A White Christmas

We spent Christmas with my family this year. We drove to Oklahoma on Christmas Adam after we got out of church and stopped by the house to eat and load our bags (and presents!) There was snow in the forecast so we had to dig out our cold weather clothes. 

Christmas morning we woke up and the ground was wet. It had rained that night. While we were opening presents it started to sleet. And then it started to SNOW!

It snowed BIG flakes!

 

It was very cold and windy so we waited for several hours before we bundled up and went outside.

 

Olivia was running a bit of a fever and just wanted to cuddle all day so she didn't spend much time out in the snow. Grace played for a long time. The cold didn't seem to bother her a bit!

 

We gathered a bowl full to make snow ice cream. We mixed some sweetened condensed milk and vanilla in with the snow.

But Grace thought it needed some chocolate syrup. Perfect!

Olivia perked up after she had some snow ice cream. Maybe we should have made it earlier?

Grace even wanted to go back out in the snow! When she was finally done playing outside she warmed up with a cup of hot chocolate.

I don't remember when the last time I saw a white Christmas!

Christmas - Part 1

Since we were going to be spending Christmas in Oklahoma with my family we wanted to have Christmas at our house a little early.

The Friday before Christmas was "Christmas Eve." We made sugar cookies and decorated them, went out for dinner, and drove around and looked at Christmas lights.

Before bed we set out cookies and milk for Santa. Grace made sure we bought some carrots on one of our grocery shopping trips so we could leave them out for Santa's reindeer.

 {Ready to see what Santa brought}

The next morning (Saturday = "Christmas") Grace woke up earlier than normal and told me "My tummy feels like Santa came." Her tummy has been telling her some funny stuff lately! She waited patiently for Olivia to wake up. While we were patiently waiting for Olivia to wake up I put some hot cocoa on the stove to cook. I think the noise I was making in the kitchen made Grace's wait a little shorter. 

The girls both ran down the hallway to the stairs. Grace never looked down to see what was waiting until she turned the corner. The entire upstairs hall has the wrought iron banister.

And then Olivia had to stop to look downstairs.

The first thing Grace did was look in her stocking and look what was right on top peeking out! A new Glimmer fairy! This was the thing she always said she wanted Santa to get for her. I think if that is all she got she would have been happy.

 Olivia got a Tinkerbell fairy!

 {Look, a Barbie!}

After going through their stockings they decided to check out the big stuff Santa brought.

 How cool is the little trampoline? 

And we had to see if Santa ate his cookies and drank his milk. 

After moving their bog stuff out of the living room we sorted presents and started opening them. Grace couldn't seem to open them fast enough. As soon as she opened one it was on the the next.

Olivia wanted to take her time. After she opened a present she would say "Please. Open." And then she would play with it for a while.

See? She wanted to play with the princesses before she opened the next present.

They both got a lot of fun stuff! Grace got a fairy from the new Tinkerbell movie. And Olivia got a set of little fairies.

Just look how excited Grace was about her Easy Bake oven. We made cupcakes that afternoon!

We spent part of the day running a few errands (Christmas returns/exchanges before Christmas!) and Grace even got to pet a real live reindeer at the mall.

That evening we watched the movie Elf. Now we think about Buddy every time we have waffles with syrup on top.

Christmas Crafts!

I like doing crafts with Grace and Olivia. And there are so many fun things to make around Christmas time!

They both love making things too.

We made salt dough ornaments and gave them to family members to hang on their trees.

First we made the salt dough. We mixed 1 cup salt, 2 cups flour, and 1 cup water together in a bowl. Then we rolled it out on a floured surface. Next was the fun part! We took our Christmas cookie cutters and cut out all sorts of shapes. There were Christmas trees, stockings, candy canes, gingerbread men, and even a reindeer. A straw works well for punching a hole in the top so you can put ribbon on them so they can hang on the tree. We put them all on a pan (it took several pans because we made a lot) and baked them in the oven (250* for about 25 min) until they were dry.

After they were cool Grace and Olivia got to paint them. I even got out the glitter for them to put on them after they painted (just sprinkle it on the wet paint). Grace made a LOT!

And Olivia took her time and made sure to put all the different colors on each of her ornaments.

After they dried we sprayed them with a clear spray paint to help keep the glitter from falling off. I am not sure how well that worked because by the time I was done tying ribbon on I was covered in glitter!

