Christmas gifts

Each year for Christmas, we rotate which siblings we are going to give gifts to.  This year, we had my brother and his family.  I decided to make them holiday banners.  I actually made 3 sets (one for us, and one for Garrett's parents) 

I still have to make a Thanksgiving banner for my brother (& for us) but I ran out of time.  I'll have to send that sometime in the next 10 months!

And for the nephews (they have 4 boys!), I made a set of bean bags (I actually made two sets - another set for another nephew on Garrett's side of the family):

They were fun projects, but a lot of work!!  Glad to have them done with.

Christmas

Picking out our Christmas tree:

Ellie was playing with a Nativity set that Garrett's mom made for us.  She came up to me with this pair and said, "Look, Mom!  Mary had a little lamb!"

Garrett made snowman pancakes for breakfast one morning:

Olivia enjoyed some treats that someone brought over:

Garrett and the girls made a cute little gingerbread house.  Thank goodness for those kits that you can buy at the store... no need to make the gingerbread or all the candy and frosting... it all comes in one box!

The Sunday before Christmas:

  

The kids opened new pajamas on Christmas Eve, thanks to Garrett's mom.

They were delighted to find that they included tutus!

They loved them

Santa called us on Christmas Eve!  He calls us every year from his sleigh to tell the girls to get into bed.  It is always such a thrill!                                                                                                                    (Thanks, Dad!)

Christmas morning was also a big hit.  The girls were up and in the living room at 4:30 but were quickly sent back to bed.  Garrett and I never fell back to sleep anyway though, so we were ready to get up when the kids woke up again at 7.

Santa was good to the kids.  He brought Abbie a 6-book box set of American Girl books (Felicity), a dress-up dress, and some rain boots.  He brought Ellie a Cinderella dress-up dress and a crown, and some Barbie coloring pages.  Olivia got two board books (Chick Chick Boom Boom, and Madeline, which Abbie LOVES to read to her), and some Goldfish in her stocking.

He also ate most of the gingerbread that we left by the fireplace, and chugged all of the eggnog.

Olivia also got a Little People: Princesses set, which she loves.

And Santa saved the best candy for me:

This was our first Christmas without extended family, which was a little sad but I have to say that I really loved it.  I loved being in our own house, starting some of our own traditions, and just relaxing without having to travel or be a guest in someone's home.  We did keep the most important Woodbury tradition (according to Garrett), which was to have pizza for dinner on Christmas Eve.

We had a lovely Christmas dinner with friends in the late afternoon (spiral ham, yum), and after that had an even bigger get-together with more friends for desserts.  I brought a sweet potato pie and it was SO good.

All in all, a very happy Christmas, made even better by the mild temperature.  Garrett's been paying special attention to the weather in Madison and it makes us so grateful to be here in Florida for another year and a half.  Not to say we aren't excited to go there, but... well, we are loving the warm winter for now. :)

Lately

Christmas came early for Garrett.  He finally bought a kayak, which he's been wanting to do since... well, medical school!  So it's been a long time coming.  He's been able to take it out a couple times already, and thankfully this way, there's no way he'll need to kick any catfish off any piers.

We took the girls out for ice cream after Abbie's play a few weeks ago.

Abbie still has her squirrel nose...

The kids went "Squatch hunting" while we were in Savannah for Thanksgiving.  Garrett and Grandpa took them out in Grandpa's pickup truck.  They saw TWO Sasquatches run across the road!!  They were very excited - oh man you should have seen their faces as they came running into the house.  They went out again about an hour later since Jared and Uncle Garrett couldn't go with them the first time.  This time, Grandpa stayed behind.  The second time they saw one Sasquatch run across the road... he was much slower than the first two, apparently. ;)  They were soooo happy.  Garrett's little brother Rylan is the instigator of all things "Sasquatch", and the kids really get a kick out of it all.

                             

Haha... I'm only about 3 years behind on this trend.

Aunt Katie made cake pops with the kids one night:

Uncle Jared made a fun growth chart for Garrett's parents for Christmas, for them to take home to Utah with them.  It was a 6-foot board that he stained and marked to look like a giant ruler - I hope Garrett was taking notes because I want him to make one for me! Jared marked all the kids before we left:

....and some of the adults, too.  Haha.

Grandma and Grandpa left on Friday to drive home to Utah, so the rest of us stayed behind to clean the house and put it back in "house showing" condition (it's for sale).  We all planned to leave that night, though, and didn't want to mess up the kitchen again so we went out to dinner together before going our separate ways (SC, Atlanta, and FL).

It was a fun and busy November.

Concerts

Abbie had her first grade play in November.  It was called "Nuts" and it was SO cute!  Abbie's class were the "big bad squirrels" and they sang the cutest song.  She did a great job, we loved it!

In December, Ellie's class had their preschool Christmas concert.  They just sang 5 short songs, so it only lasted about 10 minutes total, which was great. They sang songs about Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Christmas. 

 

One really fun thing about Ellie's preschool class is that half of the kids (10) are also in our ward at church.  We all carpool also, so 5 of us drop off in the mornings and 5 pick up at noon.  It's fun to see my friends for a few minutes each morning when I drop off.  We all also live within a 2-mile radius of each other so I always see people drive past me as we are going to and from school.

It's so fun to have kids in concerts at school.... makes me feel a little bit old but that's okay.  It's a fun stage to be in!

Thankful Tree

We did a "thankful tree" during the month of November:

It was fun to sit down each evening and talk about all the things we are thankful for.  The girls especially enjoyed writing on their leaves.  Here are a couple close-ups:

(little piggy is Ellie's new small pillow pet.. now she has a big pig and a little pig)

(candy)

(milk)

November flew by quickly.  We went to Savannah for Thanksgiving; even though Garrett's parents have moved to Utah, the house is still available and furnished so all of Garrett's siblings planned to meet up there for the holiday.  At the last minute, Garrett's parents and little brother also decided to come back and join us, so it was a full house.  Garrett took a few extra days off before Thanksgiving so we could spend some extra time with them.  It was a fun time and the kids loved playing with their cousins.