Opening Christmas Presents

The girls had so much fun opening presents last night. Here are some pictures:

T'was the Night Before Christmas.....

On Christmas Eve we built a fire, made dinner and opened all of our presents. We weren't sure if we should wait until Christmas day but then decided that we'd have the presents from Santa to enjoy and a big lunch and fun day with Marco and Stacy, so figured we should spread it all out over two days. Before opening presents, the girls found a present for each of them from Winter, our Elf on the Shelf. The girls opened their presents to find Christmas pajamas to wear to bed that night. Winter explained that she would miss them both as she headed back to the North Pole to spend the year with Santa. Winter reminded both girls to be good and listen to their parents.

After dinner we opened presents which the girls loved! After all the presents were unwrapped, opened and wrapping paper cleaned up, the girls got into their pajamas for the most anticipated sleep of the year. They got a glass of milk ready and picked out a few of my Aunt Shirley's cranberry cookies which I made a few days before, as well as a gingerbread man and put them on a plate. They set the plate of cookies and milk by the fire and sat on their Papa's lap to listen to The Night Before Christmas story. We bring out the "Christmas" books from the top shelf at the beginning of December so they can be enjoyed for a few weeks so we've read the story many times over the past few weeks, but it's a great way to welcome Christmas day. The girls were both tired, but enjoyed the story before they headed off to bed!

Our tree with all the presents

Sofia and her gift from Winter

The full picture

Both girls and their gifts from Winter

CK and his girls

The story begins

Cookies and milk for Santa

Two tired girls enjoy the story

Excited for Santa to arrive, but ready for bed!

Gingerbread Decorating Party

Yesterday we hosted a gingerbread people decorating party at our house in the morning. In past years I've taken the girls to the Gaylord Texan to decorate the gingerbread family and meet "Gingy" but last year it was so expensive and didn't seem worth doing this year. Instead, we decided to host our own and invite friends over. On Saturday I made two batches of gingerbread dough and then spent Sunday rolled out the dough and baked several batches of gingerbread men, women, children, snowflakes and Christmas trees. The two batches actually made a lot more than I expected but they all turned out great. Yesterday morning before everyone arrived, I made two batches of royal icing and put them into quart-sized ziploc bags so each kid would have their own portion. Since there were little ones like Hannah and Olivia, I also had store-bought cookie frosting that they could use since it's a lot easier to use than royal icing. While I made the icing, Sofia did a great job separating the candies into several different bowls so that each area of kids could reach candy to decorate their cookies.

Sofia decided to invite all of her core group of friends as well as friends from school. The group included Thomas, Giovanna, Vincent, Shivani, Emma, Allen, Hannah, and Kelley. Isabella, Nicole and Milani were all out of town. It was a great group and as soon as everyone arrived they all headed upstairs to play for a bit. Finally after about 30 minutes we called the kids downstairs to get some food before starting the cookie decorating. The kids were able to chose from ham cubes, cheese, pretzels, carrots, green snap peas, crackers and juice boxes. After the kids ate, I passed out the cookies and the kids got started.

Kelley really took her cookie decorating seriously and spent a lot of time on each cookie. Everyone had a great time decorating and thankfully Casey, Allen and Hannah's mom helped Olivia and Hannah work on their cookies at the "little kid table." I'm pretty sure Olivia ate nearly all of her candy and frosting rather than decorate her gingerbread cookie. She first had a bite of gingerbread cookie on Sunday when I was baking and wasn't completely sure what she thought. She ended up taking two bites but didn't really want more. Meanwhile, Sofia loves gingerbread cookies and could eat them all day long!

All the kids decorated several cookies before they were done and decided to head up to Sofia's room to play instead. Kelley actually stayed behind and continued to decorate cookies and all of us moms decided to take a turn at decorating cookies, which was really fun. After a bit longer, everyone headed home with their cookies and a few took home extra cookies, frosting and candies, since we had a lot of everything left over. Shivani ended up staying until 2pm when Pritha planned to pick her up. Sofia and Shivani play so well together and get along so well and Shivani is incredibly inclusive and kind to Olivia, so I called to ask if she could stay longer. Instead, Pritha asked if Sofia could go with Shivani to the movies and watch Night at the Museum 3. She went and had a great time and really loved the movie! So, that evening we rented the first Night at the Museum and watched it after Olivia went to bed. The movie is really a lot of fun and I'd forgotten how good it is. It's so fun now that Sofia is at an age where she enjoys such fun movies! It was really a fun day and hope that we can host another gingerbread cookie decorating party again next year!

Setting up the tables for the kids to decorate cookies

The candy is ready

We set out our gingerbread houses as decorations

Girls ready for their friends to arrive!

