Post Christmas festivities...part 1

The Friday after Christmas was a low-key day for us...no company yet. Caleb did have a full day of tennis.  So that meant some play time at home for the girls.  I snapped a few shots of them blowing bubbles outside, as they waited for Caleb to get back from tennis.

 Saturday afternoon my sister and her crew arrived.  I spent the entire morning and first part of the afternoon making homemade chocolate ice cream and a fluffy vanilla cake with sweet buttercream frosting, for Jesus's birthday, of course.  I finished up with all that just in time for company to arrive.  Soon afterward Patrick had to run errands.   So I enlisted the help of my sister for dinner that night.  We made chicken parmigiana with homemade fettuccini.  Yum!  Then it was time to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and dig in to some cake and ice cream.

 The next day the cousins hung out and played together.  There were several games of ping pong, and even the three year olds tried to play.  It was hilariously cute!

 They managed to watch just one movie, Frozen of course.  My nephew Josh was soo stinkin' cute singing and dancing to "Let It Go."

 There was a lot of block building going on, the Great Wall of China and cars to name a few.

 Then after a delicious dinner of bacon wrapped filet mignon and stuffed shrimp with mashed potatoes, green beans with lemon and almonds, and spoon bread, it was time to open presents yet again.

 I just had to share the cute lens coffee mug my sister and I both received from her in-laws.

 After presents and dessert, the big girls put on a puppet show for us with the kids new puppet theater. And when the big girls were done, the three year olds grabbed some stuffed animals and put on a "puppet" show of their own.

After the show, it was time to say good-bye to Andy and his parents, as he had to work the next day.  However, my sister stayed with her kids because we all headed down to South Florida the next day to spend it with our dear cousins Ed and Eileen.  That part will be continued....

Mickey's Very Merry Christmas party

Happy New Year's Eve!!!

As I scroll through the photos I have taken in the month of December, I can't believe it.  I went from hardly picking up my camera in November to shooting "overdrive".  I still have so many photos I want to share.  So I will be on a posting frenzy.  As is usually the case, I will be late with my "Year in Review" post.  I will probably get that up in the next week. For now, though, I want to back up to the weekend before Christmas.

Since it had been a few years since we attended Mickey's Very Merry Christmas party, we thought we would make time for it this year.  We arrived around 4:30 because we prefer to keep our visits short (it helps us keep our sanity as the evening progresses.)  We usually go to Tomorrow Land first. So we made our way to the People Mover.

Havi is in this phase where she is afraid of the pitch dark.  So she needed some cuddling during parts of the ride.  Next up was the Raceway.  Caleb was so thrilled to be tall enough to "ride alone".  He had been looking forward to that solo drive for....ever.

The sun was setting as we were in line and on the track. So I couldn't really capture any decent photos.  But since there was a bit of a back up, I thought I would try to snap a photo of me with my precious shotgun rider.

Then we decided to grab dinner before the dinner crowd had the same idea.  After filling up, we headed over to Carousel of Progress...only to find out we were 5 minutes too late, as the ride had just closed for the evening.  Boo! The dumplings were singing the theme song all week long. So they were a bit disappointed we just missed it.  We decided to head over to Fantasy Land to ride the Barnstormer.

We were so thrilled that the wait time said 5 minutes.  Madeline and I ran all the way to the top and walked right on the roller coaster.  No waiting!!!  We had so much fun, we ran all the way down as we exited the ride so we could do it again!  This time, we had to wait once just so we could ride in the front row.  It was worth it!  The front row was a blast!  Good call Madeline!

Then we scooted on over to Ariel's Grotto.  Poor little Havi was upset with the dark.  But she managed to settle down a bit and enjoy the ride some.  Then I rode the carousel with both Caleb and Madeline.  

After the carousel, we grabbed some hot chocolate and sugar cookies.  Then we thought we'd head over to Pirates of the Carribean before the parade....only it, too, was also closed for the evening.  Poor Caleb was looking forward to it.  What a bummer.  Well, we decided to wait for the parade, and we're glad we did.  Havi insisted we go "home now".  Being at Disney in the dark was just too much for her.  At the start of the parade, she didn't even watch.  She just played with my phone.  Then Patrick held her, and she actually began to enjoy it.  We were so thankful for the turn around.

We headed home once the parade was over, and all three dumplings promptly fell asleep once we began driving.  It was a fun night and cold enough toward the end of the evening to enjoy hot chocolate, which hasn't been the case much of December.

