Angels we have heard on high

Tori's absolutely favorite Christmas song is "Angels We Have Heard On High". Sort of an interesting choice for a two-year old, but I think we sang it in church once and she really liked the "gloria's" and from then on she was always asking me to sing it to her. This video is from Christmas morning when we asked her to sing it for us.

Our little Angel

John just got a few days off for Christmas so we decided to stay and celebrate Christmas in Iowa. Many of our friends also stayed around, so we all got together for a Christmas Eve party and had the kids dress up for a live nativity. When I asked Tori what she wanted to be for the nativity, she said, "Baby Jesus". After explaining to her that she was a little too big to be baby Jesus, Tori's then decided she wanted to be an angel. The following are several of the pictures taken of Tori as an angel and the whole group as the nativity.

The ingenius idea for the halo made out of a coat hanger taped to Tori's back was all John's. We thought it was pretty cool, but Tori wasn't quite sure what she thought about it.

Anne & Andrew were Mary and Joseph. Tori, Hannah, & Rowan were Angels. Megan & Anna were wise men. Claire was a sheep and Ronnie was a shephard.

Decorations and Church Christmas party

Here is a picture of our Christmas tree with lights and train. Apparently we were a little late in picking our tree and the choices were very slim, but we were very pleasantly surprised with how much we liked this tree. (Tori loved it and it withstood all the love she gave it.)

Here is Tori playing with her new Elmo ornament she received this year while we put the lights on the tree.

We had an unseasonably cold December this year, with a pretty impressive ice storm and a bunch of snow. It was nice having a white Christmas and the lights looked pretty cool covered in ice.

The following pictures are of Tori in her Christmas dress and us all dressed up to go to our church Christmas party. (The middle picture is of Tori with hot curlers in her hair. At first she thought they were neat, but that only latest a minute and she didn't keep them in long enough for them to actually curl her hair.)

Santa made an appearance at the party. Some kids didn't know quite what to think about him. I was holding Tori's hand on the stage and trying to lead her to Santa so she wouldn't be afraid, when she tore her hand away and said, "I do it all by myself, mama." She was, however, a little hesitant on Santa's lap until he gave her the lollipop.