Christmas Day 2016

Thankfully the kids slept in a little, but when they did wake up it was with full "Santa came" excitement.

Well, Olivia anyways.  I think Logan was a little confused.

"You got Superman, Buddy!"

At this point she realized she had Rapunzel and not Emily and she made us pause so that she could go and get her!

Christmas magic!

After seeing their Santa gifts, they dug into their stockings.

Last year there was a lot of craziness going on as they both opened gifts.  I decided we weren't going to do that this year.  I wanted Olivia to pay attention to who gave her what gift, and to thank the appropriate person.  Instead of just ripping into all of the gifts and not having a clue who they came from.  Plus, I don't know about the rest of you, but this mom puts a lot of time and effort into making Christmas memorable and I didn't want the morning over in 6 seconds flat.  So I made them sort out all of the gifts and take turns opening one present at a time.

Of course they each got a movie from us.  It's tradition!  This year, Olivia got Aladdin.  It's one of the only princess movies she didn't have.  Logan got Finding Dory--my one Black Friday deal. ;)

They also both got swim goggles and diving toys, because they go swimming each week and love it.

They got lots of fun presents from Grandma.

Since Olivia didn't get the big Ariel lego castle, Logan got her a small Ariel lego set.  She was thrilled!

We got them both a pair of slippers too.  Are you catching a theme?  We did traditions (movie and ornament), needed (goggles), practical (slippers), and educational (a book).  I'm sure our children are ever grateful for grandparents. ;)

His favorite gift!

Olivia forgot that she asked for a telescope, and the was extra excited when she opened it and got one!

We love, love, love magna tiles, so magformers with wheels should be fun!

Dinosaurs!

Olivia got Logan a Blaze (car) and she was so excited!

After all of the presents were opened, the play began.  We ate brunch and watched one of their new movies.  Then we played games. Olivia got a few different card/board games and we gave them all a try.  We built lego sets, showed Emily all of her new food, used the cash register, and stuck together magformers.

And Logan drilled and undrilled.

A few days before Christmas, Olivia asked me if I was going to be making them a fun dinner.  She said, "I'm sure you can.  You know, like how you made that fun Halloween dinner.  If you can make one for Halloween, then you can make one for Christmas too."  I'm not going to lie... reindeer sandwiches sounds like a much better option than slaving over a ham/turkey/roast.  So that's what we did.  The kids had this and Michael and I had a meat and cheese platter.  Plus, Dr. Pepper reindeer floats for everyone!

Memory made!

Yummy!

After dinner we did round two of board games.  Then we settled in to movie #2 before heading to bed.  It was a pretty low key day, but the kids loved it.  That's what it's all about!

Gigi (my grandma) sent them some money to pick something out.  We chose to go to the movies as a family, so that was a fun treat.

Grandma and Grandpa Hartman sent money for memberships.  We maximized our dollars by using Groupon.  So now we have a membership to The Heard Science Museum, a few passes to their favorite indoor play place, and we paid for the extended version of the Starfall app (educational!) on their kindle.  It's one of Olivia's favorite apps, and she has basically exhausted the free section of it.  Who am I to argue? It's all educational! Win/win!

And they still have some Target gift cards from Grandma and Grandpa Gjertson.  We're going to let the dust settle (i.e. let the crazy clearance shoppers be done) and then take them in to pick something out.  This will be a real treat for them, because we aren't the kind that buys them a toy every time we go to the store.  In fact, we almost never buy them stuff.  We look, and they are content with that.  So actually getting to take something home will be a big deal!

So that was our Christmas.  It fit our family just right.  On to the next holiday....

Christmas Eve

Well... I'm being harassed about not writing anything since Thanksgiving, so here I am. ;)

Obviously I have a whole month to catch up on, and it was one busy month.  So I'm just going to start with Christmas.  And in order to start with Christmas, I have to start with Christmas Eve.

