Other Christmas Fun

We attended the Ops Group Christmas party a few weekends ago on base.  This is a great way for the girls to get out their craft bug, and the mess that comes with it is far away from my house.

Santa flew in on a helicopter.  I'm surprised Santa didn't puke at this moment when the helicopter did some crazy stunt.

We don't celebrate Santa and the girls know he's not real (and keep quiet about it around their friends), but they still love all things Santa....cartoons, wrapping paper, decorations, watching him at the mall, etc.  Kylie did say when this guy got off the helicopter "that doesn't look like Santa!".  She told me the other day she kinda believes in Santa, but she believes in Jesus more.

Let me rephrase....they like all things Santa, but any man dressed like him, they like from a distance. They had no interest in getting close and we didn't have to wait in the long line to get traumatic pictures with him.

Kylie and Micaela.

Juliet painting her ornament.

Daddy helping the girls make candy cane reindeer.

Finished products.

I finally ordered some new personalized stockings for us.  It was my first time ordering anything from Pottery Barn and when my first package arrived, I was so mad!  Both mine and Jonathan's embroidery was severely off center and they decided to leave the T off of Juliet's name, so it read Julie...yeah, not my kid.  I was shocked for as expensive as their stuff is and everyone just raves about their stuff.  I'm not fully convinced after my purchase.  But I called and kindly expressed my disappointment with my order and they quickly fixed it and sent new ones.

I think our names could have been a little bit bigger, but overall I'm pleased.  Ava said "hey, its a pattern"!

Our Christmas village and the wonderful cards from you all.

I get the Little People Nativity out only at Christmas time, and Juliet has played with nothing else, and I mean nothing else.  She totes this thing all around the house and plays with it non stop.  She even likes to bring some of the characters in the car when we go out.  Her favorites are of course baby Jesus, Mary and "Jofes".

Who wants to help decorate the gingerbread house?  "ME!!!"

Squeezing the foundation.

This is serious work.  Don't mind Ava's lunch on her shirt.  Its tomato soup....her shirt is festive!

Holding it up as the frosting/glue hardens.

The reindeer giving Santa a kiss.

They did well not fighting and taking turns decorating.  Its one of our best creations yet!

Giving Rudolph his red nose.

The best part-getting to eat the leftover candy.

Trimming the Tree

We left California to come home early on Sunday after Thanksgiving to get a Christmas tree.  The following 2 weeks were going to be rough for Jonathan at work so we wanted to get the tree that day, or we knew we weren't going to get it at all!  We stopped at Home Depot to pick one up as well as tree stand since our last one didn't survive the move.  We got home and it was already late, but Jonathan suggested we have hot cocoa in addition to unpacking from our trip and getting down the decorations.  I ran to the store to grab a few supplies while the kids and daddy strung a dozen lights in the tree.

Mmmmm

The marshmallows are their favorite part.

You can see her new teeth coming in.

Its like 9pm.  Waiting for the sugar high to set in.

One of Juliet's baby ornaments.

Jonathan and I have had this ornament since 1996.  I used to work at Things Remembered in high school and got it for him for Christmas that year.

Each ornament says "Moms Favorite" and then says "oldest child", "middle child" and "youngest child".

Putting the broken star on top of the tree.  We need to get a new topper.

Juliet's turn to put baby Jesus in the manger.

Merry Christmas from our princesses.  Kylie is so exhausted here-you can see it in her eyes.

Jonathan's Birthday and Thanksgiving

My sweet husband...always sharing his birthday with a holiday as well as a busy time at work as the current WIC class came to and end and he was knee deep in another upgrade.  Its a good thing he doesn't care much about gifts and all that hoopla because we've purchased a plethora of things for our house as well as new cell phones in the past months so his birthday this year was quiet as far as gifts go.  In fact, after a standard 12 hour work day, he came home to a plate of Oatmeal Date cookies the girls and I made for him.  

The next day we packed up and headed to California for Thanksgiving.  We spent Thursday with my side of the family and Saturday with Jonathan's side of the family.  Luckily they always do their big family get together the weekend after Thanksgiving so there is no pulling and tugging back and forth between families.  We save that for Christmas!

The night we arrived, Jonathan's parents had a present and a childhood favorite cake waiting for him. 

 A Ripstik!

Old man.

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 At my Aunt Val and Uncle Toms house for Thanksgiving.  

 The girls loved having their own wine glasses.  Its juice-don't worry.

They are laughing at their cousin Gabriel.  He was answering "yeah" to all their questions, like "did you have coffee for breakfast?"  They were hysterical.

My girls and my cousin's adorable boys.

The "special" table.

Clean up crew, and my sister.  She was busy goofing around with my camera during clean up time and jumped in to look pretty with the rest of us.

The girls making Great Gramma Bobbie laugh.  I love these candid pictures.

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The only picture I got of Jonathan's family's Thanksgiving was of Kylie giving the turkey a rub down.  

GROSS!!

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Grammy had an idea to turn her Readers Digest magazines into a Christmas Tree for the girls. 

  How cool is their Grammy?  She sacrificed her own manicure to help them with a craft!

 Glitter is love.

Ava's turn.

 And now for Juliet.  Grammy knew what she was doing when she got the big bottle of glitter.  It ALL got used.

Ice Skating

The weekend before Thanksgiving, we headed to Lake Las Vegas and put the girls in ice skates for the first time.  This was totally going to be Jonathan's deal since I've never been good at things like skating (ice or in line) or skateboarding or even skiing (water and snow).  I have always had horrible balance and am not very confident in myself.  The excuse that Juliet is too young/small to do things is going to eventually not work for me anymore and I'll have to try my hat at those things, but for now, I'll watch my big girls from the sidelines and console an upset Juliet until she gets bigger.

At first only Kylie wanted to go.




After watching Kylie, Ava decided she wanted to go too.

 Watching Jonathan try to keep both girls from falling was hilarious.  Surprisingly, all shoulders and elbows stayed in their sockets.

When I found out that the smallest size skates they had were 2 sizes too big and broke the news to Juliet, she was so upset, so I just handed her to Jonathan and hoped we weren't breaking any rules.  She of course was much happier.

Her painted face is not something out of Star Trek, rather it is a princess crown.

Being that Jonathan couldn't hold hands with the big girls when he had Juliet, Kylie decided to give it a try on her own.

 She did really well!

 Then it was time to pull out the Olympic moves.

The girls didn't want to leave despite how freezing cold it was.  We bribed them with treats and coffee (well, for us) and that worked, but they ask often if we can go again.  I wish it weren't so expensive!