The Snowman!

Happy New Year!  We were able to get outside and finally play in the snow over the weekend!  We took full advantage and made our first Snowman of the year!  We finally got to use the snowman kit I made last year!

 Isn't he cute?!

Smurf Elf 2013

Another Christmas season in the books!  We enjoyed having Smurf Elf visit us each day with his crazy antics.  Let's recap, shall we?!

December 1 (he's here!!)  

He brought a book with CD for Ms. Ella - The Twelve Days of Christmas

December 2

Smurf Elf playing bake shop with some friends

December 3

Ride 'em cowboy!

December 4

A game of Candyland with Barbie

December 5

Part of the Mickey Mouse Band! (see his Hello Kitty guitar - ha!)

December 6

Just hanging out

December 7

Smurf Elf colored a picture for Ella

December 8

Smurf Elf LOVES to hang upside down!

December 9

Decorating the Christmas Tree

December 10

Sledding with Lalaloopsy

December 11

Sneaking some candy from Ella's stash!

December 12

Smurf Elf came back from the North Pole with instruments and a note on how great Ella is doing!

December 13

Hanging around sipping on something sweet

December 14

Fruit Loops for breakfast

December 15

Just sitting on the shelf, but he left a note and a new puzzle!

December 16

So many yummy treats being made at the North Pole, Smurf Elf brought some back to snack on

December 17

Time to get some baking done!

December 18

Swinging!

December 19

It's on!  A sack race with favorite friends

December 20
Counting down!

December 21
He made it to Grandma Deb's!

December 22
Keeping watch!

December 23
Baby It's Cold Outside!

December 24
See you next year!
[forgot to snap this last picture] but Smurf Elf was sitting in Ella's room with his good-bye note!

Christmas (Christmas Eve / Christmas Day)

Christmas Eve, we attended a noon service at Hosanna Lutheran Church.  It was AMAZING!  Hosanna services are more contemporary than our church, and their Christmas Eve service incorporates a live nativity scene (real live camels, donkeys, sheep, ducks, etc.) to bring the Christmas story to life.  It was really fun to see, and a nice change from our typical Christmas Eve plans.  The music was awesome and the service started off our Christmas Eve in a great way!

  Patiently waiting for the doors to open to the sanctuary so we could check out those animals!

Cheese!

After church, we spent the afternoon hanging out and baking cookies for Santa!  This was probably my favorite part of the Christmas celebration!  I hope we can continue this as an annual tradition.  This year we made those reindeer cookies you probably saw on Pinterest!  They are DELICIOUS! If you still have a Christmas celebration to attend, you should totally make these.  1 - they are adorable and 2 - they taste fantastic!  Here's the recipe link I used. Note on the decoration supplies:  I used red Sixlets for the noses, mini Chocolate chips for the eyes and the Keebler mini pretzels for the antlers.

SO CUTE!

After the semi-traditional meal of pea soup, we opened some gifts! Next year I need to remember to write down everything we buy, so we don't go overboard!  Ella's been having a great time playing with all her new stuff!

Christmas morning....someone was on the nice list this year!!

 (blurry again...boo)

 Hurray!  Ella got Stompeez! from Santa!!

 She was SO pumped!

Christmas (Worthington)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  I have lots of pictures to post from our weekend in Worthington to celebrate Christmas a little early (Santa even came to see us early!).  I am breaking up the posts a bit and will have the recap from Christmas celebrations with Jay's family after New Years!

We headed out of town the Friday before Christmas after preschool!  We remembered everything, including Smurf Elf! (whew!)  It was our "vacation" per Jay (since we never did make it out of town this summer).  HA!  We tried our best to relax and enjoy the trip, and it was really nice to have family around (and some new presents) to entertain Ms. Ella!! 

At the Boltjes Christmas party on Saturday night...

(p.s. when we left the party, Ella told me she was amazed that Santa came to see us!) ha!

Sunday morning (the weekend before Christmas) we celebrated with my Dad and Dianne in the a.m. and my Mom and Randy in the p.m.  It was a fun and FREEZING COLD day!  

 These "stars" had loads of songs and dances to perform for us!

 sorry for the blurry pics - not sure what happened, but too cute not to share!

 

 She is getting so big!

 And Chase is too!

 Merry Christmas!

Some more Christmas celebrating in the afternoon!

 

Of course there was more singing and dancing!

(including some sweet dancing by Chase to "What Does The Fox Say?")

 

 The "as seen on TV" gifts were big on Ella's Christmas list this year - including Seat Belt Pets!

 And Flashlight Friends!

 

Monday it was back to work for everyone else, so we decided to head back home a day early.  Glad we did, since Christmas Eve brought snow to both Worthington and Farmington, which wouldn't have been fun to drive home in!  Plus, we were able to attend a super fun Christmas Eve service and even make Santa cookies!

 A quick lunch before we headed out, and Grandma Deb was able to join us!

See you next time!

Ella finally fell asleep on the way back home.  

The Seat Belt Pet came in handy!