner theatre production, "Festival of the King" which ran from December 14- 18. Literally, hundreds of hours are put into planning, rehearsing, staging, decorating, serving, and clean up- all from volunteers from our church and community!! All in all, it was a resounding success- the dinner theatre tickets sold out for every evening, we performed for packed houses and managed to raise $16000 for the Tanzania Children's Rescue Centre. It is such a blessing to be a part of such a high quality show (and have a BLAST doing it!), while being able to give back to a very worthy cause!

The Synopsis
Basically it is a retelling of the nativity story... but with a twist. It takes place in a tribal setting and is infused with African- style music. My role in the play was "the girl" (Mary). I think the funniest thing about the play was last year Ann (our costume mistress) had to conceal my baby bump, and this year she had to give me one (with the help of a bustle). I was a little sad for the show to be done (knowing that it will probably be a while before I get a performance opportunity again), but it is also great to have more time for my husband and boys!

Here are pictures from the play. Hope you enjoy them!

The amazing set!

The opening number, "Gathering of Our Tribe"

The four narrators

The tribe

The stick dancing during "Sing Noel"

"Gathering of our Tribe" reprise

My solo "Pouring Over Me"

Joel McCaw as "the man" (Joseph)

The girl and the man

      

"The Messenger" and "Bob"

The birth of the King

The rope dance during "Angels We Heard on High"

The puppets- this was Liam's favorite part of the play!

Me with D'arcy Harris 

L-R: Kent Fleming (Bob), Reg Block (Tannani),
Denise Block (Kyra) and D'arcy Harris (Leila)

With our dear friends (and small group leaders)
Denise and Reg Block

"What ?! A BABY?!"

Smile:)

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

I love Christmas! And every year I get more and more excited for this season (but not so excited for the weather). I love decorating the house, and this year I plan doing some Christmas baking as well. Dec. 2, we pulled out the decorations, put on the Christmas music and decorated the tree. Liam was pretty excited to put the star on top, and I loved the expression on his face when he saw the tree all lit up! I made some hot chocolate for him to try, but he didn't want it because it was "too hot" (in reality, it was only lukewarm at best). Only my kid would refuse hot chocolate. Here's a couple of pictures.

The hanging of the Christmas star!

Here's Liam's contributions!

Finally an update!

So, I've come to the conclusion that I'm the world's worst blogger (seeing as how my last post was in June), so I apologize for that. Life with two kids has been pretty hectic- especially right now since we're in the midst of potty training with Liam and Noah now crawling. So I'll bring you up to date on the Edwards household:

Like I said, Liam has been potty training, which in my opinion, is one the most challenging and grossest things we do as parents! But after lots of persistence (and carpet cleaning) we are finally out of diapers, and not having any accidents in the night! And I have to say that the pride Liam gets when he says, "I did it!" makes it all worthwhile. We've made quite a big deal out of it (including a song, dance, and the ceremonial "Royal Flush")... OK, now that I've bored you to death with "potty talk" I'll move on.

Noah is 6 1/2 months, and he now has 2 teeth, is eating some solids and crawling around the house! I think the phrase "time flies" is the biggest understatement of the year! On Thanksgiving weekend we had our Child Dedication at our church. We were very excited to have our family as well as Cory's parents there for the occasion.

Noah with Grandpa Edwards

With Ken Fisher, our lead pastor at Southridge Community Church

We are now getting into full swing with the holiday season. Cory is very busy at work, an I am doing the Southridge Production again this year! I hope to update the blog again very soon (and I will definitely try not to let it go another 5 months!) Take care!

Smile!

Cory has a real knack of getting the biggest smiles out of Noah! His eyes light every time he sees his Daddy! I was able to get a couple of pictures of our little "Noah Bear" giving us some awesome gummy grins:) Enjoy!

"C" is for Cookie!!

One of my biggest struggles as a new mom of two is being able to balance my time with both my kids. I find that Liam usually gets the short end of the stick because Noah wants to be held constantly. It's even worse when the weather isn't the nicest because I can't take them out for walks and to the park. So I decided the other day that Liam and I would make cookies together!

Noah was great... he slept in his bouncy chair the entire time. I let Liam sit on our island and he got to dump the ingredients in the bowl and help me sample the batter (that's the grown- up way of saying that we licked the beaters!!).

By the way, it is a sheer coincidence that he is wearing his Cookie Monster shirt! I also think that Liam's favorite part of making the cookies was pigging out on the chocolate chips!





Cookie dough... YUMMY!!




Time to clean up!



Mommy's little helper!





 



The finished product



However, when the cookies were done I realized that I had pulled a pretty bonehead move- I forgot to grease the sheet!! But in the end, the cookies were deeeeelicious!! It was a great way to spend some quality time with my sweet little boy!