So now that I'm caught up with sharing all that happened before Christmas, I will have to share our post-Christmas Christmas celebrations...yes, you read that right...plural.  We partied for three more days, in fact! lol  Stay tuned...

Our Christmas festivities...mostly

I hope you all had a wonderful, relaxing and joy-filled Christmas.  I know we did!

In an effort to play catch up and do a better job sharing on the blog, I figured I should get crackin' on all the Christmas festivity photos that were begging to be edited.  I'll start with Christmas Eve.  We attended our church's 2pm service.  So after lunch, we headed out.

 I know you might be thinking the above photo is more appropriate for an Easter service.  Well, we don't always go with "traditional" around here.  So it works for us.  But the good news is, the girls can certainly wear their dresses again, for Easter. lol

After church, we came home and started working on dinner.  We have started a tradition of eating lobster on Christmas Eve.  To this we added some Alaskan king crab legs (Caleb tried them a few weeks ago and LOVED them), and I also made some potato latkes.  It was so delicious.

We have been working our way through Ann Voskamp's book Unwrapping the Greatest Gift: A Family Celebration of Christmas, which we love. So we read another passage.  And then the dumplings each opened up a "group" gift for them to enjoy together. And then Caleb and Madeline each opened up a special Willow Tree figure.

 Then it was time for lights out and a quick snap of the tree with all the presents underneath.  This is not a Pinterest-worthy presents-under-the-tree photo.  Nope.  The wrapping paper isn't all coordinated.  Not every present has a bow, or a tag for that matter.  But under the tree is love and thoughtfulness wrapped up in a variety of gifts from lots of different people.

Much to our surprise Christmas morning, Caleb didn't wake up till 6:45am.  (Havi had been up for a bit with Patrick.)  So we had him go wake up Madeline.  We poured our coffee, and I took the cinnamon rolls I was proofing overnight out of the fridge.  We read the last passage in Ann Voskamp's book and then proceeded to open gifts.  We gave each of them just three gifts, with one big group gift for all of them.  The rest of the gifts they received from extended family.

In taking pictures, I opted to focus solely on capturing  the dumpling's expressions.  I cared little about composition or technique that morning.

 They started off with their stockings.

 A New York Yankee pillow pet

 Peppa Pig figures for Havi, which she loves

 Olaf

 Roller skates for Havi

 A pink tennis backpack for Madeline

 A microscope for Caleb

 The new WiiU for all of them

 A much needed phone for Caleb.  His intense tennis training schedule necessitated it.

 And then Caleb and Madeline's last gifts could not be wrapped.  So we placed them in the kid's playroom and threw some sheets over them in case they went wandering away from the tree and toward the kitchen, which Madeline did.  Thankfully, though, the surprise was not ruined. Havi was so cute covering her eyes also.

 A vanity for Madeline and a bike (that now fits) for Caleb

While I captured a lot of presents being opened, there was one in particular that I missed because I, myself, was wrapped up in its unveiling.  My mother-in-law painted a beautiful picture of Madeline wearing her dance recital costume from this year.  As soon as we safely removed it from its packing, Patrick quickly whisked it away to Madeline's room to keep it safe from all the hustle and bustle.   Well, that meant not getting a photo of it.  Boo.  I will have to do that.

So after presents were opened, we ate breakfast- those cinnamon rolls I alluded to earlier.  Then the dumplings played while Patrick and I began working on dinner- lasagna!  He made the meat sauce while I made the ricotta cheese and lasagna sheets.  Once I got all the sheets cut, we headed out for a bike ride.  We just go around the neighborhood, but the path we take makes for about a 40-45 minute ride.  That's enough to put Havi to sleep on the back of Patrick's bike. lol  Anyway, once we got back, Patrick and I got to work layering the lasagna sheets with the sauce and cheese.  We made a great team.  And the lasagana....woah! It was so delicious.  Homemade everything just makes all the difference.  Seriously.   

The only thing I would do differently next year is make the cheese and lasagna sheets ahead of time.  I didn't think it would take too much time, but it definitely kept me in the kitchen instead of photographing the kids playing with their new toys, like I usually do.  So that part bummed me out.  Lesson learned.

Well, the cooking, baking, and Christmas celebrating has continued through this weekend because my sister and her peeps came into town yesterday.  Andy had a gig with his band Elevators Friday night.  So their typical visit on Christmas Day was delayed.  Anyway, we have already done some serious eating, and we're only half way through the weekend! lol  If you've followed this post all the way to the end, then I'll be sure to send you some of Jesus's birthday cake. ;)