Christmas at Home!

 

 

We spent Christmas at home for the first time ever. It was such fun starting our own traditions and spending time as a family. Here, Evy puts the finishing touches on our Christmas Eve prep. She hand selected the cookies for Santa and the carrots for the reindeer.

Token Christmas Eve Photo

Santa brought Charlie a Sesame Street ball pit!

This girl loved opening presents and was afraid Santa forgot about her "Jungle Animal Park"

Charlie is screaming "Nummies" at me. In English that means, please give me some M&M's.

We bought Daddy a remote control helicopter just like all of the rest of the seven year olds in town. He deserves a toy since the house is filled with dolls and Barbies. I think he was more excited about his toy than the girls were about theirs.

Nothing better than an Amana ham served by candle light and eaten while wearing jammies!

Christmas at Grammy's and Papa's

Evy has so much fun playing with her cousin Kate!

A family picture! It's a Christmas Miracle.

Aunt Julie playing with Charlie's new toy.

Evy's first Lego set

The big reveal...could it be a new car?!?!

A pink rocking horse! This was the number one item on Evy's Christmas list.

Thank you Grammy and Papa!

Merry Christmas

Christmas Days

Christmas fun has been kicked into high gear at our house this week. Here's what we've been up to:

Our Elf, Elfie, arrived. He doesn't do all of the crazy things that some other elves do, but he did leave some magic elf seeds for Evy to plant. Overnight the seeds grew into cookies! It was Christmas magic!

 I started a tradition of giving Evy Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve, but then she only got to wear them once during the "Christmas Season" so I decided to give the girls their jammies early this year. They've been loving them and wearing them every night. It puts me under a little pressure to get laundry turned around quickly so the jammies don't get "over worn" but it's been fun! We've also been watching The Nutcracker a lot this year. Charlie was chilling with her arms behind her head during a recent Nutcracker viewing.

Project Holiday: A fun new tradition with friends. Our group adopted a family for Christmas. Here Evy and her friend go a little crazy during our shopping trip for the family.

All of the Christmas Elves who helped with Project Holiday.

All of Santa's Helpers.

Evy had her first preschool Christmas program. Her class sang four songs.

Belting out Jingle Bells between two of her best friends.

And we celebrated my birthday. Not related to Christmas, but something that always happens this time of year!

Char Char

When did this sweetie turn into a toddler?

Oh, Charlotte. You are so funny and so happy. You love singing and say "more, more" after we finish a song. You love to dance, mostly you just turn your chubby self around in circles. You love to chase Evy. You are so clumsy that you fall down at least 10 times per day and run into something another 10 times each day. You smile a lot and recover from owies very quickly! You are so cute that I kiss your face about 40 times each day. And you say "muuuhhhhh" to me indicating that you want to give me a kiss. You are so smart! You know all of the movements in Eric Carle's book From Head to Toe and act them all out while we read. You can find the mouse on every page of Goodnight Moon. You are talking so well that your teachers didn't realize you were only 16 months old. You are also a stinker! While wrestling and playing you nuzzle your little face into us and sometimes surprise us with a bite. It hurts like crazy! You take toys from your sister and scream at her when she wants her toy back. You yell at us if you want a snack or juice. Yesterday your teacher reported that you are starting to swat at kids. Love you, cute little stinker!

Typical Mommy Day Part 2

Last Tuesday I shared what we do on a typical "mommy day." Last Tuesday must have been a pretty good day because I didn't blog about any of the common challenges we face on our mommy days. Today was a different day. I want to show both sides of the story because parenting is hard and things in our house are far from perfect!

 

Charlotte was on a rampage this morning. First, she hit Evy in the head with two sippy cups and then later she got her on the cheek!

I remember this stage with Evy and lets just say it's not one of my favorites. All day long Charlotte stands by my leg and cries for me to pick her up. While I'm brushing my teeth, while I'm eating my breakfast, while I'm going to the bathroom, while I'm doing dishes, while I'm preparing meals, while I'm putting away laundry, while I'm getting dressed. I do what I can while I'm holding her, but sometimes you just need two hands.

 

Cute little stinkers...

 

Christmas Time

[Grammy Sherry gave us this cookie jar last year for Christmas. When Evy spotted it this year she said, "It's so beautiful I can't even take my eyes off of it!" Then she begged me to make cookies to put in the cookie jar. It took me three days to get to the grocery store for chocolate chips and only for these girls would I start making from-scratch chocolate chip cookies at 6:30 p.m. on a Thursday!]

 



[Where's Charlie?]

[I would like a pink rocking horse, said Evy. Not Scott.]

Every year we have non-Christmas traditions the first two weekends in December so it takes a little longer to get switched over to full blown Christmas mode. Last night we were at my brother's house and took in a "beautifully" lit house in his neighborhood, and told Santa about our Christmas wishes. This morning our elf, Elfie arrived. Let's do this!