Christmas 2017

After a month’s worth of festivities, we celebrated our very first Christmas in our new house! Although the girls really missed going to Utah this year, there were definitely some upsides to not traveling over the holiday (e.g. no tiring road trip or hauling gifts!) Grammy and Grandpa came to us, so everyone was happy.

We spent Christmas Eve hanging out at home, tracking Santa’s journey through Alexa, watching movies, and setting out cookies/carrots for Santa and his reindeer. The most exciting event of the night was our kitchen almost being set on fire! I had ordered catering through a restaurant for our Christmas Eve dinner and tasked Grandpa with picking it up. I was on a bike ride with Meredith and was on my way home when I smelled smoke coming from somewhere in our neighborhood. I figured someone must be having a Christmas Eve bbq, but as I got closer, I realized the smoke was definitely coming from our house!

When I raced inside, the twins were already on the porch and wasted no time placing the blame! Apparently, Grandpa had put the aluminum catering trays inside the oven to keep the food warm, but didn’t take the out of the cardboard boxes they were in to carry and they caught on fire! Grammy quickly grabbed the flaming boxes and put them outside; thankfully, neither the food nor our kitchen was damaged. It was just really smokey! It was a good lesson in fire safety for the twins and we had a good time joking about Grandpa burning down our kitchen over Christmas!

We concentrated our money on getting the outside of our house decorated for Christmas, and I decided not to buy a bunch of decorations for the tree in our new house this year since our tree was super tall and required a ton more decorations than we already had. The twins decorated with homemade ornaments; hence only four feet of our tree had ornaments!

Santa came!

The twins were excited about the rings, necklaces silly putty and paint markers from Santa. Santa spent a lot of time at Claire’s this year!

Everyone loved the stick-on earrings!

Meredith’s favorite– animals!

Meredith calls candy canes “nandies.” Pweeeeease have nandy???

Special deliveries from Santa.

As requested, Santa brought Samantha and Amelia the frilly silk nightgowns they had asked for, plus chalk for Samantha and a few extra goodies for Amelia. Santa was very please that the girls asked for such simple gifts! The twins also told Santa that Meredith wanted her own apron for baking, like the ones they have, and Santa came through, thanks to the cute American Girl baking collection at WIlliams Sonoma! He also brought everyone a dollhouse, which no one cared about except for Meredith!

We took turns with each of the girls going to Target earlier in the month where they picked out presents for each other using their own money. Meredith loved her piggy bank from Samantha and her Moana rooster stuffed animal from Amelia! It’s fun to see what they pick out for each other. Amelia usually tends to pick out something that she herself would like, while Samantha takes a little bit more time thinking of something unique to her sisters.

My surprise gift from the girls was a homemade sign for our house with their handprints! Jake and Grammy went to the shop earlier that week to put on the finishing touches:

I’m always a sucker for homemade gifts.

Meredith is still obsessed with this code-a-pillar from Uncle Mike and Ali.

To my annoyance, Meredith is constantly bringing in her scooter and plasma car from outside and riding them around the house, so we got her an inside riding toy, which she quickly lost interest in. It’s only fun if if it’s tracking in dirt to our house!

Homemade gifts are always our favorite.

Underwater camera from Uncle Mike and Ali.

Cool books and a solar photography kit from Aunt Sarah.

Grandpa bought us a fire extinguisher, presumably for next time he almost burns the house down.

Peekaboo!

Books and crafts from Grammy!

We always look forward to seeing our yearly calendar from Aunt Sarah.

Pogo sticks!

Everyone was occupied the rest of the day trying out their new gifts and helping Jake rip up the carpet upstairs and put in our new wood floors. They accomplished a good amount of flooring over Christmas break!

“Helping” Daddy roll out the underlayment.

Meredith’s room all torn up.

Christmas dinner featured prime rib, garlic mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts, cranberry sauce, rolls, sweet potato pecan casserole and a delicious new pie recipe from Grammy.

