Christmas Recap

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas this year.  We enjoyed celebrating Ella's first Christmas, spending time with family, eating fabulous food, and opening gifts.  We spent our traditional Christmas Eve at my parents' house in Issy with both Chris' and Eric's families this year.  We ate my mom's delicious turkey dinner and then had our little Christmas program complete with the lighting of the Christmas tree with my dad's candles.  This is always such a special evening as it is reminds me of my own childhood.  We then had a relaxing and quiet Christmas morning.  Lia didn't come into our room until 7:30 (hooray) and I even made her wait until 8 a.m. before she woke up Logan since we had two late nights out of the last three and the boy needed his sleep!  We then came down stairs to see what Santa left them before eating a fancy breakfast in the dining room.  I then put Ella down for her morning nap before we gathered around the Christmas tree to open up all of our gifts.  Both Lia and Logan were very pleased with their loot this year--lots of Frozen paraphernalia and American Girl doll accessories for Lia and lots of trains, dump trucks, and power tools for Logan!  We spent a slow afternoon with naps and movies before Ron and I made a delicious Filipino dinner which is a new tradition of ours.  My parents joined us around 5 p.m. for the rest of the evening.  It was so fun to share our Christmas dinner and Christmas evening with them.  They brought some wonderful gifts for all of us and really made the evening special for us.  Both Ron and I were pleasantly surprised at how smooth the day went--everyone was healthy and happy.  No major meltdowns, tantrums, or drama!  Hallelujah!

A rare photo of the entire Hartland fam.  It's hard to get a picture of all five of us together these days.

My favorite Christmas photo this season standing in front of my parents' tree on Christmas Eve.

Lia and I singing a few of the Christmas carols that she learned this year for caroling with her Girl Scout Daisy troop at a Senior Center in Sumner.

Logan's contribution to the program was showing the family how he can jump on one leg and do a somersault which are his two tricks that he is very proud of these days.  That boy.

Logan jumping on one leg.

Aunt Natalee brought her bells again this year and the kids enjoyed playing a few Christmas carols with them.  Here is Logan and his red bell.

And, of course, Lia chose the turquoise bell.

Next up in the program was our traditional reenactment of the nativity story.  Lia got to be Mary again this year.  Here she is with Garrett (Joseph) and Riley (the shepherd).

The entire gang after finishing the story.

We finished off the program with the singing of some more Christmas songs...

and the lighting of the Christmas tree.  We always sing "Silent Night" afterwards.  I always love the Christmas spirit that I feel during this time of the evening.

Christmas morning began with the children running downstairs to see their "Santa Stuff."  One of the big surprises for Lia was finding her two American Girl Dolls dressed like Elsa and Anna from Frozen.  Santa's elves even styled their hair to match the outfits.  Lia is convinced that Santa recruited the help of a girl elf for this assignment. :-)

Here is Lia standing next to her Santa couch complete with all things Frozen from American Girl Doll clothes to books to Barbies to pajamas to a water bottle.

Ella enjoyed attacking the presents under the tree while her siblings checked out their Santa gifts.

Logan sitting next to his Santa gifts complete with a train set, Thomas the Train coloring book, a Cars roller backpack, and a giant box full of battery operated power tools.  The power tools hand's down were the favorite of the day.  He hasn't stopped running his chainsaw since!

Eating our Christmas breakfast of eggs, bacon, and the bread ring in the dining room.

Logan opening up a "Bob the Builder" movie.

Lia opening up a Barbie horse that we bought last month at Disney on Ice (that she had to wait until Christmas to have).

Lia showing off her new Frozen digital watch.

Logan showing off his dump truck from Aunt Renee and Uncle Derek.

Logan and papa checking out the awesome book he got that has little train tracks on every page for a pull-back train to zip along.

We saved the best for last and had the children move into the family room to open up the two giant gifts that appeared before Christmas morning in the living room.  Lia's gift was wrapped in Disney princess Christmas paper and Logan's was wrapped in Disney Cars Christmas paper.  Here are the two children standing next to these mystery gifts before opening them.

And the unwrapping begins!  Both kids tore into the presents like no other gift Christmas morning!

