Merry Christmas 2010

Christmas Eve, was a day filled with baking cookies for Santa and Christmas Eve service at church. We had a nice family day together. Allie did awesome listening in Church, and knew we were not only celebrating Santa coming on the 25th but the birth of baby Jesus. Christmas Day it was just the 4 of us. A fun day for everyone. Christmas night we Skyped with all the grandparents and Allie was able to show everyone what she and Hunter got for Christmas.

Before the Christmas Eve service

A note for Santa

We had a few days of rest after Xmas, then Granny and Papa came to town, followed the next day with Uncle Joey and Kate, then the next day with Omri (and his whole family as Allie puts it!). Allie literally was on cloud nine with all this family in town.

Oh, remember in my 1st post about December FUN, I mentioned a BELL? Well, Allie got her Bell from Santa, and I think it was one of her favorite things. You can tell it's something she holds very close to her heart.

More FUN in December

So, I left off with lots of visit to Santa and crafts. The rest of the month was filled with parties, the Nutcracker, and gingerbread houses!

I took Allie with her friend Emme to see little kids perform the Nutcracker on Ice. This was a cute little show that Emme's mom is part of as an Ice Skating coach. It was cute to see all the kids out there performing. We also had our annual playgroup gift exchange. This was Hunter's 1st Christmas party! The kids had so much fun opening their gifts this year. Allie and her friend Joshua also decorated gingerbread houses together. I loved seeing how the 2 houses turned out so differently!

A little taste testing...

Handsome little man (6 months)

8 kids total! Crazy kids and crazy fun!

The party totally wore Hunter out!

So, that about wraps up our pre-Christmas fun! Of course, there was cookie making for Santa, and gearing up for Christmas Eve and the Big Day of Christmas! More on that....another night!

December FUN!

Here I am writing about December and it's already the 9th of January! December really flew by with lots of fun festivities. At the beginning of the month, we went to have breakfast with Santa hosted by the Arcola Fire Dept. The event is held at our church and this is the 2nd year we've gone. Allie and Hunter got their picture taken with Santa and Allie did crafts. Hunter did his usual, which was to catch some zzzz's! So, Santa held him, but he was actually asleep.

Now, this wasn't the 1st time Allie had an encounter with Santa. I guess around Thanksgiving Santa was at the mall. There was no one in line, so we asked if we could walk in and say HI to Santa. Allie in the past has wanted NOTHING to do with Santa, so I wasn't sure what she was going to do. She went up to him, and when asked "what do you want for Xmas?," Allie said one of the reindeer's bells. (we had been reading the Polar Express!).....she even gave Santa a HUG! We didn't have our pictures made that day, but sometimes it's just the memory that matters, not the picture.

So, back to December. The following day after we had breakfast with Santa, he was in our neighborhood for another craft and picture taking day! So, of course we went :) Allie did more crafts, I got a good picture with Hunter and Santa, but by this point Allie wasn't into talking to the big guy anymore, so she got her face painted instead!

Okay....guess that's enough to start you out on December FUN. Enjoy the cute pictures! More to come later this week.