Jingle Bells!

This past Saturday was Charlotte and Jensen's onstage debut at their school's Christmas program. We decked them out in their Christmas best...

Charlotte wasn't too sure about all this dressing up business.

Actually, it made her quite displeased.

...and headed to their school. After dropping them off in their classroom, Brian and I took our seats in the sanctuary. I'm not going to lie...my stomach was in knots. I was pretty sure Charlotte would take one look at the room full of people staring up at her and lose it. After what seemed like forever, out they came:

I cannot look at this without laughing. She is totally checking everyone out, looking down her nose at them in typical Charlie fashion. If you've never been judged by a toddler, you have never met my Charlotte.

Jensen didn't quite know what to make of everything.

We watched them take their places onstage and I gathered up my belongings, looked for the nearest exit, and planned my escape route after grabbing a screaming Charlotte from the stage. The music began ("Jingle Bells") and to my great surprise, little Charlie shook her little bell like it was no big deal at all.

She did, of course, stick very close to her beloved Mrs. Clark.

Jensen, on the other hand, did not get into the jingle bell spirit. He sat onstage with a downright disgruntled expression:

Bah, humbug!

To be fair, he hadn't been feeling great the past few days...maybe that's why he refused to participate in his debut performance. Oh well...it could have been much worse! Once again, my stinkers completely surprised me: I expected Charlotte to scream and Jensen to either get really into shaking the bell or run around the stage like a complete wild man. I should have known that they would throw me for yet another loop...perhaps one of these days I will learn to expect the unexpected! At any rate, I was once again so proud of my stinkers...sometimes I still can't believe these two beautiful toddlers are all mine.