Christmas Day

Christmas Day was just as great as Christmas Eve.  We woke up in the morning, opened Santa gifts, took our time getting ready, let the girls play a little, and headed over to my Aunt and Uncle's house.  My parents, brother, and sister met us over there.  We had a great day once again!  The girls loved playing with so many new things and were so good all day.  We could not have asked for a better holiday!

The girls woke up to this in the morning.  The note was Santa's doing and Mrs. Clause didn't know about it :)

There was no way Hailee and Hannah were letting any cookie go to waste.  Hailee took one and shared the other with her sister.

Let the gift opening begin!

Ella was so happy and excited with each gift.  It was so cute and fun!

Hannah, showing us a gift.  She squeeled after each gift that she opened.  It was so funny!  She loved presents!

Busy babies.

Mama and Hailee

Hannah's favorite gift was this shopping cart.  She pushes it all over every day, waving, saying "Bye, bye!"

Mommy and the babies

Hannah and Hailee kept sitting on these ledges on the house.  They must look like seats to them.

Daddy doing what daddies do best:  opening the toys and putting them together!

Notice the real waffles on the picnic blanket.  Cute.

All of the girls got a dress up outfit and doll.  They all wanted their outfit on and wanted nothing to do with the Christmas outfits I had intended for them to wear.  We let them be and headed off to my aunt and uncle's with two Cinderella's and a Belle!

Playing with cousin Erika.  They love her so much!

Daddy and Hannah

Hailee moved right on to open Uncle Don's gifts when she was done with her own!

Brad and Erika

Erika and Shelly

Hailee makes this hilarious face all the time now.  I think it's her "I'm trying to make a cute smile because I know you're taking a photo of me" face.

Me and my sweet girl Ella.

The best family photo we got all day.  Well, the only one at that.  Notice Ella is still in her gown.  The twins had been through the gowns, their Christmas outfits, and now pajamas and Ella is still in the same gown.

Paul and I.  I have no clue what kind of face he's making.  I think he's trying to be cool.  Ha, love you babe!

Christmas Eve

Well, I really wanted to just post once for Christmas Eve and Day, but I didn't want to bore you all with the amount of photos I wanted to share!

This year we stayed here all throughout the Christmas holiday.  Yep, that's right, no traveling for us.  We started a tradition Ella's second Christmas (her first one she was only 3 months) of making it top priority to be home, just us, on Christmas morning.  This has made it somewhat difficult in past years with both mine and my husband's families living out of town.  This year we were lucky enough to have my parents down in Columbus for the holiday.  There was no driving home at 10:00pm Christmas Eve and no two hour car ride after Santa gifts were opened on Christmas Day.  It was lovely. 

Christmas Eve my parents, brother, and sister came over early in the day.  We opened gifts, ate, and had fun all day long.  We left the house early evening to attend the Christmas Eve service at our church.  It was so great.  I know I've said it before, but oh how I love our church!  The service was just beautiful!  I came home with a heavy heart, focused on exactly what it should've been that evening.  Christ's birthday and His love for us. 

Enjoy my favorite photos from Christmas Eve!

Ella was SO excited to start gift opening!

All of the girls loved opening gifts this year.  We literally had to do nothing (well, besides clean up).  Last year we pretty much opened everything for H&H but this year they were pretty good at getting each gift opened all themselves!

I love this photo of Hannah.  I don't know why.  She just looks cute :)

Hannah and Auntie Leah (or Auntie Ya-Ya as they call her)

Gammy and her grandbabies

This is a Lalaloopsy dress up outfit.  I don't even think Ella knows who that is, but she sure did like the outfit (and looked super cute in it too)!

Hailee insisted on getting this dress on herself.  Needless to say, she looked like this for a good ten minutes before she finally asked for some help.

Then there's Hannah.  She was just naked.  Opening gifts naked.  Who knows why.  I think she eventually put on a dress up outfit too.

Love this photo and love these girls!  Play Doh ice cream making!

This house was for all of the girls from my parents.  They all LOVE it!  Paul says it was the best gift bought this year.  It has definitely gotten the most use out of by everyone thus far!

I love this photo.  Hailee is Uncle Ryan's buddy (or Uncky Rynie as they say).

The best photo I got before church.  Yeah, they weren't feeling it.

This photo is hilarious to me!  This was right before we all left for church.  I love everything about it:  Hailee trying to get away from Paul, Ryan and dad staring off into space (actually it looks like dad is giving me a dirty look!), Leah looking annoyed at whatever mom is saying :), who knows where Ella is (I think at my feet), and Chloe trying to get through everyone.  Love my family!

