Christmas Photos Take 2

Eleanor wasn’t cooperative the Sunday before Christmas, so the Sunday after Christmas, the girls donned their Christmas outfits one more time for their “Christmas Dresses Photos.” When they rolled their eyes, I told them there might be an extra candy cane in it for them and they were suddenly willing to smile for 2.5 minutes.

One mistake was putting shoes on Elle… so alluring!

 

Oopsy daisy.

Elle was too interested in her shiny moccs to care about pictures.

         

Oooh sparkles.

Fascinating view!

 

Lots of love,

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Christmas PJ Photos

Our twins club does an annual Christmas Pajamas Photo Shoot as a fundraiser, and this year, the date finally worked for us. We were in and out of the photographer’s studio in 20 minutes and the girls were miraculously cooperative! I ended up buying all the photos because I just couldn’t decide on six…

My personal fave!

Elf Amelia.

Elf Samantha.

Lots of Elf Meredith.

Elf Eleanor.

By this point, Eleanor was starting to get sleepy and sick of the scene changes.

Eleanor went to sleep in the Ergo so the three amigas took a few last shots by themselves. 

Lots of love,

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Christmas Day 2018

Christmas 2018 was the first year Meredith really remembered and understood who Santa was, and it was so much fun watching her excitement Christmas morning. She kept asking, “Where’s Elfie?” (our resident Elf on the Shelf) and before opening any of her presents, she jumped around exclaiming, “Thank you, Santa! Thank you, Santa!”

Meredith is very vocal about her gratitude!

The girls opened their stockings first and after breakfast started digging in to the gift pile.

Eleanor’s first Christmas!

Eleanor got stuck under the presents!

Help!

Everyone was antsy when I didn’t let anyone open presents until we had taken a billion photos of Eleanor by the presents. You only get ONE first Christmas!

Can I be done yet?

Amelia helped Eleanor open a few presents. She loved her new Baby Lit Classic books– Emma and Sense and Sensibility.

Intermission while I put down Elle for her nap. Gift opening resumed once I got back downstairs.

The girls asked Santa for “puppy purses” and the big guy came through.

Meredith is obsessed with hot wheels and play doh.

 

The fluffiest sleeping bags I’ve ever seen, courtesy of Aunt Sarah and Uncle Mike.

 

For the grand finale, the girls went on a treasure hunt to find three new bikes outside (one was “new” to Meredith– one of the twins’ old bikes, wrapped up with pretty ribbon!). We took them for a spin immediately. Meredith is pretty good on her strider bike, but this was her first try on a real bike. No training wheels!

She’s still learning, but is making progress.


 

 

Amelia and Samantha received upgrades from their old bikes which they were getting too tall for. Instead of going with the next size up, which they would have grown out of within a year or so, we went two sizes up. The new bikes were a touch too tall, but after several rides, they got the hang of them. The hardest part is climbing aboard, since they are a little too short for them, but Grammy taught them how to mount their bikes from the curb. They were so excited to have their first gear bikes!

 

So happy on her new wheels!

The kids played all day and were HANGRY for our Christmas feast. Cousin Ben, Great Grandpa, and Auntie Lynn and Uncle Steve joined us for dinner– we made everyone take home tons of leftovers. SO much food.

 

Auntie Lynn brought the brisket and we did the sides (garlic mashed potatoes, pecan-crusted sweet potatoes, corn bread apple sage and sausage stuffing, regular stuffing, winter salad, cranberry chutney, balsamic glazed brussel sprouts with butternut squash, lemony green beans with almonds and rolls) — YUM!

 

I ate with the lovelies at the kids table.

My dessert selection included homemade orange cranberry sweet bread, oreo chocolate truffles, peppermint bark, apple pie from the girls’ school fundraiser, and an orange cranberry trifle that took three days to make. Special kudos to Jake for slicing thin strips of orange peel and spending an hour stirring them with sugar on the stove to create the candied orange peel on top!

 

Sammy enjoyed the truffles a little too much.

Tickle time.

Watching Frosty after dessert.

We had to watch Christmas movies on the lap top since our new built-in was still under construction on Christmas.

Almost ready…

Done except the floor, baseboards and stuff for the shelves.

Meredith’s new hot wheels racing track was a hit. The kids watched the cars go around and around and then… CRASH. Totally mesmerized.

Grammy and Eleanor.

