Christmas in Houston with the Lees and Stinsons

Kent and I flew to Houston on the 22nd of December to spend Christmas with the Lees and Stinsons. The picture below was taken before we went to church with the Lee family on December 23rd.

I took the opportunity to play some Christmas carols on the piano with the Lee kids.

We also joined in on some gingerbread house making!

Ta da!! The finished gingerbread village.

Kiera takes voice lessons, and we went to her Christmas voice recital. 

She always does an amazing job-so poised and confident. Savannah didn't want her picture taken, however.

                                                      

We spent Christmas eve at the Stinsons, where the kids and some of the adults acted out the Christmas story.

More pictures from Christmas Eve at the Lee's house.

 Sophia singing while her daddy plays the guitar.

Savannah with the piano bag I made and other gifts I gave her for Christmas.

Grace REALLY wanted a yellow tutu for Christmas, so we got one for her. She looks very adorable in it, but promptly spilled hot chocolate down the front of it. The hazards of wearing pale yellow!!

Adrianne bought tickets for her family and us to go see the "Magical Winter Lights" on the 26th.

The theme was around the world, so there were famous landmarks and country scenes made from lights.

                                                     

All the lights really were very pretty and magical.

There was also a place where kids could pay to ride dinosaurs for a five minutes, so the Lee kids gave it a try. None of the pictures when Carson was riding the wheeled dinosaur with his sisters turned out,

So here's a picture of him riding a biped dinosaur instead!!

Another fun thing we did was to go to an Escape Room, which I've wanted to do before but haven't ever done it. We had a triple date with the Stinsons and the Lees, and we were able to solve the clues and escape from the room with just minutes left of our time.

Last, but not least, we went to see the new movie, "Mary Poppins Returns" with Lissa, Kiera and Savannah!

We had loads of fun in Houston for the Christmas season!!

Kent's Christmas Festival of Light with Snow!

We don't usually get snow in Virginia before Christmas, but this year we did. Since Kent was retired this year he was able to get the Christmas lights up at a more leisurely pace than when he was working full time.

It didn't last long, but it made Kent's impressive Christmas lights display look even more magical!

This view is of the front yard on the right of the house.

 The view below is of the side yard on the left of the house, with the gate leading to the back yard. 

 This view is in the left hand corner of the backyard, on the azalea hill

This view is of the small section of trees we have between our yard and the road.

 Kent highlighted his little bridge this year.

 Side yard near the road.

 Another view of the bridge and trees around it.

It's always sad when Christmas is over and the lovely lights have to come down.

Christmas Piano Recital 2018

This year's Christmas recital had a peppermint, candy cane theme. 

 The colors I used were bright, glittery red and lime green, which was a color scheme I'd never used before.

 The ward dinner was the night before my recital and they didn't have time to take down the white Christmas lights, so that added a nice touch to my recital. They were actually the ones we'd put up for the Nativity Exhibit the week before and had been kept up all week.

 The four girls on the front row are good friends and are all very fun to teach!

The recital was on Sunday at 5:30pm so I didn't have much time to decorate since our ward meetings didn't end until 4pm.

It's been several years since I did a two-piano duet, so it was fun to bring in a second piano for the last number of one of the recitals.

 This may possibly one of my best pictures ever at a recital with a student at the piano!!

Since I started doing two recitals I always request that the participants in the second recital please come early for a group photo with the students from the first recital, but it hasn't ever worked out since there are always some students who don't come in time for a photo.

 Thus there are some kids who are in both photos. It was nice when I could get a photo of all the students in the same picture.

Here are some pictures of the decorations. The front of the room by the piano:

The back of the room by the refreshment table.

 The back wall with the refreshment table.

 A better picture of the back wall decorations.

 I borrowed these floral arrangements left over from the ward party and added my own music notes,  plus the lime green and peppermint candy accents. I really liked the way they turned out!

The ornaments for the students this year were flat wooden ornaments that I painted white and added black keys to. They were simple and inexpensive.  The dollar tree had large plastic candy canes decorations, so I bought them and used them to make treble clef decorations on the walls.

                                               

I put many hours of planning and preparing for the recitals, so it's always a relief to have another successful recital completed!