A Glimpse At Our Christmas

Eugene just asked, as he was searching the Pandora stations, if I'd like to end our winter vacation with one last bit of Christmas music.

I immediately responded with a defiant "hayyll-no!"

Listening to Christmas music a week after Christmas? Who does that? Sure, I'm a yuletide wackadoo from about November 15- December 25th and live, eat and breathe everything Christmas but the moment it passes--POOF! it's gone in my book. It's amazing the difference a day makes. But for the purpose of this post, I will take a walk through our 2013 Winter Wonderland one more time…..

Politically correct Kindergarten holiday shows never get old. Well, maybe after my fourth child they will, but not this time.

 

The girls kicked off our Holiday week with their long awaited (since October) performance of Gone With The Breeze. It was adorable of course, as these shows always are.

Bella played the role of Roxanne, a highly festive Lone Pine Studio receptionist. She was awesome. It wasn't the first time Bella had speaking parts, but it was the first time I saw that she was really comfortable on stage. She took her time speaking her lines and I was so proud to see her growth. Fantastic job sweetie!

She even had a duet called It's a Crazy, Crazy, Business--a little ditty about the highs and lows of Hollywood!

Mia was in the chorus as a tourist of the Lone Pine Studios. 

She's so funny on stage and takes her dance moves very seriously! 

My favorite part was after the bows when the whole cast hoorayed, hugged and high-fived each other on stage--so happy to be a part of their theatre group, so proud their hard work payed off. 

It was SO Saturday Night Live. 

Instead of flower bouquets I opted for the daintiest little pink corsages (sprinkled with iridescent glitter of course) and the girls just loved their floral jewelry!

We took the kids on a mini-van trip around the neighborhood to see all the twinkly lights.

And here's what may be my favorite Christmas picture ever. Bella and Chance watch on as Angel Mia delivers food in our church's Christmas pageant, it was really precious. 

We made our Christmas paper bag scrapbooks again this year by recycling last year's christmas cards and printing up a ton of our holiday pictures over the years.

After the pictures and embellishments were glued on, we added some details and words and then I modge-podged the heck out of it.

Here's a snapshot of one of Bella's pages

Christmas Eve baking.

Snickerdoodles for Santa.

Christmas Eve family party hijinks.

After getting the kids tucked in their beds and wrapping every present (total procrastinators) Eugene and I finally went to sleep around 2AM. I swear we will do it differently next year and actually enjoy the night before.

The silence that finally comes after every present is placed under the tree is one of my most anticipated Christmas moments. I've come to love being a parent on Christmas Eve--it really is special.

But before we knew it, there was a 6AM knock on our door.

And the anticipation consumed them.

Release the hounds...

For Christmas my sister bought the girls mannequin hair dolls. They come with a stand that attaches to the table and all day long the girls were brushing and styling their hair. I, on the other hand, yelled at the girls TWICE for being horrible listeners only to find out that I was talking to the back of DOLL HEADS!

Let's see, Santa brought Chance a super cool red and yellow dragon that spreads its wings and growls. Mia received a lab coat and a chemistry set, since her ambition is to be a fancy scientist.

 

Santa brought Bella a really unique fort building set. Bella loves to build blanket forts and these sticks and glow-in-the-dark ball connectors make building forts a blast. Santa even included two dark navy king size sheets for coverage, that Santa, always thinking!!

Here's her castle and porch design. Look at how swank she made the inside!

   

Indy received his very own V-Tech iPhone look alike. It was a huge hit for a hot minute until he realized that the apps were totally 1G.

The girls also received the Elsa and Anna costumes from the movie Frozen and have worn them everyday and take them off only to switch to the other costume--obsessed doesn't even begin to describe it. We headed to Minnesota the day after Christmas to have some fun with my brother's family and the celebration continued still. I love that we have spent the past two months celebrating with ALL of our immediate families. What an awesome season this turned out to be.

And even though my tree is still up and the Christmas lights hang outside, I've filed these red and green memories and look forward to the anticipation another Christmas will bring.

Merry Christmas!
2013