Christmas Day

First on the agenda was EMPTYING OUR STOCKINGS.
Santa gave each girl a candy cane form full of candy. Lizzie took one look at hers and said in a happy chirpy voice, "I don't think I like this so I guess you get to have this candy" and passed it over to me. Alaina on the other hand, immediately started eating her candy and tried to eat any other candy she saw (regardless of who owned it). Ellie is chewing on the book Santa left in her crib. Lizzie & Lainey's bed books were: The Anti Coloring Book & How to Build an A respectively. I LOVE & recommend them both.Next was OPENING PRESENTS:Alaina was pretty much done after opening one present and had to be encouraged to open more.Halfway through all the unwrapping Andrew looked at me and said, "I think they would have been happy with just half of this." Yeah, probably. Andrew did a great job shopping for me especially since the only suggestions I gave him were: garments & white house ornaments.THANK YOU NANA & AUNT CODI - The girls love their presents. Once everything was opened we ate CHRISTMAS BREAKFAST. Then the grownups took turns relaxing.WHILE DREW & GABBY NAPPED . . . I hung out with the older girls.We set up Lizzie's Barbie gear.We watched Christmas cartoons.And I finally got Alaina to open up one of her last two gifts. I was going to save the other for Christmas 2011, but Alaina noticed it the next morning and opened it.Check out this mess: In the afternoon we headed out to our friends, the Pomeroys, home for our now TRADITIONAL BARBECUE RIB DINNER. Pictured below, Lizzie is sporting her new American Girl jacket.

Pajama Day

Today the girls and I had a true pajama day. We didn't leave home once, not even to take out the trash. And we stayed in our jammies till the evening at which point we showered and then put on new pajamas. It was nice. Among other things, we did a few holiday crafts. We made kid-sized "gingerbread" people by tracing the girls outlines on packing paper (those are puffed sleeves on Lizzie's girl).

We also made "gingerbread men garlands."

When Drew got home we played pin-the-nose-on-Rudolph.

More Christmas Eve

Before we put the girls to bed we sang Christmas Hymns (you can imagine how fabulous I sounded with my raspy, squeaky sick-person voice) and Liz and I told the Christmas story using her paper creche.

I took a "before shot" of our stockings and pre-Santa present pile and then forgot to take an "after" one. The stockings are laying on the ground because Lizzie had already put some candy in them for each of us making them too heavy for my painters tape to hold up.

A couple weeks ago Liz got Drew to "pinkie promise" that she and Lainey could sleep in our bed Christmas Eve, but a day or two before the big night she amended her request to sleeping on the futon in the front room. I agreed because I wanted my bed to be kid-free, but by the end of the night they were all in our bed anyway.

Alaina quickly became afraid and I had to lay down with her. I told Drew to set an alarm for 20 minutes later just in case we both fell asleep. He set one and he slept through it. For my part, I drifted off to sleep while trying to think of plausible stories to tell Lizzie just in case we all fell asleep through morning.

I woke up sometime around midnight and raced to our bedroom to wake up Drew (he had taken some NightQuil so it took a couple tries). Luckily I had wrapped the presents days before. We quickly stuffed stockings and slapped on labels. Then I snuck the piles past the girls while Drew rocked Ellie and left the required bites in Lizzie's cookies.

Note to self: never again let the kiddos sleep within arms reach of the stockings and designated Santa delivery spot. When I had one load left to bring out Lainey woke up and started crying. Fortunately I was able to shush her before she woke Lizzie.

Holiday Break

Yesterday I took the girls to Mt Vernon despite the awful, freezing wind. I wanted to go so Liz could see the third floor (open only in December) and cuz Girl Scouts get in free this month (maybe next month too). It was fun, but cold, and midway through the tour Liz started chatting with the other little girl present so I'm not sure what she got out of the it all other than some small talk. In the evening we ate oranges and hot chocolate and wrote our thank you notes (so I'm still checking off my holiday "to do" list).

So far today, I've stayed in cleaning and done such exciting things as: rinse out my vacuum's internal parts, draino my tub, make pear baby food puree, and finally get rid of this guy:
Here's a bunch of kids-singing-and-dancing-videos. I fully realize that probably only Nana and Papa will watch them--hope you enjoy 'em. We miss you both and hope we can visit together again soon:

Christmas Eve

Even though we had done a lot of prep work ahead of time, Drew and I each ended up going to the store Christmas Eve. Drew went in the morning to get food for the next day and some last minute stocking stuffers for yours truly. I went in the afternoon to get the food I forgot to put on Drew's list in the morning and stockings. I couldn't find our socks from the year before and didn't want to buy new ones. I kept trying to talk Drew into just using Lizzie's knee-highs, but he insisted on actual holiday stockings. He pointed out that he had tried to buy them three other times and I had stopped him each time so it was my responsibility to finally go get them. I had luck at the third store I checked (Target). As per tradition the girls opened holiday pajamas. This year I included some for Drew and I, and holiday dishes.

The girls jammies were snowman themed, the grown-ups had candy-cane patterns. I'm hoping to recycle the latter every year.

Check out her baby "down dog." She can get from her tummy to sitting now (sometimes), but is still not crawling (just scooting backwards or rolling).

I still don't know how to do the timer on my camera so we took turns taking pictures with the kids.

