Christmas Day!

We could not contain the excitement of this little girl Christmas morning! It was wonderfully after 7 am which I was thrilled about because this girl is usually up at 6. Here she is anxiously awaiting to go downstairs to see if anything from her list was waiting under the tree.

Her Christmas wish list:

- A Dora doll with Boots in a stroller

- Beauty and the Beast DVD

- A chocolate snowman

- and a candy cane

I love how simple her list was. She saw the Dora doll in an ad way back at the beginning of November. She decided that is what she wanted and added the other 3 things and stuck with it all the way until Christmas. When I was little I think I changed my mind a million times. I admire her decisiveness!

Well what do you know! She got what she wished for!

Chocolate snowman and all.

Zack was just excited to be there with all of the wrapping paper to play with. And he loved his new presents too. We needed some new baby toys. It seems like all Anna played with at this stage was toothpaste tubes and Listerine bottles.

This boy loves balls. He has been chasing these around the house ever since. Grandma G gave him a musical ball popper that makes him so happy. Anna and her friends play with it all the time too. In fact, Anna even has a dance made up to the music it plays.

Gotta love the thumb!

Anna was excited to pose with Dora by the tree.

Zack's new horse from Grandma Mary was a hit. Zack loves it, but I think Anna loves it even more. (see Anna crying on the ground in picture below)

It was a truly magical day! Mid-day it started snowing. Which is a big deal around here. They hadn't had a white Christmas since 1960 or something. So after lunch Anna and Dave bundled up and went out and played in the snow.

She was almost as excited as she was Christmas morning! They made snow angels and a snowman and she had a blast. Until snow got in her glove. Then that was it. Time to come in for hot cocoa.And that's it for pictures because unfortunately I dropped our camera at this point. Well, I put it on the fireplace mantel and it fell off. kaput! It was time for a new camera anyway I guess! An extra after Christmas present. No I didn't get a fancy one like I want, just your basic point and shoot, but it's great!

Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Eve

We had a fun Christmas Eve with our little family and friends this year. Of course we made cookies for Santa. Anna was a great helper and looked so cute in her apron. Especially from the back.

I forgot to take a picture of the finished products. But I assure you, they were spectacular. Anna made a triple-decker cookie for Santa. Then Anna sprinkled glitter on our lawn to help the reindeer see our house. We got cleaned up and headed to our good friends, the Wards, for a Christmas Eve party. This is a good one of Zack and Dave waiting to leave for the festivities.

And we had to get some pictures by the tree before we left, because I had a hunch everyone might be a little too excited and/or sleepy when we got home.

At the Wards we had a great dinner with about 30 other people. It was so fun and they are so wonderful to host this each year. We won't know what to do next year when they're gone! After dinner we did the nativity and Anna was an angel. For some reason she was okay with not being Mary this time.

We came home from our fun evening, left cookies and milk out for the big guy and carrots for his reindeer, got in our new Christmas jammies and snuggled up for a long winter's nap. And that twas our night before Christmas this year!

Christmas-ness

Oh how we love Christmas at our house! There's just so much to be Merry about! Anna has been on perma-excitement all month. Every morning she wakes up and runs in our room, "Mom, let's go see where Buddy the Elf is today!" (Buddy is our Elf who keeps his eye on us for Santa.) She loves that little Elf and talks to him sometimes and wonders if he's cold. I'm just glad he comes around because good behavior is a little more frequent when he appears at the beginning of the month.

Before Grandma G left, we got to make gingerbread houses with her. Anna still prefers eating the decorations to actually decorating, but that's the fun in it anyway right? We were so glad to have Grandma G around to share some of the Christmas season with.
Anna really got into gift giving. Throughout the month, she has randomly selected things from her playroom to wrap up and give to each of us. Zack's gift was wrapped up in an empty oatmeal box, others were scrunched up in paper, and my favorite was the one she wrapped for me. I must have left the masking tape out and so this is how she wrapped up my gift...

A beautiful dress up necklace wrapped in a roll of masking tape and then zipped up in a ziploc bag. The girl's got skills. She was so excited to give it to me, she couldn't wait until Christmas, so she gave it to me the day after she wrapped it.

She also decorated her room. Notice the star ornament. very festive. She told me it was just like the star for Baby Jesus.

It's tradition to wear your Christmas best to church the Sunday before Christmas. Well, Anna is quite the fashionista these days and apparently the darling Christmas dress I had bought for her would not do. It had a collar for crying out loud. I was not aware that she had developed a strong dislike for collars. "I do NOT like collars! I will NOT wear it!" sigh...the cute red and black smocked dress with the round collar might have to wait for another girl to join our family. So, after fighting the battle all month (we tried for Dave's department Christmas party too) I surrendered and offered her last year's and even the year before's Christmas outfits. She chose the one from 2 years ago, and surprisingly it still fit! My petite 4 year old is wearing her 18-24 month skirt. I'll have to find the picture from when she was 2 and add it to this post. I must admit, she does look quite cute, even without a collar.

And here's one with Zack.

Zack was not happy about the pictures. Anna was so sweet trying to comfort him. I love this next picture with her arm around him.

And here's one of Zack in his Santa suit.

We had a little Christmas party for Anna and her friends. My friend Laura brought her nativity set and we did the little play. We drew names and Anna was quite upset she was a wiseman instead of Mary. But after some tears and some coaxing, she decided the shiny purple robe and crown were pretty cool too.

Although you can still see the envy in her eyes in this picture. So funny.

