Christmas Day...

On Christmas morning Nathan came in to our bedroom at about 6:30 and climbed under the covers with us. This wasn't too bad since he wasn't ready to get up yet. Then at about 7:30 he decided he wanted to watch his show, so we turned on the TV for him to watch (we wanted to let Audrey to get as much chance to sleep before opening presents). Nathan did check on Audrey twice and both times she was still sleeping. Then between 8 and 8:30 Nathan went out of our room and snuck into the living room and saw all that Santa left!

He was so excited!! He came to our room and kept saying "come on, come on". When we asked what was going on he said "there's CANDY!" So we headed out to the living room, but told Nathan that Audrey had to be awake before we could open presents. He went to check on her and ran back down the hallway yelling "Audrey's awake! Audrey's awake!" LOL!!!

He was so excited, here's some pictures from our fun morning opening presents.

We didn't have anywhere to go Christmas day. It was a nice and relaxing day to let the kids (big and little)  play with their presents (the kids of course got lots of toys each, Chris got some tools he wanted and a GPS and I was spoiled with a new Cricut machine...bring on the scrapbooking!)and watch "Christmas Story".

For dinner, again it was just us and my sister Gina. We enjoyed a honeybaked ham, thanks to a gift certificate from work and some yummy potatoes that Audrey really enjoyed...

And then for desert, decided to carry on something we had done a few times with my mom and dad in the past and we made cream puffs. It was the first time attempting to make them and they were soooo good. This will be something we will do for Christmases to come for sure! We filled them with vanilla and huckleberry ice cream! YUM!!

Hope you all had as fun a Christmas as we did!!

Waiting for Santa...

We had a pretty busy and fun Christmas Eve. Chris and I both were able to get the day off and spent it getting everything ready for that night and Christmas Day. The Daycare was doing Christmas stuff and throwing a little party for the kids so we took them there for the day to play.

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At 2pm Santa was to show up at the Daycare so we headed over to see the kids with him and pick them up.

Nathan did really good with Santa and asked him again for "Star Wars."

Audrey on the other hand, didn't like Santa one bit...

until Nathan stood by her then it wasn't so bad!

They used to have the kids open presents at the daycare, but it got to be so chaotic that this year they gave us the gifts for the kids to take home and let them open. They each got a gift from Santa and also from the gift exchange with the other kids. When we got home we let the kids open them and play with their new toys. I didn't think to pull out the camera, so sorry no pics :(

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My sister Gina came over to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas with us and for dinner that night we ordered pizza and started a fire and hung out for a while before it was time to get ready for Santa to come.

I wanted to start a new tradition for the kids this year so we baked some cookies to put out for Santa. He requested snickerdoodles which I haven't made before, but found a recipe and we were off!!

Nathan had fun helping me roll the cookie dough and then drop them in the cinnamon and sugar mix to cover them...

Audrey had fun watching with Aunt Gigi, but wanted to join in too.

So I handed some cookies over to her to help put on the cookie sheet.

We had a lot of fun making the cookies and they turned out great too!

Then it was time to get ready for Santa to come. We each got to open 1 present each...and surprise! they were pj bottoms (This is the first year that I made them, they turned out cute if I do say so myself. I had found some matching Christmas frog fabric earlier in the year with backgrounds of blue and pink. I even ended up having just enough left over to make the kids some matching pillowcases to sleep with.)

We decided to take advantage of the matching pj's and take some family pics. 

As you can see, Audrey was enjoying the cookies!

My little elf, Nathan...

We got Mickey's Night Before Christmas as a gift from my dad and Nathan wanted to hear it, so we read that and then it was time to go to bed to wait for Santa!

Audrey with her new baby doll...

 and Nathan...pretending to sleep. Silly kid!

Another first...

This afternoon I took Audrey to get her very first haircut! A nice lady named Sharon at Great Clips did it for her and she did such a great job. (Didn't think about it til just now that I should have taken the camera...oh well). Audrey was so good too. She just sat there patiently and looked around a little bit and because she was so good earned the reward of a sucker!

Here's her new do....

Chris took Nathan and they both got a haircut too. Here's Audrey and Nathan together.

Pretty clothes...

After having a not so fun time at Festival of Trees, I feel I was very brave to get up Saturday morning to take the kids in to get their pictures taken. I had decided that since Nathan hasn't had professional pictures done since he was 18 months old and Audrey hasn't had any since her hospital pictures, that it was about time.

We did both pictures in their holiday clothes and also in everyday clothes.

Audrey wasn't sure what to think about any of it. I don't think we got any pictures of her smiling (I just looked  back and there were 1 or 2 smiling). And Nathan was of course his restless self and wanted to get into and see everything he could without listening to either Chris or myself.

They actually both did pretty well until it was time to pick out what pictures we wanted, but we are glad that it's over for this trip. Hopefully when we go back after the first of the year to do family pictures they will both be better.

Here are some of our favorite pictures...

The picture of them kissing is the last one we took. I asked the lady if we could do one more picture and this is what we got. I love it!

Not doing that again...

On Friday Dec 4th we decided to take the kids and visit the Festival of Trees. We thought they would have great fun checking out all the Christmas decorations, seeing Santa, etc.

When we got there Audrey started not feeling well. She wanted to be held and was seeming to run a little fever. We got in line to see Santa and while there snuggled her until she went to sleep. Nathan on the other hand spent the whole time trying to climb on things, pull on things etc. We did finally get up to see Santa and Nathan was able to tell him that he wanted 'Star Wars' for Christmas. 

And Audrey asleep.

Nathan was not happy that Audrey was asleep in the stroller in his spot and kept trying to wake her up. (This was probably when we should have strapped him into the front seat of the stroller instead of letting him walk).We finally started to look at some of the tree and wreaths. He kept trying to get at the animals and toys in the displays and just wasn't getting the fact that he wasn't suppose to touch them.

We saw a whole row and a half and decided to try and check something else out to distract him when he saw a cute little log cabin all set up with a TV and such inside and he crossed under the chain that was supposed to keep him out and inside before we could stop him. The nice lady that was watching over the booth went in and grabbed him out. Well that was the last straw and we decided it was time to leave.

It was really a waste of time and money for us with how it ended up and really made me upset that I wasn't able to enjoy the evening. It's been 10 years since the last time I was able to go to Festival of Trees and I had been really excited to attend. And also at the time we left Audrey was feeling better and seeming to want to check things out too.

Here are a few pics of some of what we liked of what we were able to see.

 

I will not be taking my kids back for a few years yet. Hopefully I will have a much more enjoyable experience the next time I'm able to go.