Christmas 2012

We had another great Christmas this year!  We started off on Christmas Eve waking up to "snow" that Buddy had left us.

 

We then celebrated yesterday at our friends' house with lots of good food, activities for the kids, and the kids ended the night by acting out the nativity. Shelby was Mary and was really cute. Joey wanted nothing to do with it and stayed upstairs playing.

We came home and opened our jammies from Buddy and put out the reindeer food on the lawn.  (We forgot to actually put the cookies out, but no worries, Santa found them and ate plenty.)

 

 

It started storming around 2 am.  I was really afraid the thunder was going to wake the girls up and they would want to open presents then, but they slept til 8 am this morning.  I am so thankful for that!  (I hate that my pics are dark and grainy, but oh well.)

The girls always get socks and underwear in their stockings.

Joey was super excited to get Spiderman underwear.  Yep, they are boys.  She doesn't care.

 

Shelby got the pogo stick she wanted!

And Joey got her lions!

 

This Princess and the Popstar microphone was probably Joey's favorite.  We thought we were going to have to change the batteries out before the day ended.  She LOVES dancing and singing to it.

And of course money is always a hit!

 

 

 After presents we had reindeer pancakes.  I promise the bacon wasn't that burned- it just looks like it!

 

 

We knew at some point the rain we had was going to turn to snow.  Shelby kept asking and asking when it was going to happen, and finally, at about 1:30 she looked out the window and screamed, "IT'S SNOWING!!!".  We waited about an hour for some snow to accumulate on the ground then suited the girls up to "go snowing", as Joey kept calling it.

 

 

 

 



The girls were freezing after about 20 minutes, so they came in to warm up with some hot chocolate...

 



 

...but were begging to go back out as soon as they finished.

 

All in all we got about 4 inches of snow.  Such a perfect White Christmas!  After more playing it was back in the house to warm up to Christmas dinner. 

 



 

And...now that Christmas is over...baby girl can come any time she wants.  :)  

Twas the Sunday before Christmas...

...and I am pooped.  I love this time of year, but man it can take a toll on my energy.  Probably doesn't help being almost 36 weeks pregnant.  (3 more weeks!!!!!)  The past week has been filled with Christmas cookie baking, baby clothes washing, window seat building, Christmas parties, playing with friends, and last minute Christmas shopping.

The Sunday on/before Christmas is always my favorite Sunday of the year.  I love the music during Sacrament meeting, and today I got to teach all the YW together and we had a special lesson on Mary and how she displayed the 8 values and what we can learn from her.  Not saying I am a great teacher, but I loved the lesson and I hope the YW were able to feel the Spirit. 

I am so excited for tomorrow- spending Christmas Eve with friends and then coming home to do our traditional pj's from Buddy, reindeer food, etc.  But first I need to go finish a couple projects for the girls!

Christmas Cookies

I am not much of a baker but making Christmas cookies and treats is pretty much a requirement.  In the past couple days I have made mint Oreo truffles, Rice Krispy treats dipped in white chocolate, and I plan on making haystacks and some other type of cookie as a special treat for the YW on Sunday.  BUT, the most important cookie of all...

RUSSIAN TEA CAKES.  It just isn't Christmas without them.  My absolute favorite cookie of all time.  Sometimes it is tricky to get the consistency just right- you have to make sure the butter is not too soft, make sure the flour is measured perfectly, and make sure the nuts have been chopped to the perfect size.  And this time I might have made the most perfect batch I have ever made.  (Or maybe I am just pregnant and every cookie I put in my mouth is good.)  The best part about them though is the memories that come with them.  Like the time my best friend and I tried to make them with fat free butter and they turned out like bouncy balls.  It makes me laugh every time I think about it. 

Fourth Santa

Last Wednesday my dad had a layover on his way down to Beaumont for my niece, Leila's, baptism and my niece, Leighton's, blessing.  So he got in Wednesday night around 8:30 and spent the next day playing with the girls (I let Shelby stay home on Thursday so she could get her fill of shavy gravies).  They were so sad when we had to take him back to the airport.  But, they were excited to find out he was going to come back and stay again on his way back from Beaumont to Utah.  So again, on Wednesday, he got in and spent his time playing with the girls nonstop.   Sadly, I didn't get any pictures of Shelby and dad, but I did get a few of Joey and dad "horsing" around.  Just look at the expression on her face.  You can just tell how much she loves him and loves playing with him. 

Joey's new favorite is Spiderman.  She likes to shoot webs at people and say, "Hey Pal, remember me?"

Joey also likes to pretend she is a puppy.

 

 

Tonight was our ward Christmas party. I made some cute little Santa hat brownies that were a hit. I will have to make them again. Anyway, we had a great meal and everyone that sang, played an instrument, or read did a great job. At the end they had all the kids go up on stage and sing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". Joey loved getting to go up and sing with all the kids. She didn't know all the words but she just grinned from ear to ear. Afterward the kids got to see Santa. You would think that since it was the girls' 4th time seeing Santa in 2 weeks that Joey would have been ok. She actually was jumping up and down so excited right before. But then she got on his lap and was shy again. Oh well.

 

Pretty much sums up how Jeremy felt about the night.

 

 

Santa

Last night we took our third trip this year to see Santa.  Shelby is always very quick to point out to everyone around her that these Santa's are fake- even if they have real beards.  We'll ask why she thinks they aren't the real Santa and she'll say, "Because that movie, with the elf, where he pulls his beard off."  She is referring to "Elf" with Will Ferrell.  We are then quick to remind her (and any kids around her that she has just traumatized) that just like Buddy (our Elf on the Shelf- she named him after the movie) watches her then flies home every night to tell Santa how she has been, these Santa's report back to the real Santa Claus what they want for Christmas. 

Each time we have seen Santa this year Shelby's list has gotten longer.  She now wants a skateboard, a pogo stick, ice skates, and regular skates.  Joey is still shy with Santa.  She doesn't cry- she actually is really excited to see him and loves him, but she is going through this shy thing where she will actually tell you, "I be shy to him".  I think she thinks it's a game.  She warmed up after a minute though and told him that she still wants a lion for Christmas. 

Fail

I felt like today was such a failure of a day.  The goal for the day was to get a Christmas card picture so that I could get the cards done and ordered, and mailed out next week.  You know, since it's almost mid-December.  I had an idea in mind and we set out to try and find the perfect spot for the picture.  We drove all over north DFW for 3 hours before we finally spotted the perfect place- that was about 5 miles away from our house.  Of course it was private property, but we were so tired of driving that we risked having the police called on us and drove up to the spot anyway.  Meanwhile, we had been in the car so long that both girls had fallen asleep.  So here we were trying to rush two sleepy girls to take a decent picture before we got in trouble.  Let's just say it was a disaster.  This picture pretty much sums it up:

Sooo...no Christmas card picture.