Christmas 2014.

>> December 31, 2014

We had such a good Christmas this year. Matt had the entire week off so there was plenty of family time just playing board games, baking cookies and listening to lots of Christmas music. On Christmas Eve we decorated our delicious sugar cookies. I was so proud of the kids this year who patiently decorated each one with a normal amount of sprinkles...as opposed to their usual "dump 4954739595 sprinkles on the cookie, table, floor, dog, and self." 
Later that day we got dressed and ready for Christmas Eve service at church. 
 After church Matthew and Joy spent some time playing with the kids before opening a few presents.

 We had a delicious lasagna dinner (our tradition) and let the kids stay up late before finally kicking everyone out so we could get ready for Santa. The kids each chose a cookie for him, 4 carrots for the 8 reindeer and Carter chose an entire red pepper for Rudolph...because his nose is red. Of course.  :)
 In the morning they were SO excited to run downstairs and see what Santa brought. Our tradition is to read Santa's letter (he always writes back to us!), open stockings and do our scratch tickets before my parents come over to open the presents under the tree.


 It was also our last day on our Advent tree. I started this last year and even though it's super DIY we all sort of love it. Each day has a Christmas themed activity to do throughout the month. The kids look forward to lifting up the days each morning to see what we'll do. Some are simple like listening to Christmas music, making cookies or doing a Christmas craft and others are more fun like giving a gift to others, Snowflake Lane and driving to look at lights. On Christmas Eve we read the Christmas story and then celebrated Jesus' birthday on Christmas day!
 Scratch tickets....$0. Ugh!  Luckily we won a whopping $18 later in the day when we got our tickets from Matt's parents. Yes!


 Cute kids in front of the tree.
 Annual family pj pic.
 Carter made me this adorable handprint plate at preschool. He even decorated the bag and made sure to tell me it was very fragile before I opened it. And I loved it!
 A very happy boy with his new Lego sets.

 And Lucy's big gift was her first big girl bike!

 I usually pride myself on delicious Christmas food. And I didn't disappoint with my cranberry bliss bars this year. But, we are still trying to find the perfect Christmas breakfast tradition. We all love french toast but hate the clean up on such a busy morning. So, I found a simple, yet delicious looking slow cooker french toast recipe on Pinterest that sounded perfect. Instead it was half burnt, half doughy and mostly just a mess. Which meant we had to scramble to come up with something else at the last minute. And I was super annoyed. Big Pinterest fail! Guess we'll still keep searching for that perfect Christmas breakfast recipe. Any ideas??
 Celebrating Christmas morning with Grandpa and Grandma Longhurst.
 After breakfast we got ready and headed up to the beach house to spend the rest of the day with Matt's family. They had such a beautiful tree.
 All of the annual family pics in front of the tree.




 And then it was present time! I think the kids "helped" open up every single gift this year, even if it didn't have their name on it.


We ended the day with a walk around the neighborhood, watching the Grinch Who Stole Christmas and a delicious prime rib dinner. Such a good time spent with family. Merry Christmas!

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more bday celebrations!

Just to keep our December really, really busy we decided to have a family celebration on Lucy's actual birthday. The morning started (early..what's new!) with a present from us. She's still working on how to hold up 3 fingers instead of 2.  :)
 Her reaction to her new Rapunzel doll and horse was priceless. She always gets so excited.


 Then we headed out to the local bakery for donuts for breakfast. While we were there she got to choose her birthday cake. I'm usually so good about baking homemade cakes and cupcakes for the kids but I was just too tired (and lazy) this time.
 After breakfast Grandma Kathy came up for a special girls adventure. Kathy, Lucy and I headed to the mall to surprise her with Build-A-Bear. At first she was a bit overwhelmed, as were all of us! There were so many bears to choose from but once we narrowed it down she chose a perfectly pink bear.
 Helping stuff the bear and making it smell like bubble gum.
 Giving her bear a bath.
 After looking at several different outfits she finally chose a bright pink, sparkly Hello Kitty Dress with sparkly purple shoes. It's a bit much, but was perfect for the birthday girl. She got to ring the bell and they even sang her Happy Birthday. So fun!
 To finish off girl time we headed over to Panera Bread for lunch.

 Later that night my family came up and Lucy got to open all her presents before dinner. This was her special card from her great grandpa.
 Dinner was at her favorite pizza place, Uncle Petezas!
 She chose a beautiful (and delicious!) snowflake cake.
 Carter got to help his little sister choose her candles and blow them out.

 And...her new Minnie Mouse dress! Happy Birthday Lucy!

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a gymnastics bday party!

To celebrate Lucy's birthday this year we thought we'd make it extra easy and take the party elsewhere. With December being so busy already it was nice to not have the extra planning on decorating, cleaning and organizing. All we had to do was grab a few streamers, make some cupcakes and show up to the gymnastics gym!
Lucy chose a Minnie Mouse themed party this year...one of her favorites right now.
 I made her a special mini-cake she could eat while her friends ate the cupcakes.
 Right before the party started, she was so excited!
 A few of the kids at the gym. The funny thing is most of our friends have boys so with 10 kids attending the party, there were 3 girls and 7 boys. They all get along so well and help each other out, love these kiddos.
 The giant trampoline was a big hit for all the kids. Lucy spent about 20 minutes on it and refused to get off.

There was this awesome inflatable dragon that the boys loved. They all crawled though and jumped around before coming out the other end. The girls...wouldn't even get near it.  :)

 The big foam pit was another big hit. So fun to watch the kids jump carefree and then get stuck trying to get out!
 Katy and I have been friends for over 15 years, lived with each other for 4 years and now get to enjoy watching our little girls grow up together. So glad her and Ava could come to the party.
 Jessica is another amazing friend of mine, who just so happens to also watch our kids when I'm working. I feel so lucky that we found her when we moved to Bothell...her family has become like family to us.
 Me with the birthday girl! My big 3 year old!

 An attempt to get all the kids together for a group picture. They each received a ribbon for participating and Lucy got a gold medal! So cute.

 I totally forgot a fork. So we had to compromise, yet she didn't seem too upset.
 Presents!



 The 3 girls of the party...so cute, love these little ones.

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