New Years Eve 2011

The girls have been ringing in the New Year for a few years now, but this is the first year it fell on a Saturday night.  We have church at 9:00 in the morning so there was no way any of us, (including the girls), wanted to stay up that late.  Luckily, being the children of a pilot, our children are extremely flexible and realize that it doesn't matter in the least what specific day we celebrate things.  It's only important that we celebrate these special moments as a family.  So we unanimously decided to celebrate New Years Eve on Friday night and sleep in on Saturday morning.  We started the evening out by dipping pretzels.  It's become a tradition in our house for New Years Eve that the girls look forward to each year.  We prepared vegetable, fruit, and cracker platters with homemade dip for each.  Then we celebrated Christmas with my family and my sister Becca's birthday.  Afterwards we got out the noisemakers and party hats and they all had fun.  After that we played a couple of games.  At that point it was 9:30 and Ashley couldn't make it any longer.  She fell asleep and we decided to keep her downstairs with us.  She slept beautifully all evening long on the ottoman.  :)  We watched Rudolf's Shiny New Years, played a few more games, and watched a couple of not too scary Twilight Zones.  Then at midnight we put on the youtube video of New Years Eve 2000 in NY and watched the ball drop.  We turned on our fan, which we had covered earlier with homemade confetti and watched it stream to the floor.  The girls LOVED it!  The next morning they wanted to do it again so Ashley could see it so we did it one more time for her.  Such squeals and excitement!  :)

Grandparents Christmas

We had Christmas with Nana and Papaw on the 28th.  We drove down and the girls were very excited to see them.  Their cousin Emma came over, as well, and after we finished opening all the lovely gifts we were given the girls had fun playing together.  Then, two days later, on the 30th, Grandma and Grandpa drove up to our house with Aunt Becca and Uncle Jason.  We had fun exchanging gifts with them and then afterwards we all celebrated an early New Years Eve together!  :)

Charles Dickens Christmas in Cambridge

On the way back from celebrating Christmas with Don's parents we stopped by Cambridge, Ohio to see the Dicken's Christmas Village.  Nana and Papaw came along with us, as well as the girl's cousin, Emma.  It was really neat.  They had life sized Victorian Era characters set up all over downtown.  There were also so many cute little shops to visit.  One place had a costume area where they let the kids dress up in Victorian Era clothing and we took pictures of them. When it got dark we sat on some benches and watched the courthouse light show.  It was spectacular!  Ashley especially loved dancing on Daddy's lap to the music.  :)

Merry Christmas 2011

Christmas Day 2011

At 7:00 am, we were awoken by two excited little girls.  They also woke Ashley up and she quickly became excited, as well.  They all found chocolates under their pillows that Santa had left and excitedly followed the path of Santa glitter he had left behind downstairs to the living room.  The first thing they rushed to check on was if he responded to their letter.  He had, indeed, and all the treats and gifts they had left for him were gone.    We all settled down on the floor and passed out gifts.  They each took turns opening one gift at a time so we could all enjoy each person's present.  We had such a great time and the best gifts were ones the girls gave out.  They had worked hard and made homemade presents and cards for everyone.  It was mostly pictures they had drawn, little notes of love, homemade bookmarks, and little necklaces they had made.  It was so sweet watching them be so excited about their homemade gifts for us.  As for the rest of the gifts, they were a big hit too.  Santa brought the girls each a plasma car, which we took down to the basement later that day and they had a blast riding all over and playing traffic.  They received several other gifts each.  Alexis loves her new microscope, Emily loved the pretty doll bunk bed set, and Ashley is in love with her new fureal puppy.  We spent the rest of the day in our pajamas playing with the girls with their new gifts, watching Christmas movies, and had a yummy Christmas turkey dinner.  It was a perfect day.  :)