That wasn't all the crafts we did either! We made Christmas trees out of popsicle sticks. I cut green popsicle sticks to different lengths and then let the girls glue them to a brown popsicle stick. Then they glued on little sequins and other shiny little confetti pieces. Anything with glue is always fun for Grace!

And we can't forget about the reason for Christmas! We made a manger scene with baby Jesus. We glued two brown popsicle sticks (I painted them with brown paint since the package I bought was red, yellow, and green sticks) to construction paper. Then we glued little pieces of yellow construction paper for the hay, tan construction paper circle with the face Grace drew for the head, and purple construction paper cut out to be a blanket. And we glued a big yellow star (cut from construction paper) at the top.

One morning I ran a few errands and since Dustin was off he stayed home with the girls to finish our sugar cookies. We made icing and they got to decorate them! 

And after they were finished with the cookies they decided to make a craft. He told me they had gone to the office to color while he cleaned up the icing and cookie mess. Later I found out they had been making me a gigantic Christmas card!

This is the picture he sent me while I was gone. They had to have a bath!

Grace thought it would be fun to paint her sister with her makeup and - lip gloss, nail polish, and glitter paint. I don't think Olivia minded one bit. BUt even after a bath there was still evidence of glitter and lip gloss in her hair!

Christmas Lights!

Before Christmas we went one evening to a drive thru light display. 

Half way through, there was an area to park and you could go into the light village.

We walked through the lighted forest! Both the girls really enjoyed seeing all of the pretty lights.

There was also a short musical that we watched. We ended up being some of the last people in line for the show so we got to sit in the VIP seats. Grace's favorite part was when it "snowed" during their last song.

There were also a few carnival rides. The girls wanted to ride the carousel and it went FAST!

It was hard to get a picture of them going by because it went so fast that by the time I saw them and clicked the button they were already gone most of the time.

We picked a great evening to go. It wasn't too crowded and the weather was really nice.

Grace wanted to pose in front of all the light displays for a picture.

Olivia didn't want to stay still long enough.

It was a little farther than I thought. Our GPS also took us the way we did not want to go. It was fun but I doubt we will go back next year. They charge admission but I found a good deal on Groupon.

Christmas 2011

Christmas is our favorite time of the year!

We try to pack a ton of things in the short time between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
There was decorating. Grace had her very own tree this year that she got to decorate all by herself while we put up the big tree. Dustin spent a day putting lights on the house. Sometime between the time he started hanging them and the time he finished several areas went out so he had to put up new lights. We made butter crunch. Grace got to help for the first time! I have my Grandma's recipe memorized and I plan to pass it down to my girls. We drove around looking at Christmas lights. We visited Santa. The girls are not fond of him this year. Olivia did not like him at all. Grace said she couldn't sit in his lap because she didn't know him that well and you shouldn't sit in someones lap you don't know. But we did make cookies for Santa.

Grace got to make them herself!

And Olivia got to try one!

Last year we decided to open our gifts on Christmas Eve. It spaces things out a little and lets us have more time to enjoy Christmas.

The girls were being silly for the camera :)

They were very excited to open all of their presents. This year I tried to teach Grace about giving. I let her "earn" money by doing little chores (helping with dinner, laundry, picking up toys, or helping with her sister). She is good about doing these things when asked but I thought letting her earn money and then using it to buy gifts for people would be a good learning opportunity. She even gave one of her dollars to the bell ringer so a little girl or boy would be able to have a new toy for Christmas! She got Olivia a baby doll (that can go in the bathtub!) and a remote control 4-wheeler for her Daddy.

After opening their presents and playing for a while, we changed into pj's. We made sure to set out cookies for Santa!

Olivia helped herself to one of Santa's cookies.

We let Grace stay up after Olivia went to bed to watch a Christmas movie with hot chocolate and popcorn. I think this is going to become a family tradition!

And then Santa came!
Grace was so excited for Santa to come that she wanted to go to bed around 4:30 on Christmas Eve. We were tracking Santa and when he got to Canada we ran to bed so we would be asleep before he got to our house.

This is what our tree looked like on Christmas morning!

We were all very excited about the new toys!!!!

The girls loved opening their stockings. Grace told everyone that Santa brought her a dollhouse and soap (bubble bath).

And we had to see if Santa ate his cookies and drank the milk we left out.
He left some crumbs!!

Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!!!