Christmas....again!

We got to celebrate Christmas with the Portland Nances and special friends Uncle Fred and Aunt Nancy at Grandma and PaPa's house on Saturday. Give this girl a staircase, and she will be happy for hours!

A beautiful shot of our little princess....
The familiar pose :)

The Head Massager was an entertaining gift! Can't you just see relaxation on Joe's face??!

Aunt Heathyr tried to keep up on the direction-reading with the little girls' game-playing!

Then it was time for Mercer's beauty shop to open....

She gave the girls a rainbow of choices for their toenails! Hannah chose to have each toenail painted a different color...that kept Mercer extra-busy opening and closing those tiny containers!

She was a very poised beautician! Such focus :)

Some time during the toenail painting, the boys disappeared outside for some football....I think Joe was thankful to have some male comrades to hang out with!!

Two Daddies who think they still have what it takes! I hope there aren't too many sore muscles!

The boys looked authentic in their new football jerseys!

Then the girls came outside to join in the fun....Hannah ran after the boys trying to tackle them, holding her dress up the entire time!!

Daddy in a huddle with his "teammates"

Mercer figuring out how to make her airplane fly in a circle

The grand kids were thrilled to receive the much talked-about Zhu-Zhu pets. They come with a sticker on their back warning to "keep away from hair".....we kind of laughed about that one, until Clara walked up with her pet attached to her head moments later! and then again, a short time after that! For once, I am glad that she has curly hair and only likes to wear it hanging down in her face....you can't tell that she has two sections that are only a few inches long!!

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas morning in front of the tree. Hannah was thrilled with the princess castle that Santa brought, and Clara said that Santa must know her dreams because she dreamt last night about Peter Pan, and Santa brought her all the Peter Pan characters!

Eliza in her new tunnel
Peek-a-boo!

As usual, this kiddo's main focus was on food....she snacked on a cracker while her sisters went through their stockings, then sat in her highchair eating while we opened presents....

Clara with her new Build-A-Bear Portuguese Water Dog from Nana

She bought the baby Water Dog on Wednesday and was waiting to open its mommy! Now she has the mommy with the baby in its mouth, and couldn't be happier!

She even went for the gift from Nana before getting her stocking!

Hannah only got halfway through her stocking when she stopped to eat her chocolates!

Aunt Julie sent a TON of dogs to play with!

Enough for all 3 girls to share-thank you, Julie!!!

Eliza with her new puppy. I think our total count of stuffed animal dogs in this house is near 40, and each one has a name and is very loved!!

Joe read an abbreviated version of the Christmas story from the Bible, and then the girls sang Happy Birthday to Jesus before enjoying our cinnamon roll cake!

What a wonderful experience to enjoy Christmas through the eyes of our little ones!!! We are so truly blessed with these three little girls!

Christmas Eve

We enjoyed dinner with our good friends Wayne and Amanda and their two sweet girls before heading off to the candlelight service at church. I decided to try out a new recipe for a vegetarian lasagna that I underestimated....2 1/2 hours of grocery shopping with another two trips to the store (by my wonderful husband!) for forgotten ingredients took up most of the afternoon. I think it turned out pretty good, though, and when you are eating with good friends, they are very forgiving when dinner runs a bit late! :) I had planned on baking cookies with the girls to take to church, but a much-needed phone call with my mom convinced me that it was much more important to enjoy Christmas with my family than to stress over baking cookies....so store-bought it was! Thank you, Mom, for your wisdom!!!

I do have to note (so maybe I will remember next year and learn from this experience) that I bought the girls all matching Christmas dresses this year.....I should have known my own children better than that! The oldest two have minds of their own, especially when it comes to fashion! Clara needed a dress that had black to match her new puppy, who was accompanying her to church, and Hannah had to have a blue dress "because it is her favorite color". So, out of the closet came two Christmas presents, and two little girls happily put them on! Eliza ended up in Hannah's Christmas dress from two years ago because it was by far the most comfortable, still short enough that she could crawl in it, and, really, why should I get any use out of the brand new dresses anyway?!
When I was looking through these pictures, I had to include all 5 of them because I'm not sure Hannah even moved a muscle during the pictures (she is quite the poser these days), Eliza got irritated and was trying to figure out how to get off the bench, and Clara was so excited about Christmas she couldn't hold still...eventually bouncing right up off the bench toward me!!!

The girls got to open one present before bed...their new Christmas pajamas!

Clara and Hannah doing some last-minute late night present wrapping. They were so sweet gathering presents from items around the house to wrap for Joe and me. Clara wrote all her cards by herself, just asking what letter comes next, and Hannah drew special pictures on each card.

Of, course, Joe made sure to have Christmas music playing in the background and A Christmas Story (the 24 hour version!) playing on the TV :)

We've carried on this tradition from when I was growing up....the girls get to put straw in Baby Jesus's bed during the month of December if they say something kind to someone or do something helpful or kind. Baby Jesus sure had a soft place to lay Christmas morning!!!

New dress-up clothes...

Clara has been waiting for months for the new Princess and the Frog movie to come out. The purple dress is now the Tiana costume and she hasn't taken it off in 3 days!! The girls just left with Aunt Molly to go see the movie, and Clara has been watching the clock and counting down the minutes all morning!

Clara wanted to add Princess Tiana to the poster in her room :)

The girls got this gingerbread house craft kit from our friend, Nancy, and wanted to put it together right away. I told Clara that I could help her after Eliza went down for a nap, but that kid gets an idea in her head and doesn't let it go! So, while I was playing with Eliza, Clara opened up the kit, followed the picture on the outside and put the entire thing together and decorated it (with a little help from Hannah)!! She is very into art projects these days and made a bracelet of paper taped into a circle today and decorated it with balls of playdough smashed on it....she has her Grandma's artistic talents and it is so fun to watch her create! If only she would clean up her "artistic messes" afterward!!!

A night on the town...

We headed downtown Seattle Sunday evening to enjoy the city at Christmas! Hannah dressed for the weather....

And Clara dressed for fashion!

Macy's window display with the electric train sets...

Macy's star announcing Jesus's birthday!!

Hannah chose a pink and purple horse

Clara chose the green one

Eliza was hilarious while we were waiting in line. She was literally jumping up and down in the backpack pointing to the horses and YELLING "Go, go" It was so fun to see her get so excited!

Clara and Hannah were so amazed to see the big horses pulling carriages down the street. Joe and I have talked about going on a carriage ride for many years at Christmas, but have always decided that it cost too much....funny how that seems to matter less when two little girls ask you if they can PLEASE ride in the carriage with that look of wonder in their eyes.....

Some of the horses had very fancy hairstyles!

Clara took a picture for us!

Our horse was "Charlie" and besides treating us to a stop for pooping halfway through the ride-yuck!-he did a great job!!