Christmas

I was extremely excited this year for Christmas, and although I was a little behind on my preparedness this year, it all still came together just fine.

We switched things up a bit this year.  We have decided to stay home on Christmas now that Kayden is getting older.  So, we invited people over to our house for brunch, which ended up being really nice.  I may, or may have not, missed the traditional turkey dinner on Christmas...but that's what Thanksgiving is for, right?  Right.

So, Kayden slept in a bit, getting up around 8:15, which was much appreciated. 

He was so excited to see Santa came.  I loved his expression when he saw the unwrapped blue hula hoop Santa brought.  It was number two on his list of things he wanted from Santa.

 Then he demonstrates the hula hoop...in his underwear of course.

 

Time to move on...to his stocking.

"Look, Santa left me Santa!"  Yes, honey, he did.

Taco's, anyone?  Santa brought a food set for when he wants to go to the grocery store and collect ingredients for dinner.  Any night I don't have to cook, is a good night.

So excited to get a shark tent.

 

 

Santa left Kayden his own measure tape, he had to measure the tree.  It's fourty-five, eight, twenty-seven miles.  Sounds about right, Kayden.

And this remote control firetruck was at the top of Kayden's list.  So glad the big guy in the red suit fulfilled Kayden's wish.  Thanks, Santa!

This much desired, remote control, firetruck can spray real water, but lets keep that between us, shall we?

Next up, a new family computer, or as Kayden says, "I got a puter".

 

We got Charlie 12.5 feet of dollar bills, which is equivalent to twenty five bucks, our limit on kiddos.  She liked it.

Charlie got Kayden a Jake and the Neverland Pirates game.  We played it four times in a row.  Huge hit.

 Nini and Papa got Charlie and Kayden these cool cars with re-design-able track.  The kids love them.

And here is the final picture of Christmas.  After everyone left Kayden wanted to put together a wooden airplane, a gift from my parents.  Once the glue dried, we painted it.

 

We hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas as much as we did. 

 

Take a look back at memory lane, here are links to previous Christmas's.  I, regretfully, didn't blog about 2012.  :( 

2011

2010

2009



Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was spent at my parents house this year.  It was a good time.

The night was mellow and low key, and perfect by my account.  Kyle and I really try to get home and going with Kayden's bedtime routine as close to normal as possible, which can be a little difficult around this time of year, but since Kyle got off work early and we were able to get to my parents early, it made it a little easier to get home at a reasonable time.  Yahoo for that. 

Here are some pictures of our Christmas Eve!

 Katie picked out a gift for Kayden from her school store, she also got Kayden a cool jaguar book mark.

Snow Day

Yesterday we got the first, and possibly only, snow fall of the season.  It has been predicted one or twice in the last month or so, but never produced anything, then two nights ago it came and Kayden and I woke up to see a beautiful blanket of snow.  It was awesome, and very short lived.  By early afternoon the rain had started and the snow quickly started to melt.

Thankfully, Kayden and I were able to play in it before it melted. 

 "Hey mom, look at my snow prints."

 Those eyes!

 We visited Nini and he attempted to clear off her porch, but quickly gave up when it proved to be too large of a task.

And we built a snowman, twice.  One Kayden's size and one daddy's size, which Kayden claimed, "Daddy is 400 miles long, so it has to be super big."  Well, ok, Kayden, we will do that. 

With the quickly melting snow, the snowmen didn't last long, they fell over and quickly melted.  All that hard work...melted away. 

Oh, well, we will just have to build another one next time the snow decides to fall.

Kayden's Christmas Concert

Kayden's preschool put on a Christmas Concert and it was way too adorable.

I'm thankful Kayden was well enough to go.  He woke up the day before with a bad case of pink eye in both eyes, but thanks to wonderful antibiotic eye drops (which are miserable for him and me to put in), he was able to attend the concert.  And although he still wasn't feeling 100%, he did a great job. 

I sure hope he is over his illnesses before Christmas.  The day after the concert he went to preschool, but ended up crying after school because his ear hurt, so we are on an oral antibiotic to cure the ear infection, in addition to his antibiotic eye drops.

 

So, each class did one song, and then collectively the classrooms all sang three songs together.  It was super cute to watch and I can't wait for the next one.

Kids Craft

Each year for the past four years I have hosted a Kids Craft Event, and each year it is a huge success.

This year I broke it into two sessions, and gave the families their choice of  10:00 or 1:30, and it just happened to be an even break, six kids at 10:00 and six at 1:30.  And I think I will keep this method next year.

We made a cute Chinese Lantern inspired ornament.  They are really cute and fun to make.

Charlie showing off her beautiful dress before heading off with Nini to the Pacific Northwest Ballet's performance of The Nutcracker.

I, unfortunately, didn't get a pictures of the first group together.  Wrangling three to five year olds is more difficult than gathering six to nine year olds.  And I know I mentioned there was two groups of six, but at the last minute we had one family cancel, so the last group ended up being a group of four. 

 

I really do look forward to this even each year.  It's been fun watching some kids grow from needing help to being totally independent and capable of doing it on their own.