December iPhone Pics

It has begun. She refuses to get out of the tub. Even after it's drained and she's freezing, she doesn't care. We have to drag her out kicking and screaming. I love bath time!

Someone is a little obsessed with my Christmas Village. She's already broken pieces off of Scrooge's house, the Christmas house. She's killed Ebenezer and killed the ghost of Christmas future. She learned how to turn the village on by herself and yells at everyone if it's turned off "No turn Christmas off!"

Sydney did her own makeup. "mommy, I tried to do a smokey eye. It's really hard to do! Do you see how I blended the purple and pink into each other? It's good, isn't it!"

Madeline became a slight obsession

We had a HUGE rainbow!

Syd and I went to Beauty and the Beast on Broadway with Papa and Lala

Smoochies

Our elves got a little out of control

Making our Christmas Cookie mix for the neighbors

Christmas Caroling with Girl Scouts

Addison just HAD to put on her Anna night gown on Christmas day.

Sydney Gets Her Ears Pierced!

The very last present that Sydney opened on Christmas was some alcohol swabs. She was all confused, but then I told her that she'd need those after her ears were pierced! EEEK!!! She was so excited! She counted down the days until it was time to go, but then she was kinda sick to her stomach from nerves. Grace and Lala also decided to come along and get their ears done as well! The plan was for Lala to go first and then Syd would go second so that her nerves wouldn't get the best of her. That plan pretty much went out the window when the time came. 

The girl with no holes in her ears

Lala goes first

All the girls watch

Here she goes!

It was time for Syd to get her ears marked. This was the easy part. Then she did a huge standoff for about 45 minutes refusing to do it because Grace cried when she got hers done. FINALLY the girl got some courage and sat on her mama's lap and did it! She cried for for a minute and then was done. 

 Some puffy eyes, but this was literally a minute after she got them done. So proud of her!

Her newly pierced ears

Sydney's New Room

The other half of Sydney's reward for being on Honor Roll during the First Grade was a room makeover. Big Girl style. She needed some time to really think about what she wanted, so we planned on doing the makeover during winter break. She finally figured out her plan and we bought bedding and paint. She even changed up the pictures she had on her wall. She's growing up!

Christmas Day

Christmas Day couldn't come soon enough for everyone. In fact, Addison didn't want to go to sleep on Christmas Eve, so I told her that she could finally open all her presents when she woke up in the morning. So she said "Ok Mom!" I was pretty shocked how willing she was. So I took her to bed, she didn't even want a story! I laid her in bed and about two minutes after leaving her room she screamed for me. I walked in her room, she threw her covers off of her and said "I waked up!" Haha if only it was that simple. :) 

Sydney had such a hard time deciding what to ask Santa for this year. She must've changed her mind three or four times. Finally, just days before Christmas, she grabbed some paper and wrote this note to Santa.

It took a little while to find Santa's present under the tree, but it was the one she wanted to open first. Because of her letter, the present was actually to our entire family from Santa....annnnd it was a mini iPad!!!!

After presents, Papa and Lala came over for breakfast. Amazing Eggs Benedict and then also my failed attempt at gluten free monkey bread that didn't cook :( booo!!! Always risky to try new recipes on holidays. We laid around a while after that and then headed over to the Murphy's house for crab legs, lobster tails and filet mignon! We had sooo much fun!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is an action-packed day for us....especially this year. I got the kids in the bathtub so that we could all get ready for church prior to luminaria assembly with the neighborhood. Only problem was that when I went to drain the kids bathtub, the toilet started to bubble. Next thing I heard was Chris screaming across the house that raw sewage was coming up our shower drain!! Merry Christmas!! Thankfully Old Pueblo works on Christmas Eve, so they came out to pump our tank. They came just in time for us the luminaria assembly to smell the lovely potpourri filling the neighborhood air. 

I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I didn't get a chance to take any Christmas Eve photos of the girls in their dresses other than when they were lighting the luminarias. Ugh...mommy fail!

We headed off to church. The kids had such a fun time during the candle lit service! When we came home, our entire neighborhood was lit up! Then it was time for the kids to open one present, so we chose one from Uncle Matt and Aunt Amanda for each of them. 

Of course, they couldn't wait until morning to play with their new toys

Time to put cookies out for Santa and a carrot out for Rudolph

 

 

Sydney's Communion

Sydney loves going to church and learning about God more than anyone I know. So when it came time for her communion, she was super excited! She had to attend classes every Wednesday and learn all about the Last Supper. Finally the day before Thanksgiving, we had her ceremony. All the kids were called up in front and given their cross that they made. They also received a hand crocheted prayer scarf.

The kids went up to take a couple of blessings off of the cross to read them outloud.

Yeay! So proud! 

Sydney's Lala and Papa gave her a wooden prayer cross. Her Nonnie got her a bracelet.