I had actually worked the night before until 2 AM, so our day started out slow and low key.  But as soon as we finished lunch, we dove into decorating Christmas cookies.  We had actually decorated cookies earlier in the month (a post on that coming), so I didn't take many pictures this time.  But we all 4 participated and had fun.  Then we played a little bit, and got ready for our churches Christmas Eve service.

It was our first time at a live nativity, and the kids were awestruck!

Logan couldn't take his eyes off of the animals that were over to the side. ;)  They had fun petting them for just a few short minutes, and then we went in to find seats.

Our church moved into our brand new building earlier in the month, so this was Olivia's first time in the adult sanctuary and she was excited.

Logan was just excited to be holding a candle. :)

We had a friend snap a picture of us real quick, so we don't have many pictures with all 4 of us.  She took at least a dozen.  It's pretty much impossible to get a good one.. .between Olivia's fake smiles and the toddler with a thousand faces.  We'll get a good one eventually. Ha!

From there we headed to dinner.  And Logan spent the entire meal on my lap.

Neither of my kids have ever been social sleepers.  Even if they fall asleep in the car, they wake up immediately when we take them out.  Except this time.  He must have been very tired!  He's in that weird stage where he can go without a nap, but sometimes hanging until bed is hard.  But if he naps, then he wants to play in his bed until 11 o'clock at night.  I'm not sure what the answer is on that one.

We tried to go to one place, but it ended up being closed for the holiday.  So instead of driving around and looking for somewhere, we just went with a very small local Chinese place.  This is Olivia saying, "I like Chinese.  I actually like Chinese food!"  Ha ha!  I've never seen someone so excited about white rice.

When we got home, the kids put out the carrots and reindeer food that they had made earlier.

We all got in our jammies and snuggled in to watch Polar Express.

Obligatory pajama picture by the tree.  Side note: I got her that doll a year ago to go to a birthday party.  She had hardly even played with it.  But when she got new Christmas pajamas for Day 1 of advent, she got a dolly and me set.  Somehow having her doll have matching pajamas sent her into a doll craze.  Emily goes everywhere with us and Olivia tells us how hard it is to be a mom. ;)

Excited kiddos!

We set out milk and cookies for Santa, and then put these guys to bed.

Santa had to wait quite a while, because it took these two littles forever to fall asleep.  Olivia could still be heard talking and singing at 10:30!

Santa finally made his appearance.  He filled everyone's stockings!  Michael and I haven't exchanged gifts in a few years, but Olivia kept making such a big deal about what Santa was going to fill our stockings with that we actually went ahead and filled them this year.

When I asked the kids a month or so ago what they wanted from Santa, Logan said "Legos and more legos".  So that's what I got him.  But then about a week before we went to see Santa, he found this Superman doll at Target and decided he must have it.  So when he sat on Santa's lap, that is what he asked for.  So Santa brought both.

When we asked Olivia what she wanted, she really couldn't come up with much.  (To which I turned to Michael and said, "I feel like we've done something right as parents that our child doesn't have a wishlist a mile long.  She can't even think of one thing she wants.")  After some talk and guidance she chose a Little Mermaid lego set.  But after the doll pajamas and falling in love with Emily, she changed her mind to doll stuff.  We walked the aisles of Target, and she picked out a few favorites. And when Santa asked her what she wanted and she said, "Stuff for my Emily doll", he said, "Like what kind of stuff?".  She said, "My mom sent you a picture, remember?" and he quickly replied, "Oh, yes.  I remember now."  :)  

We had a few presents under the tree from Mommy and Boppa and grandparents.

Let the fun begin!

Thanksgiving 2016

We had a little bit of an unconventional Thanksgiving, but it worked out great.

As we all know, Olivia is a holiday lover.  This year, since she works with a calendar daily, she wants to make sure no holiday is forgotten.  So as soon as Halloween ended she started talking about Thanksgiving (as opposed to other years where she would just skip right on to Christmas).  She wanted to make sure it was decorated for, and celebrated.  She immediately started planning a feast.

So I decided to just go with it and let her be as involved as she wanted.  The first thing I had her do was to make a placemat for each person.