Ripping away!

And more ripping!

When they finally unwrapped and opened the boxes, several balloons came out.

Here is Lia letting out her balloons.

Tied to the bottom of each of the balloon strings were words that spelled out a message.  Here I am helping Lia put the words in order.

And the message read:

"You are going to Disneyland!

Love,

Mom and Dad"

That's right!  We are taking the kiddos to Disneyland this winter!  It took a few seconds for the message to sink in, but when it did, Lia started jumping up and down.  Logan never really got it although we have been talking about Disneyland for quite sometime.  Here we are posing with all of our Disney and star balloons.

And after baby Ella woke up from her morning nap, we all gathered back into the living room to open up her few gifts.

Here is Lia helping Ella try out her stuffed lamb for the first time.

Ella holding her lamb.

Logan supervising Ella and her lambie.  Just precious.

And there you go!  Merry Christmas 2014!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

from our family to yours!

The Nutcracker Ballet

For the third holiday season, Lia and I decided to go The Nutcracker Ballet performed by one of the local ballet companies in the area.  We decided to ask our friends Mariah, Mollie, and Gabriella to join us this year and we had a great time.  The girls got all dressed up in their Christmas dresses and we had so much fun watching the ballet together and then posing with all of the ballerinas afterwards.  It was so cute to watch Lia talking Mollie through the storyline throughout the performance as she has become quite The Nutcracker expert.  Both of these six-year old girls were so interested in all of the different dances and clapped with such enthusiasm after each number was finished.  I love sharing these magical experiences with Lia!  I don't ever want her to grow up.

Lia posing with Mollie and her little sister, Gabriella, before the ballet began.

Mother and daughter.

Lia, Mollie, and Gabriella hanging out in their seats during intermission.

The girls posing with one of the many ballerinas after the performance ended.

Lia and Mollie with a Flower and Russian dancer.

Lia and the Sugar Plum Fairy.

Lia with the principal Spanish dancer.

And, last but definitely not least, the girls posing with Clara!

Silly Faces

In the last week or two, Ella has discovered how to blow raspberries while puckering her lips in the funniest way.  It is just the funniest thing to watch her pucker her lips and blow so seriously.  Sometimes she will just do it over and over again.  Today while I was feeding her lunch was one of those days so I quickly grabbed the camera and tried to get some pictures of her while making this silly face.  Here are some of the photos I got...

A sweet smile from her high chair before things got really silly.

I was just a little too late in taking this picture as this is what her lips look like after coming out of blowing a raspberry!

Another post-raspberry pic!  It took a few times before I was able to snap a picture while she was doing the real thing.

Another hilarious picture I got when she was finishing off a raspberry.

And here you go!  This is the picture I wanted!

And another raspberry in action.  Isn't this the silliest?!

Decorating a Gingerbread House

A few years ago, I found an elaborate, boxed gingerbread house set on clearance at Michaels after Christmas.  It was such a good deal that I couldn't pass it up and so I quickly bought it, brought it home, and tucked it away in my kitchen pantry.  And then I promptly forgot out it.  Each year, Christmas came and went and we didn't assemble it because I never seemed to remember it during the holiday season.  So this year I promised myself that I would remember about it during the month of December and, luckily, I did!   So for F.H.E. tonight, we gathered around the kitchen table and had a grand old time decorating the gingerbread house together.  In fact, I'm actually glad that I didn't remember it until this year as Logan is finally old enough to participate in such an activity and really did a good job.  We put Logan up on the table and the four of us gathered around the gingerbread house and each decorated one of the sides while Ella crawled around on the floor.  It was one of those rare moments when everyone was happy and working side by side.  It really was a fun family activity and I hope to keep this tradition alive for many years to come!

Logan working hard on decorating his side of the house.

Logan taking a brief break to acknowledge the camera and me.

Lia was also in charge of decorating the gingerbread men that came with the set.  She promptly turned them into gingerbread women and did a great job making them pretty and colorful! 

Working hard under Ella's supervision.

Logan and Lia admiring the finished product.  Please notice Logan's "smile" that he currently flashing us whenever we ask for one.  Oh dear.

A close-up of the finished product.