The Christmas Season

We had a truly wonderful Christmas season this year!! Way, way too short... but perfect. Thanksgiving fell at the very end of November, so after Thanksgiving it was only a short 3 1/2 weeks until Christmas. I also managed to bring home a terrible stomach bug over Thankgiving break, which eventually got EVERYONE in the family (even extended family and friends) sick. This delayed our Christmas fesivities by a solid week! We had to get festive quickly this year, which was not easy to do with us living in 2 houses (in seperate cities), a toddler, a pregnancy and 3 jobs between Rich and I! Whew!

Can't wait for us all to live under only 1 roof in 1 city with only 1 job!! July is going to be amazing!!

The Lights Before Christmas at the Riverbanks Zoo. If I haven't said it already, I really really love our zoo! It's the best!! The Christmas lights did not disappoint, and Blakely went absolutely CRAZY!!

Blakely and Banks both LOVE lions, and they will "roar" at each other often! So funny!

MIRACLE! Both babies looking at the camera and NO ONE is crying!!!

Blakely and her PopPop!!

Sadly, this was as good a picture as we could get of the littles, Gigi and PopPop!! I just love that these two love each other! I'm just not sure how Banks feels about all the "love" Blakely has to give him!!



We knew we had to get Blakely to the zoo this year. She absolutely LOVES "twinkly lights!" She will stare all day at the colored lights on our tree, quietly examining each one. Whenever we play in the playroom at night, the windows have a great view of neighbor's homes which all have colored lights on them. She will point and shout "Lights! Green! Red! Lights!" She did not disappoint... her excitement at the zoo was contagious!!

Gigi and her best girl



Blakely HATES Santa. I knew that a picture was Santa was off the table, but thought that a picture in his chair might be a good substitute. I could not have been more wrong!

She could see Santa coming, and it was over. Oh well, guess we will have to wait for Santa pics until she is older.

Blakely's Daddy loved the lights too! Hee hee.

 

 

Our new home decorated for Christmas

Our first live Christmas tree!! It was so much fun to have the house smell like Christmas, and Blakely LOVED having a "twee!!" in the house.

Blakely is kind of into fairies right now, and the angel did have "wings" just like a fairy. It was her favorite Christmas decoration, and she would always tell us about the "angel" and her "wings" everytime we went up our down the stairs.

Ready to decorate...

This girl loves Christmas lights, just like her Mommy!!

Helping Daddy put our special decoration on the tree.

Our first fireplace to hand stockings on!!! Usually our stockings are just hung on a shelf... this year we were ready for Santa!

Love our new house decorated for Christmas!!

 

 

Every year, I tell Blakely all the storied behind our ornaments as we put them on the Christmas tree. May not be the most designer, beautiful tree, but it is full of precious memories from our family.

So we thought that if the kids don't like Santa, maybe they would warm up to him if PopPop dressed up like Santa. After all, PopPop is like their favorite playmate. We could not have been more wrong! This is a picture of Blakely screaming as PopPop walked in the room JUST in the red pants and boots!! Banks reaction was just as bad. Poor PopPop.

But WAIT! Does PopPop have my 12-days Presents?

Blakely loved opening her 12-Days-of-Christmas presents each day... her favorite gift (probably of all of Christmas) was a box of plastic bugs! So strange, and who would have guessed, but she LOVES them!!

 

On December 20th, GrandAnnie and GrandPop arrived for the Christmas festiviites!! It was unseasonably warm, so Blakely and GrandPop got to enjoy some "fall fun!"

She loved playing in the leaves with her Grandpop!

 

My little chef also helped decorate Christmas cookies for friends and family. She was very focused and diligent in her decorating. She placed the M&M's and sprinkles on one at a time!! So careful and precise.

Daddy sampling Blakely's handiwork!

She enjoyed eating them as much as decorating.... she ate ALL the M&M's off the top of the cookies (as fast as you please) and then kept asking "more cook-ie, more cook-ie."

Can't wait til this little chef gets to help me more in the kitchen!! Such a big girl.