The bare gingerbread cookies

Kids hard at work

Shivani, Sofia and Emma

Vincent, Giavanna and Thomas

Olivia and Hannah

Olivia "testing" the frosting

Shivani

Vincent and Giavanna

Sofia and one of her decorated cookies

The moms at work (and Kelley who is wearing the Santa hat)

Papa's Birthday

On Friday we celebrated Papa's birthday! Sofia had a half day at school, so we loaded up after she was dropped off from the school bus and drove down to CK's office. We drove to The Porch for lunch, one of my favorite places that CK has taken me for lunch. It was delicious as usual and the girls enjoyed drawing while we waited for our food. After lunch, we headed back to CK's office where we brought up the chocolate cupcakes we made earlier that morning and the photo of the girls in their handmade frame. The girls walked the cupcakes around CK's office offering them up and returned with just three left! We talked to a few of CK's co-workers before heading out to the car. On the way to the car, the girls stopped to watch the dancing fountains and got sucked in enough to get completely drenched! They loved it! Well, Sofia loved it and Olivia did too until we started walking back to our car and she realized it was only 50 degrees and being wet meant being even colder! Both girls striped down to their undies and put on their dry sweaters so we could drive home.

After going home for new clothes, we went to the grocery store to pick up that night's dinner that we planned to make as well as a birthday cake. The girls decided on a vanilla cake with vanilla ice cream in the middle. I also picked up birthday candles but accidentally picked out "47" rather than "46"! We picked up a pork loin, potatoes, and broccoli as well as a few different kinds of ice cream. As we were checking out, Sofia noticed that I'd picked up "47" instead of "46" and she ran back to the bakery section to exchange the "7" for a "6" which neither of the candles made it into our bag! Then we headed home and I started cooking while the girls continued to add ornaments to our tree and played.

Sofia set the table so it looked really nice for CK's birthday celebration and I worked on dinner, cooking the pork loin and broccoli and mashing the potatoes. We ate and celebrated CK and finished up by singing happy birthday while he blew out the candles on his cake. The cake was good and we didn't end up using any of the other ice cream. After ice cream birthday cake, we opened birthday presents. The girls got him a couple of Tom and Jerry DVDs, which they all love to watch together, Buddy got him a new Orvis shirt and I got him a new watch band for his watch. It was a fun celebration!

The next night, we had a sitter come at 5pm and CK and I drove into Dallas to meet two of his flying buddies and their wives for dinner at Al Biernat's. It was such a fun night and a great meal and CK loved sitting at the end of the table talking airplanes with his buddies. It was a fun second celebration!

The girls in front of the fountains at CK's office building, Fountain Place. They are totally mesmerized by these dancing waters.

Crazy girl!

Love this picture of Sofia!

Wet!

And VERY wet!

After dinner with their Papa

Opening gifts

The homemade airplane Sofia made for CK

Reading Sofia's card

Reading Olivia's card

Happy Birthday to the best Papa in the world!

Oh Christmas Tree!

This afternoon, we finally picked out a Christmas tree! A little late but better than never and the prices were outstanding! I decided to go to our local Ace Hardware Store where all trees are 50% off and let the girls pick out the perfect tree. I prefer having a Douglas Fir because it seems to hold up well, the branches are strong and the needles are short enough that it's easy to hold ornaments. Sofia and Olivia decided to pick out a pine tree, which is really bushy and has long (and we soon found out, sharp) needles. It did look pretty and was a great price at $15. We paid for it and two of the hardware guys cut off the base They tied it to our roof with the two pieces of rope I thought to bring and we were soon headed home. Thankfully, it's only about 4-5 miles to our house so we were able to drive slowly on the back streets.

Once we were home, we untied the tree and somehow got it off the top of the car. I attached the tree stand and Sofia and I carried it into the house. Olivia had fallen asleep on the ride from the hardware store, so I moved her into her bed right before we got the tree off the car. The tree was surprisingly light and easy to carry, so we got it into the house and set it up. However, one of the screws on our tree stand is broken, so it leaned to one side but seemed secure enough. After adding water to the tree stand, I went into our attic and got the Christmas ornaments out and took them downstairs. I have over three boxes of ornaments, most of which I've had since I was little and nearly all from my Mom over the years. I really love going through them and remembering when I got them, or looking at the photos and thinking of that time. Now we have many with the girls' handprints or their art work so it makes our tree very special to me. I showed Sofia how to put the Christmas lights on the tree and she did a great job until I finished putting them at the top. Then I let Sofia add the ornaments while I worked in the kitchen. She had a ball and before I knew it it seemed like the majority of our ornaments were out and scattered on our floor! She loves taking them out and making stories with them and playing with them like toys. She did a good job hanging the ornaments, although it was pretty difficult to do with how sharp the needles were and the branches toward the bottom were not very sturdy.

After Olivia woke up, the three of us continued to add ornaments. It was really fun and the girls stood on the couch arm to reach higher into the tree. We finished up with less than half of our ornaments on the tree, but it looked good and we were all sort of tired of getting poked by the needles. Every year I tell myself that I will go through and organize the ornaments, but never seem to do so. Maybe this year I will but now it seems overwhelming with so many unopened ornaments.

After decorating the tree, I set the girls in front of it and took a photo with them and Buddy, who wore reindeer antlers and didn't even seem to mind. The photo really turned out cute and I was glad to have finally taken it since the girls had painted wood frames to put the picture into. We look forward to a fun Christmas!

Our new Christmas tree!

Our tree tied on top of the loaner car. Olivia opened her eyes briefly for this photo, but was asleep before and after.

Sofia decorating

Adding an ornament

The ornaments scattered about the room while she works

Olivia helps

The final touch - adding the angel

Sofia puts it on the tree

Our angel

Buddy and the girls

Clowning around with the fun hats

Our sweet dog!