Jay, Sara & Ella

Christmas Eve, Christmas Day!

We made it to church at Hosanna for Christmas Eve service.

Abbas church selfie at its best - even including weird lighting issues!!

We took another at home to eliminate the weird lighting issue!

Looking festive!

We opened our gifts from each other on Christmas Eve. Ella wanted me to take this picture of her with new cozy socks (strange photo choice!)

Ruby got in on the present action too...

Ella ended up going to bed early again, not feeling well.

So, I had to leave out the Santa cookies and milk this year!

Thank goodness I didn't forget!!

Because Santa came!!

Christmas Day we had our annual Christmas breakfast, watched the Disney parade and just relaxed a bit after all of the traveling we did! We headed to the movies - Frozen 2 in the afternoon! Everyone wore PJs to make it extra cozy on Christmas day!

LOL! I thought my selfie game was getting better - I blame my lighting issues on my old phone!

I think it's time to upgrade!!

Ella with her 2019 Christmas gifts!

My buds during the Disney parade!

Sweet ornament from Ms. Ella

Santa gifted me a Downton Abbey ornament!

Ella's new unicorn wrap was very popular around the house!

We are looking forward to one more celebration this weekend!

Christmas in Worthington 2019

We headed to celebrate Christmas in Worthington by leaving town early on Friday the 20th! This was our first trip with Ruby Pearl. It was kind of like bringing along an infant with all of the dog things we needed to bring!! We were thankful to have good travel weather and good weather while we were in town.

Friday night, we ate in at mom's and Ella and Chase had a sleepover!

I have no pictures to evidence this fun night!!

Saturday, Lexi joined us for breakfast while Kaila had some hair appointments.

She wanted me to braid her hair and then take a picture of it. LOL! Kids are funny

These pictures were a few hours after the braids were put in...so hopefully that will explain why these don't look the best. She loved them though!!

Papa Gary came to get the kids on Saturday morning for a day a fun with him. Jay and I had lunch out with my mom and then we just hung out and made some Christmas treats. We celebrated with my dad on Saturday night. It was night of interesting conversations at dinner (hot dishes and pickles)! Kaila and Lexi missed most of it because Lexi was in the bathroom. (oh boy!) But, we all had a good laugh and enjoyed hanging out. We gifted my dad an iPad this year so it will be fun to "see" him more often with Facetime!

Sunday started with a church service to see Chase acolyte. There were Christmas carols to sing at the beginning of service, which was my favorite part!

Later, we went out to a family lunch and then everyone came to mom's and we celebrated our next Christmas! The kids were having such a fun time getting to hang out so much!

The stockings!

The tree!

It was a fun day!

On Monday, everyone had to work (boo!) but Kaila dropped Lexi off to hang out with us for the day. Kaila and my mom were twinsies for the day - HA!!

I planned for Lexi and Ella to help me bake cookies for Santa, but mostly I did it. The annual peanut butter reindeer Santa cookies were checked off the baking list!

Monday night was the Vikings vs. Packers football game!!

We had big plans for nachos and watching the game.

But, Ella wasn't feeling great.

So, she went to bed before the game barely started and

I don't have any pictures of us in our Vikings gear!

We lost anyway.

Boo.

Overall, Ruby Pearl's first trip to Worthington was pretty good.

Thank goodness we had good weather because we (mostly Jay) had to take her for walks to do her business. She didn't always go, so it made for a LOT of walks.

At the house, her favorite spot was on this rug between the kitchen and living room.

As you can see, she made herself comfortable!

2019 Worthington Christmases are in the books!

Decembering...

Here are a few fun things we did during the month of December!

Smurf Elf arrived on December 1st with a Lego Advent calendar for Ms. Ella!

Ella had to write song lyrics to complete an assignment at school. She decided to write a song about kindness. We worked on it together, but she really rocked it with some great themes and lines for the song. The lyrics can be sung to the Christmas song "Last Christmas" :)

We were able to fit in our annual Cozy Cocoa Christmas cruise to check out the Christmas lights in our area. We all wore PJs, made a stop at Starbucks for tea/hot chocolate and away we went!

I mean...SO CRAZY!

Ella received a flippy sequin Santa hat from Smurf Elf!

On December 7, Ruby Pearl turned 1! She has been at our house since the end of July, so really just 5 months! It's been a really fast 5 months. But, what a difference it is from day 1 to now!

Ella took a part in the church Christmas play this year and played a shepherd.

She really enjoyed it and hopes to participate again next year!

Of course we had to do some holiday baking! This year we made cut-out Christmas cookies, Mint chocolate cookies, Peanut Butter blossoms, Cherry Chocolate cookies, Chocolate Chip Balls, Puppy Chow and Peanut Butter Reindeer cookies!! WOWSERS!

We had a 12 Days of Christmas mini stocking set that Ella decided each of us should fill each day and then on the 13th day we would share what was gifted in the stockings. I will admit that I forgot to fill my stocking almost every day, but I did get them filled up before that 13th day! Pretty funny to find what was all stuffed inside!

HA!!!

It was fun but hard to think of items that would fit in a mini stocking!!

This year we made an appointment to visit Mr. Santa Claus himself at the Mall of America.

We have friends who do this each year, so we thought we'd try it out (instead of seeing Santa at the grocery store - LOL!)

Before our visit, we grabbed dinner at Wahlburgers - delicious!

There was a balloon artist at the restaurant, so Ella requested a dog. Not sure this is really looking like a dog….

Waiting to see Santa!! (The "elf" in the background totally photo bombed this one!)

Ella was a little annoyed because Santa talked a lot so she didn't get to tell him all of the things on her list. LOL! But, it was a sweet little moment that I hope she remembers!