Christmas Day

The stockings: They were full of exciting things like hair clips, rubber bands, toothbrushes, and toothpaste.  Oh, and some candy and glow sticks.

I wanted to wait until after church (started at 11 a.m.) to open presents.  Andrew (and everyone else I talked to) said that was mean and unrealistic.  My mom reminded me that when I was little we once had to go to all three hours of church before opening our presents.  I reasoned that since I didn't even remember that Christmas it clearly wasn't that big of deal.  But, in the end we had enough time to open gifts and get to church pretty much on time.

Liz unwrapped her gifts pretty quickly.  Then, she unwrapped all of Ellie's gifts because Elle just wasn't interested in doing it herself.  Finally she unwrapped Alaina's last few presents--at Alaina's request--because Laines was more interested in the presents she had already opened.  I guess Santa didn't need to stress about the two older girls having similar amounts of gifts to open after all.

The girls wanted their toys removed from the packaging pretty much immediately--quite possibly the least pleasant part of Christmas for me (those things are so secure!).

Ellie's favorite gift was probably her baby doll from Nana & Papa--I knew she'd like because I watched her trying to pull one from the bottom of a stack at Costco (total movie moment, the stack started to fall on her, but I caught it just in time).  Gabrielle also got a set of crib sheets, a pair of shoes, some large toddler legos, and a tea set.

Lainey's favorite gift is a toss up between her Disney nightgowns, her "Rapunzel and her prince" dolls, and her "American Doll" (a knock-off).  She also got a couple play food sets and an American Girl doll pet.

Lizzie's favorite Christmas gift was her Mulan barbie (or barbie-ish doll). She also got a bike, a horse (knock-off) and couple pets for her American girl doll, and a couple Lego Creator sets.  The Creator series is my favorite Lego series because kids can make three things from the pieces in each box.  They kept Liz busy building and rebuilding all the following week.

Once the kids had opened all their presents, we moved them from the living room to the "nook" so we could open our own gifts in relative peace.  I gave Drew ski and barbecue stuff.  He gave me clothes, a Harvey bag, and an iPad (along with the "boring" stuff I requested: garments, a salad spinner, and cancel-the-internet-on-my-phone).

Tired parent pictures by Liz:

Holiday Garb:

I told Liz to crouch down so I could get a tighter shot of the girls, not expecting Alaina to do the same thing--funny result though.

After church Ellie and I napped, the older kids played and Drew did a fabulous job cooking for our annual Christmas dinner with the Pomeroys.  We had our traditional ribs, fancy mac'n cheese (this year it had bacon), rolls, and such.  It was a lovely day.

The Elves at Work

We wrapped all the presents days before Christmas so all we had to do was stuff the stockings and set everything out (still was a late night though). 

Santa didn't have enough labels for his presents (and he didn't want buy any more) so he wrapped all the girls gifts in different paper.  The knew which pile was theirs because each girl woke up to a present in her bed (book) with the same paper.  Their in-bed presents had tags instructing them to "open immediately." The idea is they'll read in bed for a little bit and allow their parents to sleep longer.  It worked, but we were still up earlier than I wanted to be.  Next time I'm going to tell them that they have to stay in their rooms till 8 a.m.

See how happy Drew is in his sexy candy cane jammies?  He doesn't look too happy, right?  Well, he's a little tired, but mostly he's upset about  .  .  . 

This.  I decided to reorganize the basement to better accommodate the girl's new playhouse and dress-up wardrobe.  Problem is I decided to do this at about 11 p.m. (reasoning that I could complete it in about an hour--I couldn't).  This is what it looked like around midnight when Drew went to bed without me.

About 1:30 a.m. Liz came down to the basement with her wrapped box in hand and said, "Guess what!  Snta got me a new bike!"  I bundled her off to bed (after a picture of course) and went to sleep myself (agonizing that by being up I had somehow given away the whole Santa thing and spoiled Christmas for her).

Oh, and that bike she was so excited about was very unpopular Monday afternoon when I she tried to ride it (maybe we should have gone with training wheels but this model was super cheap).  

Acting Out the Nativity

This was our first year acting out a nativity (a tradition from Drew's family that I have been wanting to carry on with my own girls).  I assembled some costumes for us (the slip is Lainey's addition).

Alaina was excited about being the angel.

She was also excited about acting out the story, she just didn't want me to take any pictures.

I was Mary (I thought for sure Liz and Laines would fight over this role, but no, they left it for me).  I didn't have that babydoll for long.  As soon as I put it in the manager (a baby stroller), Ellie took off with it.

Drew was Joseph.  He also played King Herod.

Since Ellie refused to put anything on, Lizzie got to have costume changes.  She was our shepherd and our wiseman.

I'm pretty excited about the couple of sheep pillows I made for my shepherd to carry.  I got the design from this blog.

The following shots are by Liz.

I finally figured out how to post videos again.  Here are some clips of our nativity play:

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve morning the kids woke up to this:

Andrew and I had assembled the frame as part of our "homemade Christmas gifts" using this tutorial.  Aunt Carrie (Drew's sister) made the amazing cover.

The girls loved it!  And it inspired Liz to learn her address.

So while the girls played, Drew ran one last errand and I finished up the nativity costumes.

In the evening we went to a friend's house for a dinner of appetizers (very nice), then back home for holiday routine: jammies and reading the nativity (this time we acted it out).

Alaina wasn't sure about her jammies (she prefers nightgowns).  Liz loved hers.

So, looking at this picture I now have some idea why Lainey makes such weird faces in her pictures.  Monkey see, monkey do.

The Stockings

I really want these Christmas stocking holders from Pottery Barn, but they're $30 a pop so this year I decided to go a different route: generic holders and simple DIY labels (b/c our non-individualized socks require labels).

 We went with Santa beard pictures for the labels.  My family didn't exactly understand the need for a theme, but they went along with it anyway.

 Even Andrew.

 The littlest girls had trouble positioning their beards properly (or cooperating at all)  .  .  . 

 So one day, after Ellie had happily fed herself yogurt for lunch, I decided to do an impromptu Santa shot.

 Unfortunately she didn't like the hat.

 But eventually I got a usable shot.

 I improvised Alaina's shot as well.

I really liked the way are pictures looked on the stockings.