Christmas at Crowne Center

Last week our family enjoyed a kick-off to Christmas with a fun event at the Crowne Center in downtown Kansas City. Ally is in fifth grade choir this year, and also fifth grade orchestra playing the violin, and both groups were performing the same evening.

First the choir sang, Ally is on the bottom row, far right. She is the just about the smallest girl in her grade, also one of the youngest. Our favorite song of the night was "Santa's Going On A Diet"--it was hilarious!

After five or six songs, the choir disbanded and the orchestra set up. We brought her music stand, but forgot the music, so the girl next to her was nice enough to share. Here is Ally on her instrument---she sounded beautiful and has come a long way since she started last year.
We got front row seats, which are both good and bad when you are trying to keep little ones quietly entertained. Luckily I had brought some candy canes in my purse---they kept Owen busy for a good portion of the performance.
Reese was busy lap jumping. I tried to get a picture of her, but she wanted nothing to do with it. Here she is whipping her hair at me when I held up the camera.....she's a quick one!

Brayden got to sit by his best buddy who's mom was the accompaniment for the choir.
Afterward we walked around the Crowne Center and saw this awesome gingerbread village. Over 1600 lbs of sugar were used in the making of this!! Owen loved the trains.....

This wreath was gigantic! It's suspended by four huge chains....

We headed outside to see the fountains and light display. There is an outdoor ice skating rink here too, and we had planned on ice skating before Ally's performance, but traffic was slow and we didn't have enough time.

There was a little village that the kids could climb in and on. It was a nice evening, in the upper 40's so we had some fun playing.
Owen found his true love----the firetruck. Here he is taking his dad for a ride. This night was so fun, and we are so proud of Ally and all her hard work this year! "Fifth grade isn't easy" she reminds us on occasion, however, she's handling it all beautifully.