Dominoes was a favorite of Jake’s growing up, but the girls were a little too crazed on sugar and excitement to sit still long enough to play. The cranky girls went straight to bed after a long day!

Lots of love,
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Christmas 2017

After a month’s worth of festivities, we celebrated our very first Christmas in our new house! Although the girls really missed going to Utah this year, there were definitely some upsides to not traveling over the holiday (e.g. no tiring road trip or hauling gifts!) Grammy and Grandpa came to us, so everyone was happy.

We spent Christmas Eve hanging out at home, tracking Santa’s journey through Alexa, watching movies, and setting out cookies/carrots for Santa and his reindeer. The most exciting event of the night was our kitchen almost being set on fire! I had ordered catering through a restaurant for our Christmas Eve dinner and tasked Grandpa with picking it up. I was on a bike ride with Meredith and was on my way home when I smelled smoke coming from somewhere in our neighborhood. I figured someone must be having a Christmas Eve bbq, but as I got closer, I realized the smoke was definitely coming from our house!

When I raced inside, the twins were already on the porch and wasted no time placing the blame! Apparently, Grandpa had put the aluminum catering trays inside the oven to keep the food warm, but didn’t take the out of the cardboard boxes they were in to carry and they caught on fire! Grammy quickly grabbed the flaming boxes and put them outside; thankfully, neither the food nor our kitchen was damaged. It was just really smokey! It was a good lesson in fire safety for the twins and we had a good time joking about Grandpa burning down our kitchen over Christmas!

We concentrated our money on getting the outside of our house decorated for Christmas, and I decided not to buy a bunch of decorations for the tree in our new house this year since our tree was super tall and required a ton more decorations than we already had. The twins decorated with homemade ornaments; hence only four feet of our tree had ornaments!

Santa came!

The twins were excited about the rings, necklaces silly putty and paint markers from Santa. Santa spent a lot of time at Claire’s this year!

Everyone loved the stick-on earrings!

Meredith’s favorite– animals!

Meredith calls candy canes “nandies.” Pweeeeease have nandy???

Special deliveries from Santa.

As requested, Santa brought Samantha and Amelia the frilly silk nightgowns they had asked for, plus chalk for Samantha and a few extra goodies for Amelia. Santa was very please that the girls asked for such simple gifts! The twins also told Santa that Meredith wanted her own apron for baking, like the ones they have, and Santa came through, thanks to the cute American Girl baking collection at WIlliams Sonoma! He also brought everyone a dollhouse, which no one cared about except for Meredith!

We took turns with each of the girls going to Target earlier in the month where they picked out presents for each other using their own money. Meredith loved her piggy bank from Samantha and her Moana rooster stuffed animal from Amelia! It’s fun to see what they pick out for each other. Amelia usually tends to pick out something that she herself would like, while Samantha takes a little bit more time thinking of something unique to her sisters.

My surprise gift from the girls was a homemade sign for our house with their handprints! Jake and Grammy went to the shop earlier that week to put on the finishing touches:

I’m always a sucker for homemade gifts.

Meredith is still obsessed with this code-a-pillar from Uncle Mike and Ali.

To my annoyance, Meredith is constantly bringing in her scooter and plasma car from outside and riding them around the house, so we got her an inside riding toy, which she quickly lost interest in. It’s only fun if if it’s tracking in dirt to our house!

Homemade gifts are always our favorite.

Underwater camera from Uncle Mike and Ali.

Cool books and a solar photography kit from Aunt Sarah.

Grandpa bought us a fire extinguisher, presumably for next time he almost burns the house down.

Peekaboo!

Books and crafts from Grammy!

We always look forward to seeing our yearly calendar from Aunt Sarah.

Pogo sticks!

Everyone was occupied the rest of the day trying out their new gifts and helping Jake rip up the carpet upstairs and put in our new wood floors. They accomplished a good amount of flooring over Christmas break!

“Helping” Daddy roll out the underlayment.

Meredith’s room all torn up.

Christmas dinner featured prime rib, garlic mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts, cranberry sauce, rolls, sweet potato pecan casserole and a delicious new pie recipe from Grammy.

The twins pranced in their new nightgowns while Daddy installed the floor.   

Favorite pics from Christmases of the past..

Samantha:

Amelia:

A few video moments from Christmas 2017!

It was a very merry Christmas!

Lots of love,

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