Dinner date at TGI Friday's

 

After bath pics

Little lady in her pink bathrobe and towel hat.

Crazy skeleton man.

Height

54"

almost 40"

Off the charts.

Nolan and his "pointy" hair

Karly cooks!

Karly had a playdate with Lizzie over the Christmas break. They were having a little trouble coming up with something to play, but then they finally got really excited about cooking something. By themselves. Yikes! For some crazy reason, I agreed. They declared that I was not allowed to come anywhere near the kitchen. I had no idea what they were even making. The only time I came into the kitchen was for the oven part. They found a cookbook, found a recipe, read the recipe, and found and correctly measured all the ingredients, all 100% on their own. I honestly never imagined Karly would be able to do all that with no assistance whatsoever.

Ready for the oven!

The end result - peppermint flavored chocolate chip cookies.  They were actually pretty tasty!

Polar Express

Sitting next to his Polar Express train, reading the Polar Express book.

Christmas part 2

We spent the second half of the day at my parent's house with my brother's family.  First, the kids opened their presents.

Whatever it is, I think he likes it.

High School Musical 3 DVD!

Zhu Zhu Pets!

Afterward, the adults did their secret santa exchange, while the kids amused themselves.

Once again, this is pretty much the extent of my lame pictures.  That evening, we had an awesome dinner of crabcakes, beef, and my favorite yorkshire pudding - yum!!  We headed home late that evening with a car full of gifts and happy, tired, kids. 

Merry Christmas 2010!

Christmas part 1

Santa has been here!

The stockings are filled, and Santa and his reindeer enjoyed their snacks of cookies and carrots.  Karly wrote "Eat Pleas" on the napkin on the table.  The wrapping paper on the table is from a gift that Nolan had wrapped and left for Santa.

Karly came in our room so excited at 7 am.  She said she had been awake in her bed since 6 and could we please go downstairs and open some of her stocking while we were waiting for Nolan to wake up.  I managed to hold her off for a little while, but by 8:00 we headed downstairs.  I let her open a few stocking presents and we had a nice relaxing time enjoying the peace and quiet.  There were even a few snow flurries to complete the perfect Christmas morning.

We did some Mad Libs,

 

and she painted a little picture she got.

True to form, Nolan didn't show up til close to 9 am.  He was disappointed that he had missed seeing Santa, but once he got over that, he was excited to open his stocking too.   After stockings we had cinnamon rolls, eggs and hash browns for breakfast.  The kids were so anxious to open everything - we had to keep reminding them to slow down and let each person have a turn so we could see what everyone got (and picture taking pretty much fell by the wayside).   I was very pleased and happy that the kids seemed to really like everything they received.  Was it too much?  Yeah, probably, but it was a very fun day and I loved watching them open everything and seeing their happiness.

Nolan loved his train!

The aftermath.  This really doesn't even capture the extent of the mess and chaos.

Christmas Eve

We went to Marco's mom's house around noon on Christmas Eve.  Marcia and her girls arrived a little later, and we had a late lunch of delicious Kung Pao shrimp, chicken for the non-seafood eaters, rice and beans.  After we ate, Santa Clause made a surprise visit!

Nolan was quite in awe.  Although he didn't want to get too close,

 

he did manage to move in to claim his gifts.

I didn't realize quite how much he enjoyed seeing Santa, until he woke up Christmas morning and was very disappointed that Santa didn't stick around at our house after dropping off the presents.

The adults did a white elephant gift exchange, of which we managed to get zero pictures.  Marco ended up with the gift I bought (car organizer stuff), and I got a food gift basket from Rebeca.  We also celebrated Beltina's birthday.

We came home in the early evening.  The kids got to open one present before bed - their Christmas pj's.  Karly got a pink fleece gingerbread man set, and Nolan's were Thomas.  They both loved them and I was happy I had chosen so well!