I think that Andrew's photos went much better than mine:

Lizzie set out cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. The cookies are chocolate-covered oreos and marshmallows (rejects from an earlier attempt to make Lizzie's "friend gifts"). I suggested to Liz that she write a thank you note to Santa to leave with the treats. She decided to write a recipe book instead.

Day 23/Thursday

Yesterday morning I stomped around the apartment grumpily complaining about the mess and saying things like "Everybody just sit still and be quiet" and "Why can't you all just sit still and be quiet?!" I was sick and I felt overwhelmed, but gradually I got the kids and the place cleaned up. When we met Drew for lunch he gave me some "non-drowsy DayTime" medication and it worked so fast that before the meal was over I could actually taste it. Needless to say, the afternoon and evening went much better.
For Christmas Eve dinner my family traditionally did a fancy meal. For awhile we had Cornish game hens and sat in the dining room and used goblets. Then we started dining out. Andrew's family stayed in and had a big spread of appetizers for their traditional Christmas Eve meal. This year will the first year (since we've had kids) that we will be home on Christmas Eve and we've decided to do Drew's family tradition. I'm looking forward to our kid-friendly finger foods tonight. The girls already had some of the pigs-in-a-blanket last night (they requested it and I was feeling extra friendly after my meanness that morning). Last night's dinner: pigs-in-a-blanket and candycane milkshakes. Yum.

Day 22/Wednesday

Last night I took the girls to ZooLights. It was fun and totally worth the $8 I paid in parking (but probably not much more). Drew was skiing at Liberty so it was just us girls. Things went pretty well. Our main hiccup: I couldn't find Alaina's gloves so I let her wear mine (which were actually Andrew's). As we were making our way down the hill (to leave) I heard Lainey say, "I no like it." She was holding up one of the gloves, the other one she had dropped on the ground some time ago. We had to backtrack quite a bit (uphill, of course), but eventually Lizzie found it. Below is the only picture I managed to take and Alaina's distracted by the police vehicles that were driving through the zoo, announcing the event's end. On the agenda today: CLEAN, CLEAN, CLEAN (oh, and shop and return and wrap and deliver treats and finish mailing cards and rest cuz I have a cold). I feel like our home is a total mess. Last night Drew said we could still have a nice Christmas with a messy apartment. I disagree.

Another week (sorry it took so long Nana)

Day 15/Wednesday - We didn't make it to the post office and by the time Andrew got home I was done with kids and cleaning and diner and whatnot. Drew graciously took over the dinner prep (pancakes with candy snowmen faces) and put the girls to bed. Ahhhh.Day 16/Thursday - Our first snow of the season. Probably a lot of people went to the store for staples like milk & t.p. Not me. I picked up a couple sleds (we haven't used them yet) and replenished our holiday book supply. At home the girls opened a package from Nana. The coloring books and candy she sent kept them plenty busy until dinner (cleaning up the packing peanuts kept me busy for days).

Day 17/Friday - Drew had the day off so after school he took Lizzie and the other girls to run errands and I went off holiday shopping (and returning and exchanging) on my own. It was lovely. That evening Lizzie went to a girl scout movie night and I went to a holiday play with friends: Mrs Bod Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge. It was very funny, but I was so tired I found myself pinching my arm and biting my cheeks to stay awake. On another note, Alaina sometimes sleeps next to her bed instead of in it because something in or about the bed is scary to her. Hmmm.Day 18/Saturday - Liz worked on her paper creche (love all the free downloads on the web) and I finally started working on a Christmas cards. We went to Costco in the afternoon to pick up the pictures. Stupidest thing ever. Apparently ever now and then I have to learn the hard way to stay away from Costco on the weekend. And most exciting of all: Andrew passed his exam today so he's officially on Ski Patrol! Hooray! Congrats Babe!

Day 19/Sunday - We made treats for Lizzie's friends and fellow Brownie girl scouts, her teachers, and some family friends. We went to a holiday gathering, I tried to fashion some paper mistletoe out of cutouts of the girl's hand prints (originally intended for a wreath), we addressed Christmas cards and, in a fit of nervous energy, I started wrapping the girl's Santa gifts. I would have finished too if I hadn't run out of tape. I also finally found a stuffed Brobee online for a reasonable price for Alaina. After I ordered it I showed Alaina some Yo Gabba Gabba pictures online and judging from her reaction, I think she likes Todee & Foofa the best. Darn. Also, while stuffing envelopes (more than halfway through the pile)Andrew noticed a few misspelled words in my Christmas letter. Oh well. That just makes it more authentic Jill. Lately Alaina's been "shooting" us with our Wii gun. We didn't think she knew about guns . . . Day 20/Monday - Hallelujah! Ellie finally was well enough to get her 6 month immunizations. And as soon as we were done with those we headed over to Costco to pick up two different types of prescription diaper creams--ugh. More holidayish: Lizzie had a White Elephant Gift Exchange at Brownies and in the evening Drew took the girls to deliver some treats. Also, we finally started Elle on solids. She had a pretty typical reaction.

Day 21/Tuesday - Today I gave myself an early Christmas gift by finally going back to the gym. It has probably been a month since I last went. After school I let the girls watch a Christmas movie. Our plan was to head to the Temple or Zoo to look at lights but we are way to tired.

Below is some footage of Alaina singing. She's wearing her Christmas skirt which she loved so much, we let her sleep in it.