Bella Tres Chic: What's On My Happy List?

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

What's On My Happy List?

Christmas Time at our House!

My favorite site and place to be at Christmas time...

This place... at the Conference Center...a very close second...
You all know by now how much I love the Mo Tab Christmas concert.
One of my favorite things in the whole wide world.
Once again, by a small miracle, we scored three tickets to the first night of the concert.

Deseret News

This year's concert was so creative, and magical and just plain FUN. Different than any concert they've done before. I was SO pleasantly surprised how well they pulled off having the Sesame Street Muppet's come. At first I thought how odd to have them come as guest artists.

But by golly they stole the show!

So stink'in sweet and endearing. And then there was Santino Fontana..what a cutie patootie with an incredible voice! It was an entertaining evening to say the least.

Deseret News

Out of the gazillion people there, we ran into my niece and nephews......

It's tradition to take my girls to the Christmas Music and the Spoken Word broadcast followed by a mini concert of the three previous nights. So Sunday morning we got up EARLY to get downtown to wait in the stand by line.

{this time we didn't have tickets}

About 1, 500 people had the same idea. At 7:40 in the morning we had about 300 people in front of us. Bleh!

We waited and waited in the Tabernacle to see if any seats would become available in the Conference Center. {Only 200 got lucky enough to go over.}

So... we had one huge viewing party in the Tabernacle, on the big screens, with all the others left behind. It was great. I was just thrilled to be able to see it again and walked away one happy camper!

Emma took this snap shot on a trip downtown to see the lights with YW/YM.

So besides our MO TAB party haha, we've had a few other celebrations recently. Some of my daughters and I are crazy Jane Austen fans. I mean who do you know that celebrates her birthday? {Which is Dec. 16th btw. like 239 years ago. lol } We are sorta nuts. I know. That, or we just needed an excuse to eat tea party food and watch Sense and Sensibility. Hannie made choc peppermint bark, we had English cookies from the world market and Mormon tea ;) with floating cranberries..

Our Elf inspired "sugar party" ! Sugar cereal {which I rarely buy these days} FOR DINNER, with waffles and pure maple syrup.

The sugar rush was followed by a family game of Christmas pictionary and watching Elf.. The game was a riot. We were split into two teams, the ELF KINGS {Lord of the Rings inspired} against the ICE QUEENS {Frozen inspired}..It went down to the wire in a close battle with Good King Wenceslas as the winning guess.

We played this another time for FHE. One round we did Christmas songs...This is dad's version of I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus. ;)

They had to guess my Christmas drawing? {I'll give ya one guess!}

cookie party with the neighborhood ladies....

And a sushi party with two of my dearest childhood friends.

The partying continued as Kyleigh and I got to help in Kate's preschool class on the last day before Winter Break. {PJ DAY}

Kate gave her teacher this book as a gift to the class!

{she's sorta embarrassed}

Meanwhile Dad was at work party!

On Brie's last day of school, I got to go with Brie's class to the Nature Center where they had their class Christmas Party.

They exchanged secret Santa gifts! and played some fun Christmas games...

Hannah had a full out dance party for a couple of weeks. The Starlette Company danced in the Murray High Dance Co Christmas show for two nights, plus rehearsals and their own recitals the following week. I think I'm pro now in doing the Starlette bun. By the time I'm through getting her performance ready, my fingers {and the bathroom for that matter}, are plastered with hairspray, makeup, glitter and glue, gluing 14 stars around each eye!

Hannah danced in a tap, jazz and ballet number in all four shows. Brie danced in the first two shows and Kate the last two shows. IT was an ALL DAY affair. Add helping as parent in charge for the two A shows. It was a humdinger of a day!

First time on the stage!!

With Grandma and Grandpa and my niece's daughter.

I don't have a pic of Hannah in her tap or ballet, {they are constantly changing costumes}, but her Jazz number and costume I do. It was my favorite of all her dances!

One more party to post about. {I've saved the best for last.}

The Bell Family Christmas Party!

Prepping for the Nativity...Bell Family style 31 years and running...

My angels!

Emmsie, Abby and Hannah were good sports and played the part of the wise men. My oldest nephew, who is now 34, made some funny comment that he had to play the role of Joseph til he was a Senior in high school. bahaha. Which very likely is true since our family, as a whole, has way more girls than boys. There was probably no one else to take the part back then. "But grandma my girlfriend is here!" he pleaded....

We had a surprise visitor! Best moment of the night!

Look at those little faces!

My brother Brad doesn't fly in from New Jersey until Wed. He watched it all by Skype. He played his guitar to Feliz Navidad. We sang carols. Played the chimes....had yummy dessert.

We even had carolers come to the door. Good times!! #bestfamilyever

Just because!

....helped my mama put up her tree and her Christmas village. :)

The Waffle Love truck came to Murray! Emmsie was soooo happy.
{Waffles could quite possibly be her favorite food.}

Emmsie had to memorize all of this for a test in her AP US HISTORY class. She nailed it!

In more Emmsie news...She heard on the TV about a 6 yr old girl in Fountain Green, Ut., named Addie, who is dying. Her grandmother asked for people around the world to send her cards...Emma made a card to send to her. IT was darling.