Our Christmas

After our Christmas Eve service, we headed back home so excited to begin our Christmas festivities!!Our little family's tradition is to have lots of fun snacks, read the Christmas story, and open 1 gift apiece before going to bed...well,the kids go to bed, the parents stay up way to late, and scurry to get all the last minute Christmas preparations done!! In our case, it involved packing for a week long vacation to the Grandparents homes too! We were wanting to leave right after our Christmas day church service, to drive the 2and1/2 hours to Grampie and Grammie Cameron's place, where all the cousins were waiting for us to have Christmas  dinner there.

Back to Christmas Eve.....

While the rest of us were listening to the Christmas story being read, Elin was checking out the treats.

                                       And was very excited over her discoveries!!

                                              Excited girls listening patiently!!

                                           Elin's collection is getting larger..

                                                         now the gifts!

                                 we even had some special visitors come! In lieu of our own family relations, Dale and Brenda Snowdon, a couple from our church came and were the happy Grandparents to see the girls play with their gifts much to the delight of the girls!( and Ryan and I as well)

                                            Eva falling asleep on "Grampa Dale" with her new Elmo

                                                   Hours later, all the Christmas Sacks are all lined up, awaiting the Christmas morning rush!! Our Family 's version of stockings...I guess it has to do with more room for treats!!

                                                 Christmas Day has arrived!!

                                                      and the gifts have begun!!

                                                     Elin;s sack was filled with various baby snacks that she thoroughly enjoyed !!

                                           So after Church, and that long drive, which was very pleasant actually due to 4 sleepy girls, tired from their late night and early morning, we started our Christmas vacation !! Here are Grammie and Uncle T.J. getting the turkey dinner started.

                                                      Grampie with the gravy

                                             Eve, hungrily awaiting the feast!!

                              After we ate it was present time! All the cousins lined themselves up for an impromptu concert! It was so very cute!

                                            Elin sporting a new skirt.

                                               The cousins singing happy birthday to Jesus

                                     Eating the "birthday cake"

                                                   Christmas pictures of all the kids, minus the Nortcliffes ..we missed them!

                                           The next day we got down to the business of celebrating another party..Penelope's ! She had chosen a snake theme, so the kids all were busily  crafting their own neck tie snake pets!

                                               And making pipe cleaner snakes

                                                  While we were there Elin took it upon herself many times to scare her mother by climbing Grammie's big staircase.She was so proud of herself too.

                                                Elin's most favorite person in the world to snuggle next to me, is Grammie...actually Grammie might be the favorite...I just prefer no to think that hard about it. So while we were visiting, The usual sight would be to see the 2 of them together, and Grammie would usually be getting smothered by slobbery baby kisses.

                                                     Such a happy baby!

                                                        Now amidst the snuggling there were also tickling sessions !

                                                         More snuggling

                                  .

                                                          The biggest cousins hanging out

  On our third day there, Grammie got out her huge totes filled with dress up clothes, and the girls had the time of their lives pretending...well not just the girls!!!

                                                       We all headed out on a big walk later on in the afternoon

                              We went up the hill past Mommy and Daddy's house, and when we got to the top,we could see for miles.

                                            Eva's snow tasting skills were exercised all afternoon!

                                             The trip home. Penelope was snuggling Elin close in the sled

                                                Grampie had Leila

                                        When we got back, all the little ones (and some big ones) started to build a huge snowman. Everyone was out front of the house, when I noticed Elle was missing. I went around back of the house, to find her busily making her own little snowman. Grammie had noticed too, and went to get her some accessories to dress it up.

                                                                    Proud and very happy Elle!!

Fun Times

The Girls were given a gingerbread house kit, so we all sat down after school was done for the day and started to decorate ! The girls were most excited about all the bags of candy that came with it!!

                                                    Eva painstakingly lining her candies along the house

                                                                  They were so proud of it. As soon as they were all finished, they asked to eat it!!

                                                        I said they had to wait till after Christmas...mean Mommy!!

                                                      I came across Eva sitting this way one day,and couldn't help but get a picture. Her tiny little feet all tucked up underneath her.

