Merry Christmas

Christmas is here. We are still enjoying the fact that the girls slept until a little after eight this morning. We got a whole bunch of fresh snow overnight, so we are excited about the white Christmas. Here are some pictures of the morning activities:

The Big Guy came:
let the chaos begin

It's exciting

There's still time to strike a pose

I could get used to this

Some blocks from Santa

A princess castle for our very own princess

A little too much of a good thing

I thought I would add in some funny things that Alexandria has said throughout this month. She heard the song 'Santa Baby' on the radio and decided she liked it. She now requests to hear the song 'Santa's Baby' when we are listening to Christmas music. Another funny one is related to another Christmas song, 'The First Noel'. According to Alexandria, this song is 'The First Oh Well' and she sings it that way full blast through the house..."Oooh Well, Oooh Well, Oooh Well." While we were decorating our gingerbread houses Alexandria referred to Hershey's kisses as "Hermley kisses." The last entry of Alexandriaisms relates to her Cinderella castle. It has a little elevator in it. Alexandria told me this morning that she needed to let her doll ride the "alligator" to the top.

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and hope that all of our family and friends who are away have a safe and happy holiday.

Christmas Eve

We thought we would share some of our family Christmas Eve traditions with everyone. We have had a great holiday season and hope it has been the same for all of you. We actually kicked off the festivities on Monday the 17th with Christmas chimes (I'm sorry I forgot to take pictures, but my head is still ringing). On Friday we continued with our annual family Christmas sleepover. As you can see below, this is basically us pulling the mattresses out into the family room, watching Christmas movies, staying up into the wee hours, and eating lots of treats.

Alexandria catching some air
after jumping off the piano bench

The Littlest decided she's into it too

The ladies getting ready to watch
some Christmas flicks

For Christmas Eve we relaxed for most of the day. At around 4:30 we had our big feast and then we watched the Nativity DVD. The girls opened up their new Christmas pajamas and then we danced to the Nutcracker (if anyone ever brings this up in public I have no recollection :-)). After the dancing we were ready to eat again, so we decorated our gingerbread houses. All in all it was a great day. The girls are very excited for Santa's visit. It's a good thing that they have to be asleep for him to come. Speaking of which, I'd better sign off so the big man himself can get his work done. Merry Christmas!

Getting ready to eat some food

The candle is on "twenty fourteen" tonight

Some dancing with our two
sugarplum fairies

Alexandria pulling off some
gnarly aerials

All of this sugar just for me?!

How many pounds of candy
can my house support?

Betsy is a fan of the gingerbread
sans candy

There's mine, less the gummy bears
I had to relinquish to Alexandria
(I guess I shouldn't have taken the last couple)

This is a little snippet of the after-bath scenario
with Elizabeth. Let go of her at your
own risk.

Winter Wonderland

So we've got snow. It took a while for it to finally decide to fall, but it's here. Alexandria and I decided to go outside and play. She still needed to really try out her sled that she got from Santa last year. I pulled her over to the golf course, where there is a pretty good little hill, and we went sledding, had a snowball fight, built a snow man (that Alexandria promptly knocked over), and then built a snow castle.

All set to go outside...

Aftermath of a successful sled run

She rolled this one all by herself...
no joke

Our snow castle

Christmas is Coming

This last week we pulled out the Christmas tree and started preparations for the coming holiday. The girls were very excited to get the decorations out and trim the tree. Elizabeth knew something exciting was going on because she was absolutely thrilled about the whole thing. Alexandria let us know that she wants Santa to bring her a Cinderella video that works (our VCR gave up the ghost a couple of months ago) and a Cinderella castle. We'll have to see if the Jolly Old Elf has enough time to get those things ready for his Christmas Eve sleigh ride. We hope that your preparations are fun as well. We wish all of our family members and friends, especially those on missions right now, a safe and happy Christmas season. Enjoy the pictures...

Getting the lights on the tree

The ladies decorating

Alexandria and me getting ready to put some
ornaments on the tree

The finished product...
Merry Christmas everyone!