The twins pranced in their new nightgowns while Daddy installed the floor.

Favorite pics from Christmases of the past..

Samantha:

Amelia:

A few video moments from Christmas 2017!

It was a very merry Christmas!

Lots of love,

Preschool Sing Along, Hanukkah Party and More December!

The twins had been practicing all month for their preschool Christmas sing-along and we were excited to come see their performance and all of the super cute pajamas! Even though they practiced with the hand-actions and sang all the carols ad nauseam at home, they were less than enthusiastic to perform in front of everyone! They looked tortured most of the time.

Putting on our happy faces when all the kids are in complete meltdown mode.

Samantha and Amelia’s less-than-enthusiastic Christmas carol performances! It was a long show with seven other songs beyond these, but they were all pretty much like the following, so you get the picture.

Even though Meredith was in the audience cheering her on, poor Amelia was feeling completely overwhelmed by the end and started melting down. I read my preschool sing-along post from last year, and apparently, it was Samantha who had a meltdown and threw herself into Daddy’s arms that year! I guess they are taking turns.

Last year:

Pouty elf Amelia.

It’s okay, sister elf!

Last year by the preschool tree:

A number from last year’s preschool sing-along:

Another fun preschool event was the annual Santa visit, storytime and milk and cookies! Samantha said she told Santa she wanted some new pajamas and chalk. Incredulous, Santa asked her if she wanted anything else and she said that was it! Amelia said the same thing minus the chalk (despite the fact that they already have 10+ pairs of pajamas between the two of them and we usually let them unwrap new pajamas on Christmas Eve anyways!)!

I’m sure Santa was feeling bad for these clearly underprivileged children! When they were looking through a catalog earlier in December, I asked the twins what they would like to ask Santa for, and after bypassing all the toys, they fell in love with these old-fashioned silky nightgown sets in purple and pink. So that’s what they told Santa! Samantha added in the chalk because a few months’ prior, Meredith broke all of our chalk in half and Samantha was super upset. I never got around to restocking on chalk, so she added that in her Christmas list as well!

Samantha and Santa.

2016:

Amelia and Santa.

2016:

2017:

Preschool Christmas crafts.

Amelia was super excited to give me her snowman mug and hot cocoa kit.

On a cold and drizzly weekday evening, we also went to visit Santa at the local Santa’s Village. I stood in line for a ridiculous hour and a half, while Jake took the girls around to get hot chocolate, cookies, watch the trains, listen to the carolers, watch an outdoor movie and look at the decorations. Once I saw the insane line, I would have left immediately, except that the twins were adamant that Meredith needed to see Santa and we didn’t have anything else going on that evening, besides being warm at home and not being stuck in the rain. Still, next year, I think we’ll stick to the preschool Santa visit.

Samantha and Amelia again told Santa they wanted pajamas (and chalk for Samantha), and Santa winked at me and added in that maybe he could bring them a few extra surprises! Noooooooo, Santa! Pajamas and chalk sounds like a great Christmas to me! Meredith was a little starstruck, so Amelia spoke for her and told Santa she wanted a personalized baking apron just like the ones they have because Meredith didn’t have one. That meant an unexpected last minute shopping trip for me…I mean, Santa… that week!

2016 Santa’s Village:

2015 Santa’s Village:

More Christmas fun! Our town has a house-decorating contest and some neighborhoods are super coordinated and went all out. We explored a few of the extra decked-out neighborhoods and lighting contest winners with Parker, Maple, Phi and Michael. One fun neighborhood had hot chocolate and cookies for sale with proceeds going to charity and had their very own Grinch greeting all the kids.

Fortunately, our immediate street does not require everyone to go crazy for Christmas. This was an experimental year since it was our first Christmas in our new house.

Grandpa came into town from Utah and we went to see Disney on Ice with Noah and his family.

I thought the show was amazing, but the twins were pretty much there for the popcorn. They’ve never really been into shows. I’m glad I didn’t shell out more dough for the Nutracker this year!