We made little gingerbread nativities and wrapped some presents to donate to the child abuse center. It was a fun way to wrap up the final Christmas festivities before Christmas Eve.

December goes by too fast!

how lucky am I?

Our 4-Year Old Fairy

Happy Birthday to our sweet 4-year old Anna! I truly can't believe she is so big. She has gone from toddler to big girl in a blink of an eye. Love every bit of her!

We started out her birthday singing to her with her special breakfast "cake" of orange rolls. Grandma G came to town especially for her big day and we're always glad to have her around.

Anna was so excited for her fairy party. She had changed her mind a million times between a princess party and a minnie mouse party. Then suddenly that was all out the window and it was all about fairies. I was happy to oblige. We invited all of her little friends to Kelly Hollow and the festivities began.

Each girl got a new fairy name and Anna had to be Silver Mist, her favorite fairy from the Tinkerbell movie. Then we did a fairy treasure hunt to gather all the pieces of their fairy costumes.

And no fairy is complete without some pixie dust! I sprinkled some "pixie dust" on each of their heads so we could fly.

We played Anna's favorite game from preschool - "Dance any way you want to, stop when I say FREEZE!" and flew and danced around the room to Anna's favorite songs. We had some technical difficulties with the music since we are our probably behind a decade with our digital music players, but it all worked out. :) We also played musical leaves.

They were hungry after all that dancing so it was time for some fairy treats and some punch.

(Anna, Sierra, Evie, Shea, Ella, Madeline, and Ansley)

Then they decorated there own "flower" (cupcake) and we sang Happy Birthday to the birthday girl.
She gets so excited but then also embarrassed when everyone is singing to her, so she looks like this: so cute.

I was on a mission to bring back "Heavy, heavy hangover" so they learned how to play and I think it was a hit. Anna wished everyone really BIG things. Like a really BIG unicorn, or BIG boat, or BIG castle.

It was a magical day. And I'm still sweeping up glitter and probably will be until next year. But it's okay. I love this age of imagination and magic. I don't know what I would do without this little girl. Each year just gets better and better with her.

Happy Birthday Anna!

Love you so, so, so much!

It's Begining To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Christmas is in the air and I LOVE it! My favorite time of year got even better when I became a mom. It's so magical and joyful and I get excited about it in October. Although this year it just doesn't seem like it could possibly be the end of November yet.

Even before Thanksgiving, we got into the Christmas spirit. What better way to kick off the season than the Festival of Trees? First things first, meet with the big guy! Anna was excited and shy with Santa. And this was Zack and Santa's first meeting. It didn't go over well. Zack stared at him for a good 90 seconds without moving.
After his analysis was complete it was easy to tell that Santa did not pass. Zack did not approve. His serious face became squishy and sad and the waterworks began.
Maybe he'll go over better next year with Zack. Anna however, still loved Santa and Mrs. Claus and especially the elf because she's the one that gave her a candy cane.

Anna loved all of the other activities. She made lots of crafts and even got a Christmas Tree painted on her face. Which was the result of a major meltdown the next morning before church when she realized it had washed off in the tub.

That night we went on a little "Christmas Stroll" at a little shopping village nearby. We met some carolers and even got to see Santa AGAIN! Lucky girl!

This past week Anna and I had fun putting together a Christmas Box for a child in a 3rd world country. We found fun toys she would like, some treats, and hygiene stuff like toothbrushes and combs. It was a lot of fun and Anna got really excited about it, even though she really wanted some of the candy in there!

We wrapped it all up.

And dropped it off here. To add to this awesome stack of boxes.

I couldn't help but get a little emotional when I saw this. (There were even more boxes lined up against the other wall.) And this is only one church of many across the country collecting the boxes. I can only imagine the happiness and joy they will bring when they get to their destination. I love finding pockets of goodness in this crazy mixed up world of ours. It's so important to me to teach my children to give and help others and this was a great opportunity to do just that. Anna really loved it and I hope we are able to do it every year.

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. I thought November was going to be dreadful because Dave was working nights all month, but it wasn't too bad. Luckily I have these two adorables to help keep me company. Here's a brief glance of our Thanksgiving festivities this year.

Anna had a little Thanksgiving feast at her preschool and she loved her little pilgrim outfit. I got to go for the feast and it was so cute to see the kids all decked out in their Thanksgiving getups. I love her school.

Anna is really into arts and crafts these days. She wants to do them all day long and she would if I had enough supplies and patience. It's so fun to see her creativity blossom lately. We made several Thanksgiving projects, but this turkey hat was her fav.

We had some fun Thanksgiving snacks too. She loves this kind of stuff. She really eats it up. (ha-ha-ha)

I don't have a picture of it, but we did a little "Thankful Tree" and it was fun thinking about and talking about all that we are grateful for. Every day Anna would say "I'm thank you for...." I never corrected her because I thought it was so darn cute. But I'm sorry to say that Dora made Anna's list before me, Dave, or Zack. We just can't compete with that little explorer and her monkey.

On Thanksgiving day, Dave came home and slept while Anna "helped" me cook. We went to our friends, the Blackhams, with our other good friends, the Wards. They are such great families and we had a fun time together. Anna loves hanging out with their older girls and thinks they are the bees knees. Dave had to take off for the hospital, but he managed to fit in dessert just in time. We are lucky to have such great friends here to share holidays with when we're away from family. And did I mention the food? It was SO good. We all did a fab job if I don't say so myself! And then we all rolled ourselves outtathere.

I love this time of year and love creating traditions and memories with our little family. So much to be grateful for.