McKenna Family

Merry Christmas I'm going to try to recreate this post that I had spent the better part of a night getting just perfect and then BAM, it was deleted somehow.  So now I don't even know where to start.  I guess I can start with saying that this will be a Christmas we won't soon forget.  The memories we created this year started as a small thought back in the Fall.  We gathered the children and told them they could really make a difference in the lives of the children in China, more specifically Meili's little friends, whom we have grown to love more and more.  We let them decide if they thought it would be a good experience if they were to give up their Christmas in order to help these sweet children in China.   Without hesitation they each agreed.  We decided that we would still do the traditional PJs and books on Christmas Eve and also stockings and allow them to ask for a gift that was around $60.  As we got closer to Christmas, I worried that th...

Meili had her first ballet "recital."  It wasn't an official recital as they wait until the end of the year in her age group to do that.  It was the last day of class before the Christmas break and they let the parents come in and watch.  It was so sweet.  I absolutely loved watching her dance.  She is such a sweetheart.  She was so proud and you could just see that she felt special.  Most of the time her back was to me as they spent most of the class in a circle but every so often, I catch a glimpse of her sneaking a little peek to see if I was watching.  It was adorable.    The piano Christmas recital was very fun.  Every year the Christmas recital is a duet recital and I think it's one of my favorites all year.  Abi, Nick, and J.D. all participated.  It was J.D.'s first official recital and he did great.  He played "Go Tell It On the Mountain" with Carol, his teacher.  Nick played "Jolly Old St. Nicholas" with...

One fun thing that we decided to start doing just recently with the kids is to practice some dating.  We thought it was a good idea to have each boy in the family take a girl in the family on a date.  Russel is the chaperone and then the rest of us are paired up.  After much groaning and whining, we got everyone to agree.  We got all dressed up and went out to lunch and then the nutcracker.  I think everyone was pleasantly surprised how fun it actually turned out to be.  After all the complaining, I think they decided it was actually pretty cool.  The boys learned lots about how to treat girls and the girls learned how to let the boys be gentlemen.  A few highlights from the night.....J.D. warned me about ice on the ground as he was opening my car door for me.....he also held my seat down at the nutcracker as I was taking my coat off getting ready to sit down (wow, he's gonna have the girls swooning...he's a natural and needed no prompting from an...