Christmas 2013

Tomorrow is Christmas, Martin is leaving to return to Santa at the North Pole.

We made gingerbread houses out of graham crackers, icing, and an assortment of hard candy.

 Rylie kept wanting to eat her house.

 

 Look carefully at Rylie's face. See the ink marks. Yes, she decided to draw on her face. Crazy girl!

You're getting to be such a big girl and great sister.

Gingerbread house building was an epic fail, but oh so much fun anyway!

 I find the both of you without shirts on all the time. Seems daddy prefers to leave you without clothes on when you ruin your old ones.

 

We made snowmen candy dishes for my mom and Jerry's mom as a gift from the kids for Christmas.

 Santa came and left gifts.

Their favorite gifts so far were the scooters. We were outside bright and early to try them out.

Breakfast with Santa and lots of Photos

We went to breakfast with Santa at the YMCA. I knew that we had to get up extra early because it started at 8 a.m. I showered at 5 a.m. and still it was not enough time to leave the house by 8. I'm always frustrated trying to leave the house because we are mostly not on time. I'm hoping this is a "I have small kids" phase and will pass once Camden, Grey, and Rylie are a bit older. Good news is, the day started out frustrating but it turned out great. We got there at 9 and they were able to go right up to Santa. Cailin and Rylie were able to deliver their Wish List to Santa. Cailin also got to ask Santa a very important question that she has been trying to figure out. She wanted to know how does Santa make it to everyone's home in one single night. Santa told her that it was magic and he was able to slow down time. She came away very satisfied with that answer. Thanks Santa!

The babies were able to take a photo with Santa and with Mrs. Claus.  

Then they had breakfast- pancakes, sausage, and orange juice.                                   

Then when we were leaving. We had a few moments to kill, so mini-photoshoot it is!                                  

  Then the karate chopping began.....                         

Followed by magic! I love these next set of photos!

Decorating the Christmas Tree

When we first put the tree up, we just added candy canes.

But this little baby wasn't interested in helping us to put candy canes on the tree. She was ok with eating them. See that grin? That's a happy face because I'm finally giving in and letting her eat one.

So I broke a candy cane in half and let her and Cailin share. I thought this would satisfy her. Instead, she became consumed with eating candy canes off the tree. I had to stop her from eating them like 15-20 times per day. A couple of times, she was able to actually eat them, plastic and all, before I could stop her.

Why are you so sad Rylie? Because mean ole' Momma won't let me have another peppermint.

I have had these ornaments since Ariel was about Rylie's age. So we've been putting these same ornaments on the tree for the last 10+ years. This year Rylie has broken more ornaments than any of the kids have broken in the last 10 years. I catch her daily with about 3-4 ornaments at a time off the tree. After about the 5th one was broken, we put the ones that will shatter up high. I don't know what to say about this baby.

See that little bear? He's broken now.
Usually as the kids are unwrapping ornaments and putting them on the tree, my job is to space the ornaments out. But I didn't do that this time. So, now we have groupings of ornaments all over the tree. I think it's perfect though.

Poor tree probably won't survive this holiday season.