Christmas 2013

We had a great Christmas! with lots of fun, smiles and family!!

I'm including some pictures from our Christmas card photo shoot that I attempted to do myself.  I am not sure how photographers do it.  I could not get both kids to look at the camera and smile at the same time. I took two roles of wrapping paper (next time I'm using fabric) and draped it from the fireplace. I put the camera on the sports setting and we attempted to get a good picture. 

We did get some pretty fun outtakes!

Keep away from Simon

This was our first runner-up

Evelyn leaned on Simon and he just folded in half

Simon tried to eat Evelyn's arm

This was The Picture!

I promise they do like each other

We had had almost enough at this point

Then Daddy got a giggle

Always a happy little man

We skipped the mall Santa this year and went downtown to Santa's house to get our picture taken. This was actually a great idea as there was only one family in line in front of us and it had such a fun little setting. We went to one of Evelyn's favorite restaurants first to get her a Eurodog, unfortunately fruit seems to be out of season there so she had to get Cheetos. 

We were pretty excited to see the big guy!

Simon and Daddy waiting in line.

"Ta-da"

Simon was a bit bundled and this was as close as Evie would get, but I like it

We did some Christmas artwork.  I didn't get a picture of the ornaments we made using the kids handprints as snowmen. I also don't have a picture to post of the tree skirt we put the kids handprints on every year.

We made a footprint/handprint manger scene

So much fun projecting

In the week leading up to Christmas, Simon discovered the Christmas tree. My solution was to build a Little People village all around to block off the tree in a fun way while I tried to get some baking done.

Evie's pink shirt blends in with her chair. She kept turning the castle to get to all sides and Simon would take advantage of any opening he could find. 

On Christmas Eve we had some last minute visitors due to the ice storm down state causing an extended power outage. Though we loved getting to see cousins (and Dave and Julie) at the holiday, hopefully circumstances will be better next time.

Simon loved the cupcakes Daddy brought home

Always fun playing with cousins!

We left out cookies, milk and carrots for Santa and the Reindeer

Evie said 2 cookies and 4 carrots, I think she likes reindeer better

We hung our stockings over the fireplace. Simon's stocking is the same one that Aunt Abby, myself, and Evie used for our first Christmas

After Santa came and before the kids woke up!

Christmas morning was very exciting! Santa didn't wrap the big gifts for each kid, so they could right away hurry over and play! We then had a nice breakfast, Simon took his morning nap, Daddy cleared the driveway so Papa and Gran would at least have some clear roads, then we started opening the pile of presents. Papa and Gran arrived shortly after we started opening gifts. We took another break from gifts about an hour later to have our big Christmas meal. We continued opening and playing all afternoon and evening and finally finished up around 7:30 Christmas night.  I think I may have been a new record for longest time taken opening gifts!

Not sure she's ever seen anything so exciting

Simon dove right in ready to play

Ripley found his new toy right away too

Simon really like all the curly ribbon

We had Rudolph pancakes for breakfast (Thank you Pinterest)

Evie got a new vanity and spent any down time all day "getting ready"

It was all a bit much for the Ripley and his new fox

Papa and Simon got some good cuddles in trying not to fall asleep

and the aftermath of over 7 hours of gift opening. It may seem crazy, but wow was it fun!

And I do believe Simon's favorite part was that once again the tree was clear for him to try to pull down on his head

Hoping all of you had as wonderful of a Christmas as we did!