Christmas Day 2010

Christmas morning started around 7:30. I was shocked when I looked at the time and realized that the girls actually slept in a little bit. We snuggled in our bed for a few seconds and then got ready to go down stairs. The girls looked adorable in their pjs. I am constantly grateful for what good friends they are. They fight and argue like any other siblings, but at the end of the day, they are always finding some sweet way to be together. We really are blessed.


Down stairs, we had the girls open up their stockings first before we tackled the tree. Here is them getting their first look at the presents and what Santa brought them. Emma was very excited to get a replacement bug jar and even as I am typing this, she has a pet cricket in it.
Anya got "Punzel hair" - her words not mine. And she wore it all morning it was adorable. Anya's big gift this year was a new bike. She isn't quite big enough to reach the pedals yet, but it has one of those bars so we can push her. She was excited to try it out.
Emma's gift that she really, really wanted was a dolphin pillow pet. Emma and I also got an electric keyboard because we started piano lessons together after the Christmas break. It has been a lot of fun to do together and I love it. Great stress reliever!
Thank you so much Grandma West and Grandpa Larry for the dolls! Emma and Anya both loved their own dolls and each others dolls. They both traded off playing with them all morning. They took a bath with the bathtub doll almost right after we were done with presents and Emma had me do her hair just like her doll afterward.
Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Chipman so much for your gifts! Emma loves the unicorn and the book making kit. She actually made a book about How to Train Your Dragon (Thank you for that Danny! Although insert a small amount of sarcasm to that comment because I think it was the only movie we watched for 3 weeks straight. You picked a winner that's for sure!) Of course Anya loved her "puter." And I will have you know, I have made popcorn almost weekly since I got the popcorn popper.Thank you! I used it to make it for snack for preschool and the kids loved it! They have already requested that we have it again.
Emma got Anya a big horn thingy (I don't know what they are called!) Thank you daddy for that brilliant idea . . .
The mistletoe headband came in handy again. Man I love that thing.Sweet little Kaitlin just played and slept most of the morning. We all had so much fun and felt so spoiled and blessed. It was kind of cute because after the presents were unwrapped we all went to play with our respective new toys. Anya and Emma took a bath with one of the new dolls, I went to play on the piano, and Mike went to play with a new gaming mouse pad he got. We all had a really wonderful morning. (Even the cat who slept amongst our spoils.)That evening we went to Kristi and Tony's for a fabulous Christmas dinner. They made us a 5 course meal with Sabrina and Sam acting as waiters. It was fun and of course afterward we played games. We had a great time and a wonderful Christmas!

Christmas Eve 2010

So I had a goal to get Christmas posted before February and since tomorrow is the 31st I figured I better get on it. I have noticed that I always take forever to put up posts that have a lot of pictures, I am just too impatient to wait for all of them to load. Well, patience aside, here was Christmas for us:

We spent Christmas at home this year since we have a new baby and she wasn't traveling so well in the car. She hated her car seat, but she has luckily gotten over that recently.

For Christmas Eve, Mike wanted to continue the tradition of a Christmas Eve buffet. While Mike and I were preparing the food, Emma and Anya decorated cookies for Santa. I sure hope he likes sprinkles!


After that, we enjoyed our humble spread. It was the first time I tried eating dairy in about 2 weeks. (I snuck a few pieces of cheese.) We were pleasantly surprised that Kaitlin didn't react very severely to it, so since then I have watched my intake of dairy and as long as I keep it in small amounts, she usually does okay. Except for milk, sadly, my love affair with milk will have to wait because she always gets a stomach ache when I try to have some. I digress . . . Christmas Eve. It was a lot of fun enjoying our yummy buffet. Emma's favorite was the shrimp by a long shot with pomegranate coming in a close second and Anya loved the cheese.

(Yes, that's my family everyone. )

Kaitlin gave me an awesome Christmas Eve present of sleeping through dinner so I got to enjoy the buffet without rushing or holding a squirm worm.

After we ate, we did the usual. We watched the Nativity video from a couple of years ago and read the nativity story. We acted it out with little nativity magnets since we didn't have enough people to do it as a play. The girls opened their Christmas Eve presents of pajamas and then went off to bed. Mike and I didn't have all that much left to wrap so we got to go to bed at a decent time as well.

Miss Laura Mommy

I have the kids at my preschool call me Miss Laura. This morning Anya wanted to get my attention and I heard her saying, "Miss Laura, Miss Laura Mommy." Too cute! Since Anya is home with me during preschool, I have gotten some cute pictures of her when I am trying to get pictures for the preschool blog. Since she isn't technically in the class yet, I don't feel comfortable putting them on there, but they are just too cute not to post.

On our teddy bear picnic for letter B week.
Making sand angels at our teddy bear picnic. It's sad that it's come to this. I never thought I would say that I miss the snow.
Hitting in hats for letter H week.
Emma and Anya teaching their "students."

Inevitable

Yesterday at preschool we were working on a project where you glue little ripped pieces of paper onto a picture. I turned around to take care of snack and when I turned back around, Anya was holding the glue stick and putting it on her lips like chap stick. We washed it off while I tried to scold her without smiling and laughing.

Pre-Christmas Activities

We started out the Christmas season by attending Emma's school choir concert. It was crowded, but she did a wonderful job and she looked beautiful in her Christmas dress.

After we solved the tummy trouble issues, Kaitlin started smiling for us. It was like a night and day difference for her. One week she was crying all the time and the next week she would lay and look around and coo and smile for us for hours at a time. She has adorable dimples just like daddy and Anya. She has been such a joy to have and hold. She loves to just lay and look around and she loves to snuggle. It is the best of both worlds.

Our next Christmas venture was getting a Christmas tree. Since it was our first Christmas at home together, we decided to get a real Christmas tree. It smelled so good all month and it lasted us until New Year's (barely) for our New Years party. It seemed a little backwards that we went Christmas tree shopping in short sleeves and sandals. I was all for pretending it was cold and bundling up, but Mike isn't one for false pretenses so we went as is. Emma "held down" the tree in the back of the van on the ride home and she was very excited to sit without seats or seat belts. (It was daddy's idea to let her do that. He is such a softy for his girls.) We decorated the tree the next day. Yes, we already put the presents under it. I know what you're thinking, but you know that you love seeing presents under the tree just as much now as you did when you were a little kid.

Still in shorts. . .
A fun tradition we have carried on that we did when I was a kid is marking the ornaments. Any ornament that is special or for a certain person has a small number written on it and I have a list that I have written the number and the significance of that ornament that we keep in the ornament box. Emma loved pulling out ornaments from years past and hearing about who gave them to her or where they came from. Daddy helped Anya with her ornaments.


And she was a big ham like always.
It's a good thing that someone in our family is tall or our tree would only be half decorated.
A couple of years ago, Mike's dad got everyone a ton of jingle bell people ornaments. Mike put ours right next to each other, so I turned them so they can steal kisses when no one is looking. Man I love that guy!

All I want for Christmas . . .

Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters . . . (name that Christmas movie!)
Being the oldest, Emma got to put the star on the tree this year.
The finished product . . .
One big, happy(most of the time) family.