A Very Caliente Christmas

Saturday was a wonderful day full of dancing and driving and celebrating our baby. I really like the Caliente Christmas show they do Saturday afternoon. The Nutcracker is nice, but I love the variety of CC. Delaney's contemporary class danced to Silent Night and it was my favorite!!!

It was so beautiful and D hadn't shared any details, so I didn't know she'd be right up front or that they'd lift Olivia and I just loved it! Of course I got teary, but when I looked at Matt, who so rarely ever cries, he had gotten teary too.

During the break between shows we caught up on our advent calendar activities. We made our garland and actually had our family night lesson since we had to piecemeal it.

Delaney caught up on some gaming with Max. 🙄

I made a peanut chicken salad and then it was time for our last show of the weekend. The sunset on the way to St. Mary's City was one of the most beautiful I've ever seen. This driving iphone photo does it no justice, it was perfection.

I volunteered to be a ticket scanner, but then other people wanted to, so I made a friend and we picked a spot to usher. D had 2 dances, the first with the candy canes and the second she was the tail of the dragon, which she loved. She is significantly shorter than the front end of the dragon and it was pretty funny seeing her little legs working twice as fast as the girls in front of her. 😂

We got a few more pictures of her, but they have a no pictures policy and they were enforcing it which is very annoying.

We made Delaney her customary candy bouquet and I was surprised when I got out my Christmas stuff to find that I'd bought her a Nutcracker last year too. Probably on clearance?

Lily was the Rat Queen and a) that's Delaney's dream role, and b) it was so special to see Lily dance in her last Nutcracker! She was beautiful and did such a good job. 

A super cold weather front came through Saturday night, so Stake Council was cancelled around 2:00pm. We went to bed wondering if we'd have church at all. I had planned to go up to Bowie, but when we looked at the weather when we got up it was dicey enough that I stayed home and went to Pax. I know at least 2 wards cancelled and Bowie also cancelled their Ward Council.

It ended up being a lovely, quiet at home day. And then sometime in the evening we got the call that there would be a 2-hour-delay, which really is best case scenario. We took our extra 2 hours and Delaney and I finished our super challenging Lego from our Amy Advent Calendar. And by 'us,' I mean that I found the pieces and organized them so they would be ready when D was ready to put them together. She's a really good Lego builder.

A few Rainbow Ellie Sparkles hijinx to round us out...

And finally, Frankie had her first game on Friday but I had to miss because of Nutcracker.

I'm excited to get to see her Wednesday!