Olivia was suppose to help me with this feast, but it ended up being Logan who was the helper.

 Olivia was too busy talking on the phone to grandma and drawing/writing books.

Logan loves being a helper, and is always asking.  He was so happy to be able to help without having to take turns with his sister. :)

As soon as we were done with our night before prep, I covered the table with our fun tablecloth.  I got it from Target.  It was a paper type material that you could color.  I knew it would be perfect for our kid friendly feast.

As soon as Olivia realized she could color on the table, she was all in.  Our family sat and colored together for a while.

We set the table and sent the littles to bed.

It's nearly impossible to get Logan to take a staged picture.  So this is the best we could do.

We don't usually put all of the food on the table.  I guess it comes from our tiny condo days, but I always just fill our plates and them serve them at the table.  But Olivia insisted that our table be full for the "great feast", so that's what we did! 

I'm thankful for these 3!

Soon after our lunch they hit the road.  Michael's cousin (and his family) and aunt and uncle now live in a suburb of Austin.  We got a last minute invite for Thanksgiving.  Obviously I had to work, but I sent the rest of them along to have fun and enjoy family time.  It was a 3 hour drive, and they got there in plenty of time for dinner.

Michael with his Aunt, Uncle, cousin Timmy and 3 out of 4 of his kids.  Somehow his wife and daughter missed the picture.

I guess Logan took right to their youngest son Ian.

They all had a blast.  They jumped on the trampoline, played with dogs, played hide and seek, took golf cart rides, got to eat ice cream and popcorn in the same night...

Meanwhile, I was dealing with the craziness that is Black Friday.

I went in on Thursday at 5:30, and worked until about 12:30.  Then, since no one was at home waiting for me, I walked around and shopped for a bit.  I'll be honest, though.  When you combine my desire for a simpler life with having less, while watching people completely lose their mind over material possessions and "the it toy"... I didn't buy much.

I was able to sleep in Friday morning.  Then I spent most of the day drinking coffee and binge watching the new Gilmore Girls on Netflix.  I also wrapped some Christmas gifts.  It was a nice, quiet, relaxing day.  Which is just what I needed. Then it was back to Target for more Black Friday craziness.

Overall we had a great holiday.  It was simple.  And simple is good.

November Photo Dump

We hadn't had a Costco membership for a while, but we needed new tires and figured we'd go that route.  So of course we had to walk the aisles and see what was up.  And the kiddos found the giant bear.

What we do when we are waiting for a hair cut. :)

We voted!  Texas had early voting that went on for a while.  We hit up the library and had no wait!

Quite frankly, I'm shocked this hasn't happened sooner!  He didn't get fully out, since I caught him.  My other saving grace is that he's afraid to drop.  So he just climbs back in.

Michael took this one night while I was at work.

If your mom is a teacher... you might do file folders on a Saturday morning for fun.  Ha ha! 

Olivia is really into cooking, and she's constantly making us these "meals" with her play food.  So I decided to show her a kids bake off show on Netflix.  She was totally into it.  She set up her work area with all of her tools and her princess coloring book, and was giving us tutorials and telling us she had made this recipe "literally hundreds of times".

The very next opportunity she had to climb the wall, she made it to the TOP and rang the bell!  I had no doubt she would.  She climbed it multiple times, actually.

And then she gave wall 2 a go.  I'm sure there are plenty of 5 year olds that can climb these walls, but what makes it impressive is if you know MY 5 year old--and her coordination and athletic ability!

I had to work on Veteran's Day, but Michael took the kids out for his free meal and they hit up a few stores.

Making butter for cow week, and trying it on a cracker. Mmmm!  (We had to switch to a mason jar.  That little tupperware started leaking!)

Our MOPS craft this month was win!

The decorations went up, we had our first fire, and we watched Polar Express. Love!

We had ants!  I put Michael in charge of this homeschool project.  I think he enjoyed watching them just as much as the kids did!

We watched Monsters Inc.  So of course we had to have some art to go along with that. ;)

Did I mention it might be time to move to the toddler bed?! ;)