Christmas 2015

The rule in our house is the girls stay in bed until 7:00am, but I was feeling generous at Christmas so I told Hannah she could wake us up whenever she got up.  Big mistake.  She got up, woke up Olive and they both walked into our room at....2:45am.  WHAT?!  I sent them back to bed.  Next wake-up call...4:00am.  I sent them back to bed again.  I said the clock has to at least say 5 something.  Why did I say that?  I don't know.  It was 4:00am and I had no idea what I was saying.  So when she come into our room again?  5:01.  Sigh.  Fine.  We made our way downstairs to open presents AT 5:00 IN THE MORNING!  Usually the girls open one present at a time and then play with it forever before I make them move on to the next thing.  This year it was all unwrapped by about 5:15.

This was actually on Christmas Eve reading our last Christmas book.  The girls unwrap a Christmas book every day in December for an advent calendar.

 I always get matching pjs for the girls, but Olive usually refuses to wear them.  This year they stayed matching!  They opened up their stockings and were super excited by things like notebooks, reading lights, rubber snakes, and toothbrushes!  I love how it doesn't take much to make them happy.  Also, notice it is pitch black outside.

Santa scaled it back this year and we didn't have quite the mess as in the past.  Here is the aftermath:

It was mostly a lego Christmas.

While everyone else was doing lego, I made this awesome fish out of Q-Ba-Maze for a marble run.

After a relaxing morning at our house, we headed to Chillicothe in the afternoon for Christmas Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Here's Olive with her new helmet.

And here's Hannah with a handmade sign from Aunt Becky.

Here's Steve with his new trashcan conveniently wrapped in trash.

The girls each got a set of talking owls and they built a home for them out of present boxes.

Then the day after Christmas we opened presents with the Kerrs.  The cousins really look like each other when they are all dressed alike, they have the same hair color, and 3 out of 4 also have the same haircut!

We got to meet the girls' newest second cousin: Clara.

This pretty much sums up trying to take Olive's picture when she isn't in the mood.

Christmas Crafts and Cookies

 Christmas Eve we spent the day crafting and baking.  I gave the girls an idea for a craft for their grandparents and great-grandparents...and then turned them loose on their own.  The only thing I did was cut out the hats for Olive and loop the ribbons.  Hannah's snowmen are on the left and Olive's on the right.

Then they decided to do some more crafting because, why not?  These are Hannah's creations.

And here are Olive's creations.  The craft sticks with eyes aren't very Christmasy, but they are pretty cute (or maybe creepy?)

 Then we did our annual make-something-from-scratch baking.

Hannah also treated us to a holiday party in her room.  She set up stations for playing games, writing Christmas cards, and dressing up in Santa hats.

The stuffed animals were also required to dress up.

After all that fun we spent the evening looking at our favorite Christmas light displays.  It was a pretty perfect day before Christmas.

Christmas Programs

Both girls had Christmas programs this year.  It was fun seeing everyone all dressed up.  And for those of you wondering, Hannah isn't the tallest first grader.  She is the second tallest. :)

Hannah got a haircut and now she looks about 10.  Stop growing up, please.

Olive's program was in the morning on a school day, so Steve and Hannah weren't able to see it.  But Granny braved rush hour traffic in the morning to come see her!

Olive waved to us after every song.

Olive loved her red dress.  I think it made her look older, too.  And I think she looks like her Granny here.

Crown Center

Seeing the lights at Crown Center and eating at Fritz's is always my favorite Christmas tradition.  Here are last year's pictures with all other pictures linked in that post.  

looking up at the tree

Hannah's Holiday Party

Olive came with me to Hannah's first grade party and she blended right in...

We did stations this time.  I got crafty and made a snowman game.

I also made a "roll a snowman" dice game (thank you Pinterest)

And there were also cookie decorating and bird feeder stations.

But as usual eating treats was Olive's favorite activity.

Breakfast With Santa

Olive's preschool hosted "Breakfast with Santa" as a fundraiser for the school.  I helped out gathering items and running the auction that morning and we had a record-breaking year!  Hannah was probably more excited than Olive to attend because 1) she always wants to go to preschool events and usually misses them because she is in school herself  2) this was the 2nd Santa she saw this year and she decided she should ask for different toys and "two Santas can come to our house this year!"  I told her it didn't work that way.

While the adults were bidding on auction items, the kids did Christmas crafts.

Christmas Science

I helped out at the 1st grade holiday festival at Hannah's school.  Instead of a craft, I got the science station.  We did a hot cocoa experiment with vinegar and baking soda.

Olive also got to experience some science at Preschoolers at Trailwood.  She made "indoor snow" using shaving cream and baking soda.  After playing for awhile, she got to pour vinegar on it.