Ella's Christmas Play

On Wednesday Ella had her Christmas play at school.  It was so cute.  She was a little angel.  We made a big deal of it all week.  She was so looking forward to it.  The morning of she was jumping up and down and squealing until it was time for school.  Gammy and Uncle Ryan came for the play, and of course daddy, Hailee, and Hannah too!

Gammy and Hailee

Ella with other angels, animals, and wise men :)

All of the angels!

The whole class

  She was not very smiley through this whole thing.  A bit intimidated I'd say.

This is all three of the classes in the preschool.  They all came back out and performed a few songs together after each class did their own little production.  Ella is in the lower right.

Somebody must have gotten tired during the singing!  Ha!  I could not believe she sat down in the middle of a song!

This was Ella's present for us that she gave at the end of her program.  It is a tile with an angel made by her hand prints.  It is so cute!  My favorite gift of all!

Christmas Preparation

Whew, it's been a while since I have blogged!  We have been so busy with getting ready for the holidays, events, parties, etc that I have had no time for anything lately!  I am happy to say that after this weekend things should slow down for us through the holidays.  I am so looking forward to Paul having some time off work to spend with us doing fun family things!

I really don't have anything to blog about, so figured I would post some photos for your enjoyment :)

A certain someone (Hannah) was not happy that I took her paci for the photo...

still not happy...

until I gave it back!  Ugh, daddy thinks we will be paci-free in this house come the New Year.  We will see about that!

One important thing for me during the holiday season is to get a *decent* photo of our girls for our Christmas card.  I knew this year would be tough, given their ages.  A couple weeks ago the weather was unseasonably warm on a Monday evening.  We took the girls out, and after about 300 shots, and still having to Photoshop Hailee into the photo I can say I am very pleased with our card photo for this year!  Cards are going out today, so those of you seeing this early get a little sneak peek!

Our card photo.  Love this.  I will be getting a print made for the house too.  Love that we went with not-so-Christmasy outfits, but still festive attire!

Love this smile!

And this one (Hannah)!

And this one (Hailee)!

We went to a breakfast with Santa with the twin club this past Saturday morning.  It was SO much fun!  I pretty much figured our photo would go something like this:

Hailee's face is just priceless!  Ella is also terrified.  Hannah seems indifferent.

I figured I would share some phone photos too!

H&H sit next to each other, in front of doors all the time.  They read together, snack together, and of course pick on each other.  So cute!

Ella's friend Ella from preschool came over the other day to play.  The girls had a tea party and were SO cute together! My grandma gave Ella this real little tea set and it is just adorable.

Ella says every day that she played with "two Ella's (she is one of the Ella's) and one Addy".  Addy came over that day too, but had to leave early.  I am so happy Ella has made such good friends with some of her preschool classmates!

We had a baking day at my aunt and uncle's house the other weekend.  We literally baked from 10:00am-8:00pm.  It was crazy!  Aunt Leah made this gingerbread house with Ella. 

One of my recipes was these reindeer cookies.  They turned out adorable!  Another successful idea from Pinterest!

My friend Kristen came along for the baking day too!  Her and Ella (well, maybe just Ella) had fun taste testing the finished products!

Erika and Leah, busy baking away!

Hailee and Hannah now know how to take one piece outfits off.  I literally re-dressed them 10 times the day they wore these one pieces last week.  They love taking off their jammies once they are in bed too.  Oh, and Hailee likes to take off her own diaper and throw it on the floor.  That has been just lovely!

Happy little Hannah!

A friend came to play with H&H (and Ella) one day last week while her mommy was at work.  We had so much fun all day!  I love the chance to spend time with my friend's kids!

This past Sunday Ella and I went to a tea party for brunch and then to a Christmas Play with some friends.  This is the second time we have had a mommy-daughter day or evening with these girls and it is always so much fun!

This photo is from today.  This is the first day in literally weeks that we have nothing to do and it is so great!  We were invited to a play date and I had to decline.  We needed this day at home.  I told Ella she can stay in her jammies all day and she is pretty excited!  This was craft time at the table before 9:00am.  By about noon I'm sure I'll be singing another tune and wishing we had got out for a bit!

I should have some cute photos coming up in the next few days!  Ella's preschool play is tomorrow and we (and especially she) is SO excited for it!  She will be an angel in the Christmas Story.  I can't wait!!