MORE Christmas....

So, in our grand tradition of Christmas, we had MORE Christmas's to attend after we had our private Christmas at home....we traditionally go to Matt's mom's house for Brunch (which was as always super yummy) and presents, and then head to my mom's for dinner. Sometimes in there the girls nap at Neena's house and sometimes we go home and they nap...this year, they just slept in the car to the house, Matt ran in and out and then we were off to Grandma Pat's house for dinner with Uncle Mike and Aunt Zomi...

Here we are at Neena's house....

 Arriving at Grandma Pat's house....SANTA came, and he didn't wrap presents..boo, because we LOVE to unwrap presents! Oh well, they are still super cool!

 My attempt at getting a cute pic of the two of them together...FAIL. oh well!

 Olivia is so so busy, this is literally one of the few pictures I have of her that is NOT blurred because she was so excited and running around like a maniac!

 Sydney hamming it up for the camera...my little diva!

Merry Christmas to you and yours. Hope you had a fabulous one!
J

A Christmas Morning to Remember....

WELL, it appears that BOTH Sydney and Olivia were on the NICE list from Santa. However, it's a good thing that Christmas was LAST night, or they may have both been added to the Naughty list. It seems that my girls have decided that they no longer need to stay in their cribs when they wake up in the mornings. For the past few days they've been climbing out, which isn't safe and brings up lots of scary images of toddler beds in my mind. However, they need to be safe. However, in those past couple mornings, neither one of them have left their room, ever. Today, however they did, and man was it cute. I wish we'd been able to get it on video, but sadly we were just realizing what was going on as they were talking. It went something like this:

O: "Sydney look, look, what's this."

S: "WOW. presents. Livia, presents".

Mommy: What are you two doing out of your cribs? Both girls looke sheepishly at Mommy and Daddy, and then we both say, "Look, Santa came last night!" "HErmie said you were good girls!"

Here's a sampling of what Christmas Morning was like with the girls!


Look...2 Jessie Dolls.....

 Sydney playing with her new play kitchen.....a super big hit!

 Playing inside our Hippo tent with our Rody's. So fun....

 Our new Tinkerbelle Nightlight is super awesome!

 Opening our Cabbage Patch Dolls from Uncle Todd....

 Opening presents...Olivia is one of THOSE people, you know the ones who have to have ALL the paper removed BEFORE you open the gift? And drive everyone nutso! And Sydney is one of those people who just opens as much as she can to get to what is inside!

 Checking to make sure that your Airel Barbie is as cool as mine....and that you got the SAME Airel pjs!

 Hugging eachother in our new Cindarella dresses from Mommy and Daddy!

 Olivia...just after we discovered that both Sydney and Olivia were out of their cribs and in the living room. Still not sure what all these toys are doing here!

 Playing with her new Kitchen...she LOVES it!

 I love my Fairy wings and Rody the Donkey!

 Playing with my Noah's ark...you know that they come by two's...right!???

 SLOWLY opening a gift.....

 'Smiling' for the camera in my Cindarella dress!

 Sydney....it is essential that one has on their Fairy Wings AND has a wubby AND a Jessie Doll on Christmas morning!

 Playing with her kitchen....

 Checking out her Tinkerbelle nightlight...

 Playing with Tinkerbelle AND her pony at the kitchen table...

 'Helping' Daddy open his presents

 Putting on my 'lipstick'....I love to dress up...

YAY for Christmas, and a special Thank you to our families for such fabulous gifts for all of us! Now, off to get ready for Neena's and PaPa's house and then later on for dinner at Grandma's house...we have a super busy Christmas planned!

Love you guys.....
J

Merry Christmas Eve....

After having a fabulous Christmas Eve morning, we topped off the day, by hosting Christmas Eve for our families at our home. This year, Matt's Aunt and cousins joined us, as well as my mom, brother and sister in law, and Matt's mom and stepdad. We had hoped for his Dad and stepmom to make it, BUT the snow made it a little too much for them to get here from DeSoto, so next year, we're hoping they can spend Christmas Eve with us.

 It was so much fun. I know it's no secret in our families, how close Gretchen and I are, but for those of you who don't know....she's the bonus that I got by marrying Matt. Seriously, she's awesome, and I consider her to be one of my bestest friends ever. We just click. It's awesome...and thankfully we both have Sprint or our cel phone bills would be outrageous!

I have to say that we are a lively bunch. It was so so much fun. I have missed getting together with them on Christmas Eve (this used to be the family tradition prior to Matt's grandfather's death, and after that we just did a special Christmas with them seperately), however this year we said to heck with it and invited everyone up. Sure, the snow put a little kink in our plans, but everyone arrived safe and sound and we all ate, drank, and were merry (some of us a little more than others!)!

Sydney and Olivia had a BLAST, they were super cute and a little spoiled since Mommy and Daddy broke ALL the rules and let them just eat all the yummy food that we had for Christmas Eve instead of a nice normal healthy dinner like always! Hey, sometimes you have to live a little! :)

A picture of our beautiful Christmas Tree! :)



 The girls playing around.......

 YAY...we get to open presents....they love unwrapping things!

 PUPPIES...sure Aunt Gretchen gave them super cool outfits with super cool pink boots, that were also a hit, but seriously those damn $5 puppies from Walgreens were a hit and remain a hit in our house. Thank you Gretchen for returning the one that didn't work so that the girls could unwrap 2 'quality' puppies! :)

 The girls and their Aunt Zomi. They certainly love her, and are going to MISS her when she and my brother move to Arizona, sometime soon.

 Kyra...Gretchen's youngest, playing around!

 Here starts the Olivia feature of our blog. Here are a sampling of super cute pics of Miss O from Christmas Eve night....

Taking the Bow out of her hair!

 Dancing around with her musical pig. Everytime I go to put that thing in storage, I catch her playing with it and thus it's still out for her to play with. At least now she calls it a pig and not a wee-wee (like the pig that goes wee-wee-wee-eeeeeeeeeeee all the way home)!

 HA! Daddy put the ottoman behind the couch and now I can climb up and harass people sitting on the couch..how cool is that!?

 Stacking blocks with Kyra....

 Watching Sydney play with her puppy, as she's opening hers, thinking, this thing is COOL!

 Getting ready to make her puppy walk and bark, checking out everyone else too!

 Modeling her new outfit from Aunt Gretchen...

 All the girls wanted for Christmas was a Barbie, thankfully, Aunt Sissy had already bought them, so Santa was saved. Here Olivia is playing with her precious Barbie!

 Little Miss Sugar...missing her brother, as her Mommy and Daddy are. Our first Christmas without Cassius has been rough, I'm used to seeing my Bubba sleeping under the Christmas Tree, and little miss Lazy Pants here won't accomodate, she'd rather sleep on the couch, or my bed!

 HEre starts Miss Sydney's portion, or Stinker Baby B as I call her, which she thinks is ADORABLE.

Notice the precious Mickey Mouse in her hands.....

 STILL toting Mickey Around.....

Playing with Tatianna (Gretchen's oldest)..

 Attached to her Neena, as always. That girl is such a Neena's girl, whereas Olivia is a PaPa's girl!

 Figuring out how this whole puppy thing works......

 Actually making it work...wow, this is cool! Check out that concentration....

 ATTEMPTING to model her outfit....

 Wrestling with Uncle Mike...

As I stated earlier, Christmas Eve was amazing, now we just have to wait and see if Hermie the Elf reported to Santa that Sydney and Olivia need to be on the NICE list or the NAUGHTY list!

J