Christmas Eve 2011

There was a lot of excitement and a lot of busyness at our home on our family's Christmas Eve this year.  We spent most of the daylight hours baking cookies and treats.  Alexis pretty much took over making Santa's cookies this year with Emily and Ashley assisting her.  It was so cute to watch her doing it all on her own so proudly and patiently telling her little sisters what to do to help.  In between baking we were either listening to Christmas music or watching Christmas movies.  Ashley set up a little nativity scene and insisted we needed hay for the stable.  So I went out into the garage and got her some clean hay.  She spent 30 minuted cutting it into little pieces with her little scissors and placing it into the stable and the manger.  After dinner Don took the girls back to the playroom to wrap my gifts.  As I was tidying things up I would hear, "Don't come back here, Mommy! We're not finished yet!"  When they were finished they came out and Ashley got very excited.  She began jumping up and down and shouting, "It's Christmas!  It's Christmas!"  Then we all took parts and acted out the nativity.  Emily was Mary, Daddy was Joseph, I was the shepherds, Alexis was the angel, and Ashley was all the animals.  It went very smoothly until towards the end when Ashley ran off with baby Jesus, (while grinning from ear to ear and giggling), and Emily went chasing her through the house squealing for her to give baby Jesus back.  :)  After that we turned out the lights and had our traditional flashlight walk to Bethlehem to see baby Jesus.  Then the girls each got to open one gift.  They have a tradition they started among themselves years ago where they each open a gift from each other, so that's what they did again.  While they played around with their new toys, Daddy played Christmas carols on his guitar while we all sang along.  After that we read Luke 2 and then we watched "Small One" and afterwards the girls picked out 3 cookies for Santa, 9 carrots for the reindeer, a glass of milk, and laid out there presents they had made for Santa.  They also wrote him a note asking him a few questions and expressing how much they loved him and how they were so glad he reminds the children of Christ by serving and bringing gifts just like the wisemen did for baby Jesus.  :)  Then it was off to bed.  Ashley fell asleep right away, but the older two were SO excited it took them a while.  Then Alexis kept waking up all the through the night, unable to sleep because she was excited.  :)

Santa Train

For one of our advent activities we did a little activity the children in Mexico supposedly do. The girls took figurines of Joseph and Mary and walked from room to room in our house, knocking at all the doors until they found the one door Daddy was behind, who then "let them in". He was holding a plate of cookies for a treat and then we watched "Polar Express" complete with cookies and hot cocoa. After the movie was over we surprised the girls with their own Polar Express train tickets I had printed off from online and told them that tomorrow we were taking them on a real train ride.....with Santa. Needless to say, they were beyond excited. The next day we got ready and headed to Nelsonville.  After a few wrong turns we made it just in time.  It was so much fun!  They played Christmas music and everything was decorated for Christmas.  Santa came in and talked with the girls for a few minutes and his elf gave them candy canes.  We actually ended up switching cars and found an even better car that wasn't quite as warm and has clearer windows to see out of.  It was nice just relaxing and talking together as we enjoyed the train ride.  We decided that if we ever wanted to take another long trip, maybe a train ride would be the way to go.  :)  After the ride we browsed a local shop and then went out to eat dinner at the Dutch Restaurant.  Emily was amazed because they brought her a big glass instead of the kiddie cups she normally gets and Alexis, who is our little rule follower, had a hard time with the concept that you could get as much food as you want from the buffet even if you haven't already finished what you have.  :)

Little Elves

Every year the girls get so excited when we put up our Christmas decorations.  One thing they do every year is slip gifts into everyone's stockings each day.  This year Ashley has joined in on the tradition, as well.  Mostly these gifts are simply little toys we already own and pictures they draw and little notes they write.  It's such a sweet little tradition they came up with and I hope they continue it year after year.  :)

Christmas Party at the Library

We went to our local library's Christmas party this year.  We have never been before and no idea how crowded it would be!  We had a good time anyways.  The girls made 4 different crafts and there was a huge line to see Santa.  So we sat down in the story area while we waited for the line to shrink and a librarian read Christmas stories to the girls.  Ashley was especially excited about a pop up book and kept jumping up and down excitedly with a huge grin on her face every time she would turn the page, which the librarian just thought was so precious.  We finally got to see Santa after some cookies and hot cocoa and they each received a little treat bag.