Christmas Season 2015 Recap

So I left off with 15 days to go before Christmas!  It was busy but we all had a good time.  A few events from before Christmas:

Ella had her annual Holiday party at the dance studio.  The girls exchanged mittens and performed a winter ballet dance for us - very sweet.  :)  Ms. Ella is in the black leotard center back line.  She continues to LOVE dance.

Then Ella got a sinus infection which took her out of school for a few days.  :(  She was not feeling good for a couple of days, but thankfully the medicines started to work and she was feeling better for the busy holiday week, including her Sunday School Christmas program!

  (she didn't wear this to her Sunday School program though - ha!)

 

There she is - can you see her?  Second row!  Notice all of the parents in front of me with their gadgets?!?!  A bit insane!

 She sang her heart out and the kids did a great job!

Christmas Eve, I spent the morning prepping pea soup and baking bread.  We attended the Hosanna service with the live nativity scene, which we love!  Ms. Ella was all dressed up in her Christmas dress!  

 

 We didn't get a family picture.  :(  After church we had a quick lunch at...wait for it...CULVERS!  HA!  We are so fancy.  Later in they day, I baked up our Santa cookies - the reindeer cookies.  Ella had no interest in helping me, so I don't know if this tradition will continue in 2016 or not!  Spending the entire afternoon in the kitchen by myself isn't exactly fun on Christmas eve!  That night, Jay's parents joined us for pea soup dinner and then we opened our gifts!

 Spreading out the reindeer food!

An early present from Grandma Jolyn!

Christmas Morning!!

 She was super excited to open gifts from Santa!

And she got all kinds of fun toys that she wanted SO badly.  :)  Puppy in my pockets, Shopkins, Bunchems, Calico Critters, Legos....

After a delicious breakfast of a french toast bake, we packed up the Dodger and headed to Worthington!

Merry Christmas!!  We all wanted to be festive

And Jay couldn't stop smiling.  HA!

We spent the afternoon with Papa Gary.  It was his birthday too!  

 Ella & Chase getting ready to open gifts - apparently hats were required!

 Lexi was there too, but she insisted on eating and holding her can of Puffs the ENTIRE time we opened gifts.  What a goof ball!

A quick picture with Santa - Lexi was not a fan of Santa!

The 26th - Christmas with Grandma Deb!

 

We had a chili lunch with loads of yummy treats and then opened some gifts.  Santa even stopped at Grandma Deb's and left a few gifts for each of the kiddos - they were so excited!

Well...Lexi doesn't look that excited here, but she really was.  :) 

 

It was a fun weekend of celebrating and spending time with family!

The time I kept procrastinating about updating this blog

Oh hello there!  Yes, it has been a LONG hiatus from updates on the blog.  I had really good intentions, but things just kept coming up (like TV shows I needed to catch up on and books I was reading and just plain laziness sometimes)...but here I am!  Lots to catch you up on.  I'll try to keep my posts short.  :)

Stay tuned for the latest and greatest soon!

15 days to go!

December is flying by!  15 days until Christmas - wowsers!  I have some work to do yet, and I haven't even started baking!  Ella has a sinus infection so she has missed yesterday and today from school.  She had a fever on Monday night so I knew something was up!  We are hoping today's extra rest will help the medicine work so she will be feeling better for this weekend.  

Last weekend I was able to get what we call the Grandma Alice tree up and decorated.  It has all of the family ornaments from my Grandma Alice.  We have this in the front window of our house.  I realize the randomness underneath the tree should have been moved, but so it goes....

Also we headed to the Dakota City Village at the Dakota County fairgrounds over the weekend.  Ella was really hoping to see Mrs. Claus and write a letter to Santa like we did last year, but this year, Mrs. Claus was too busy doing some baking at the North Pole to make the trip. 

 Ella and Jay were thrown in jail for a bit! (cell phone picture did not work so well....)

The many expressions of Ms. Ella while telling Santa all about her wishes...

 this one is my favorite! :)

 Guten Tag!

 We took a horse drawn sleigh / trolley ride!

 Ella read a Christmas poem in the school house

And we all sang Christmas carols in the church - so fun!

Merry Christmas!

CrAzY HAiR dAy!

Yesterday, Ms. Ella and the rest of her fellow first graders went to Orchestra Hall for a performance of a jazzy version of the Nutcracker!  She LOVED it.  :)   And wore a sweet winter dress for the festive day! (can you tell it is like 6 a.m. in the picture?!?!)

And TODAY is Crazy Hair Day at Ella's elementary school.  First she wasn't sure she was going to do it, then we weren't sure what to do about making her hair "crazy" and then....Pinterest.  Boom.  Man, there are a lot of creative pinners out there!  So, we picked cupcakes.  She really wanted donuts, but we didn't have the supplies to make "donuts" in her hair!  So, this is what we came up with!

Apparently this too a long time (it didn't) and she was SO tired of standing.She wouldn't smile for the camera this morning, so this is the best I got.  It looks pretty cute!

The Countdown has begun!

How's it going?!  Happy Holidays!  It's been busy around our house getting ready for the holidays!  We spent Thanksgiving in Chaska with Jay's family.  I made a Cinnamon Banana Cream Pie and it was a huge hit!  It is delicious and the recipe I used can be found here.

I also consulted with Pinterest.  Ella and I turned our boring veggie tray into a Turkey Masterpiece!   

TA DA!

gobble, gobble

The weekend after Thanksgiving, Jay braved the stores for a bit, and Ella and I decorated....and decorated...and I'm still not done (have the outside to do yet!)  It takes forever to get everything decorated!!

Our 2015 Christmas Tree

We put it in front of the window looking into the backyard this year.  Last year (first time in our new house) we put it in the corner due to furniture layout, etc. but we all like it MUCH better in front of the window.  Part of the decorating included rearranging the entire living room to make room for the tree!

Smurf Elf arrived yesterday, December 1st with a little note and a gift of some Elf on the Shelf PJs for Ms. Ella.  She was super excited!

And today, Day 2, Smurf Elf was very tricky hiding in a basket of ornaments near the fireplace.  It took Ella a long time to find him!

We love the Elf on the Shelf tradition at our house - looking forward to a weekend of shopping, wrapping and heading to the City tree lighting event!  Bring on the hot chocolate and Christmas cookies!