                                              Well, one day I heard lots of giggling in Eva and Elin's shared room, and I came in to find Elin had climbed her way up onto Eva's bed, much to the delight of Eva, and Eva started piling all their toys on top of Elin for her to play with

                                                Lots of excitement and giggling.

                                                                  Soon both of them were up playing. The next day I heard Eva in her 2 year old lisp inviting Elin.."go pay in Ebba's bed? come..pay in Ebba's bed?" The sorry thing was that this day ended less than happy as Elin wasn't  practised in getting out of Eva's bed...

                                                     This happened as We were getting ready for Church Sunday Morning. I looked up from getting Elin dressed to see Eva happily perched in my pot of evergreens. Little feet of the ground, thinking it was the perfect resting place.

Emily and Elle's Christmas Show

Emmy and Elle, worked hard all day, cleaning their toy room and preparing a surprise for the rest of us. They were so excited and couldn't wait to perform their "play" . So after supper,right before everyone showed up for prayer meeting at our house( yes I was stressed with all my last minute things to do!!) We all went downstairs for the "show"

Emily started by pulling up a chair and starting to read Luke 2 from her Bible. Elle stood by waiting for her time to shine.. We had  no idea what to expect.

                                       So Emily is reading, and reading, so Elle spontaneously starts to do these fancy little jigs behind her, Poor thing can't contain her excitement!!

                                             Finally It was time for Elle to do her part!She started bringing an assortment of stuffed animals dressed to resemble Mary and Joseph across the room to under their little table, which we understood to be the makeshift stable....here comes Joseph..

                                               followed by Mary and the donkey

                                                             here they are awaiting their arrival

                                                       and here Elle is hanging off Emily's every word waiting for the action words,for the birth of baby Jesus....

                                         Finally she got to run to the stable, and unnoticed by us, Mary had a baby stuffed into her dress, which Elle efficiently removed in time to Emily's reading "And she brought forth her firstborn son..."

                                                           

                                                            So there is Baby Jesus at Mary's feet...

                                              Now Elle is placing him in the manger which she had forgotten to bring with her in her excitement to deliver Baby Jesus.

                                             Safe in the manger

                                                            The happy scene

                                                  Emily reading on,and Elle preparing the shepherds and wisemen

                                                           Finally the nativity scene was finished! And my stomach was sore from all the giggling. It was so cute to see!

                                                  The girls finished out the evening with some special music and beaming faces,as we applauded  !!

Our Puppy

We have been having so much fun with our new family member,and Christmas present!

                                                 We are always catching the girls snuggling her, or find ourselves sitting down for puppy time!! She is growing very quickly though, and is getting less snuggly and more playful every day.

                                                 She falls asleep in the weirdest positions.

                                         All the girls helping Ryan out with his push-ups!!

                                                         

                                                Chubby thing!

                                                   I find our baby  playing in the kennel more than the puppy !

                                                   Emmy was tickled that Phronsie fell asleep all stretched out on her leg!

                                                        She gets right in the middle of whatever we are doing..and yes it isn't always cute, but this time it was!!

Decorating The Tree

Well, Elle and Ryan went and picked out a beautiful tree for us, and we were all so excited to get it decorated!

                                As you can see, we have a tradition of a plentiful table of fun snacks to enjoy while we decorate, and as you can also see, we have a 4 year old named Elle that was very excited to find all the poinsettias that we put on the tree. Once she spied the first one in the bin,she quickly dug through and gathered a whole bouquet ,that she carried around exclaiming over all evening.

                                                           again, the flowers, and also we were ready to put the ornaments on!

                                                       Enjoying the snacks

                                                         no more explanation needed

                                                    Elin loving the treats!!

                                                   Our Tree!!  We thought it was interesting how only Elle stuck with the decorating with me. Em and Eva started, but the novelty quickly wore off, and notice the right hand side of the tree, where Elle loaded all her favorites!!

                                                  It was a great evening, and my favorite time is when we are all done, and shut the lights out to just look at all the beauty!!