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!

Merry Christmas!

Weekending....

Happy Monday!  It's been one of those crazy busy weekends getting ready for Christmas (for me anyway).  What a whirlwind.  I accomplished a few of the "to do" list items, but I feel like there's still lots to do.  Now that the week is under way, maybe the pressure to finalize everything will start to fade?!  Who am I kidding right?  Well anyway, off to the weekend recap.  Friday I ran a million errands and took Ella back to the doctor in the afternoon (still has an ear infection - new antibiotic prescribed).  Then we made a trip to the mall (we are BRAVE) and it was surprisingly smooth sailing.  :) No pictures.  Boo. 

Saturday, I ran some more errands, wrote out the Christmas cards (hurray!), and then the afternoon was spent making candy cane fudge with my favorite kitchen sidekick (new recipe I'm trying)...

 (blurry cell phone pictures - boo)

 Finished candy cane fudge - isn't is adorable!!  Safely in the freezer until next week!

Then, we made cinnamon ornaments - have you heard of these?  Apparently they are being talked about quite a bit on the blogs/pinterest/facebook fronts as of late.  I came across a recipe in a local newsletter, so I thought it'd be fun to try them out.  Word to the wise: they are not as easy to roll & cut as cookie dough!!  But, we figured it out and the batch made quite a few, so I'm adorning Christmas gifts with them.  

They "bake" in the oven for 2.5 hours and my house smells amazing!

 Ella helped roll out the cinnamon ornament dough (which is just applesauce and cinnamon - weird!)

 And yes, she wore her PJs all day.  :)

Ta da!  We made stars and ornaments.  I've been tying them with red ribbon  :)

Sunday was the Ella's Sunday School program at church.  It was a LOT of chaos, but she sang her little heart out and was adorable in her Christmas dress.  I could not believe the crazy parents in the front row taking millions of pictures and having their camera "up" the entire time - just trying to capture that one perfect picture I suppose, but honestly!!  It's a Christmas program - put down the camera and enjoy it!  I was really annoyed, and then felt guilty for feeling annoyed - I was in church after all!

 See this mom & her camera?!?!  AHHHH!  That was my view the ENTIRE program.

 Oh, there she is again! (the mom in the red with the camera)

After church we headed to Houlihans in Eagan for lunch and to see Santa!  

 We brought along some Toys for Tots and put them under their Christmas tree.

Ella thought that was cool.  P.S.  Did you know that Walt Disney designed the Toys for Tots logo?  

Yes he did. 

 She had just seen Santa walk by our table!  She was SOOO excited!

It was a busy, but fun weekend!

Ella has a dance Christmas party on Wednesday!  Sara's School & Kinder Kollege parties on Thursday/Friday and then we're off!

Weekending...

Who's counting down the number of days until Christmas?  My 'to do' list keeps getting longer and the number of hours I have left to accomplish all those things is getting shorter!!  AAHH!  And this cold weather is really getting annoying.  As Ella told me a week or so ago "Mommy, winter is for the birds!"  HA!  I asked her where she came up with that saying, and I guess it's from Sara (at Sara's "school")  :)  I told Sara about it.  She laughed, and told me she says that a lot.  We all know what we really want to say about the weather, but we can't say that in front of the kiddos.  ha ha

Our weekend was just fine.  Jay & I had a date night on Friday and Ella had a sleepover at his parents.  It was great!  We saw Catching Fire (Hunger games movie #2).  Great movie - better than the first one we thought!   Despite the freezing temps, we headed to Buffalo Wild Wings to catch the end of the Wild game too!  Going out to eat without a small child is so great - you can actually have a conversation!!

Saturday, Jay was in Chaska most of the day and I headed out briefly to get some more shopping checked off the list.  But I gave up pretty quickly.  I just didn't feel like dealing with the cold weather and the crowds.  I found some deals on Amazon later in the day and called it good.  :) 

Sunday I started the holiday baking.  First order of business: sugar cookies.  I decided to skip cutout cookies this year and made my mom's recipe.  Simple and delicious.  We haven't frosted any yet.  Most of them have found a home in the freezer until all of the festivities begin!

And our Smurf Elf is still causing all kinds of ruckus at the house!  I must admit, this year is much harder than last year for some reason!  I keep forgetting and then it's so late I just want to go to bed, so the creativity is lacking.  But, my good friend Pinterest should help me the next few weeks!

Happy 16 days until Christmas Day!

Thanksgiving Recap!

Happy December!  Where in the world did November go?!?  I have gotten some Christmas gifts checked off the list, but have a ways to go, and now that the calendar has flipped to December, I'm starting to panic a bit.  We only have 2 real weekends left to shop, as we'll be traveling the weekend before for various festivities.  YIKES!  So, the blog updates may be few and far between this month, but we'll see.  If I can remember to snap photos along the way, we'll be set.  :)  

Wednesday I spent the day with Ms. Ella!  Most of my morning was spent on the phone with Sprint trying to get some answers about our horrible cell phone service.  So, that was fun.  I was swearing people.  SWEARING.  Usually I can keep my cool, but I have HAD it with Sprint.  So....moving on....after my ranting, we headed to the Thanksgiving story time at the library.  Ella was so excited, since she doesn't get to go anymore.  She had a good time dancing with her peeps!

We spent the Thanksgiving weekend at home, with the big meal at Jay's parents.  We all had a good relaxing time.  And I had to share Ella's latest hat - with includes turkey drumsticks!  Hilarious.

We finally got the Christmas tree up and the house decorated.  We're missing some extension cords, which are over at Jay's parents in our storage section of their basement!  Anyway, so some of the decor isn't lit up yet.  Remember when we were going to move?  Oh yeah...that would have been nice.  I was a little bit anti about the holiday decorating Friday/Saturday and I think I have figured out why - I was thinking we would have a new house to decorate this season!   But, that wasn't meant to be.  So, I rounded up these silly people to help me get it done.

 Supposed to be decorating....having a rock concert instead.  :)

Friday morning I actually ventured out to grab some must have deals from ULTA.  I originally was shopping online late Thursday night, but the items I wanted sold out WHILE the items were in MY cart.  Annoying....so, Ella & I bundled up and headed out to brave the crowds!

 

And it was great success!  :)  

I got what I wanted and we hit up Starbucks on the way home.  

Yesterday was Smurf Elf's arrival.  He made it, and brought a Christmas CD for Ella.  

  Now I need to get some new ideas for this year's shenanigans!  

Ella loves to see what he's up to each morning, so the stakes are high! 

p.s. Ella accidentally knocked Smurf Elf off the chair yesterday and had a COMPLETE MELTDOWN because we read the book earlier and she knew that you can't touch the Elf because his magic might go away.  Oh boy....that was fun.  Finally got her calmed down and explained that since it was an accident, Smurf Elf will be able to "poof" himself back onto the chair, but since he's magic, he only does that when we're not around.  HA!

So, this week is back to the regular routine, with the added pressures of preparing for the Christmas season.  Hope it's a great week, and check back - this weekend is the City festivities and we're hoping to visit Santa!