Christmas Eve 2012

Christmas is over...boo, sad!!  But, we, once again, had a fabulous Christmas this year.  Let's start with the pictures and commentary, shall we?

Keeping with tradition... we made our Happy Birthday Jesus Birthday Cake...

All smiles...the older she gets the more of this she can actually do all by herself.  That's pretty cool.

She has never had a problem figuring out how to do this... :)

Adding sprinkles/candy... I literally emptied the cabinets with whatever leftover candy we had and let her have at it.

All done... I love that we do this every year...helps her remember the true meaning.

Later that day, it was off to Mass with my mom, then to her house for our Christmas Eve celebration.  This coat that Elaina is wearing is a hand me down from my my sis, Abby.  I LOVE it.

After dinner conversation. 

Our friends, Carl and Sabrina joined us again this year for Christmas Eve....They supplied the craft activity.  We decorated gingerbread houses... there were 3 teams.  Alexandra and Elaina picked the Hello Kitty gingerbread house - appropriate.  Erik landed on that team

The 3 pre-teen and teen aged boys were on a team.  Of all the people there, I thought they would be the least interested...turns out they were the most into it. 

Kate and her boyfriend, Tom

My mom made a Christmas tree out of a sugar cone - super cute

The boys crafted a chimney out of the sugar cone...very inventive.  See, I told you they were into it

The 3 finished products... the winner - Hello Kitty (of course)

 Next, we opened presents... always a good time.

Elaina helped Poppy Gale open his presents.

She got Hullabaloo - a super fun game....

....and some more Hello Kitty loot!

A good time was had by all.....  We hurried home to get to bed... Santa came.  More on that later :)

Elaina's school Christmas events

Elaina had her school Christmas performance a couple of weeks ago (coupled with Grandparents Day)...  It was super cute.  I wasn't sure how she would do because when I picked her up from school the day of the performance she cried because she didn't want anyone to come and see her... not me, not daddy, not granny, not anyone.  Well, about 5 minutes into her cry/whine fit in the car, she fell asleep (something she is still doing after school and frankly, I let her because she needs it - BAD).  After her nap, she was good to go and was excited to go sing her tunes.

The show was super cute and only about 20 minutes long (bonus).... perfect amount of time - even my mom agreed.  They streamed it live so my dad got to watch from Chattanooga.  Welcome to 2012 everyone...grandparents don't have to miss a thing thanks to the wide world of the web and technology.  Awesome.  So, now onto pics.

That is her.. very back row, just to the left of the microphone and the very tall boy - who is a Kindergartener, BTW.  He's a tall kid for sure!

Again..to the left of the giant blond kid ;)

 

And some video footage....warning, it's long BUT I did edit it - I finally did the homework on how to edit video and turns out it wasn't too difficult.  All this time I've wasted.  I was able to cut out some of it rather than sticking you with all the footage/bad camera work, etc....  Anyway...moving on.  If you can/choose to watch it to the end, watch Elaina at the end - she throws up the wrong hand and it makes me laugh how she corrects it real quick.

 

Click here for video 

Also, this past Thursday was there Christmas party at her school...  It was fun - crafts, food, and mingling with kids and parents.  Not a whole lot of pictures other then these...

Getting ready to decorate cookies...the bell around her neck was made as well

This is Elaina's teacher, Mrs. Borden.  She is a WONDERFUL teacher.  We all 3 love her and are blessed to have her as Elaina's teacher.  We had a week of lots of gratitude for her this week in light of the recent events in Connecticut.  She was really a great support to all the parents and made us feel more comfortable.  You can feel that she really loves her kids. 

House update #6

Good stuff...

12/7/12

 

Brick started...

12/8/12

 

12/11/12

 

12/12/12

 

12/15/12

 

Brick done!  :)

 

Breakfast with Santa

Another tradition (since this is the 2nd year we have done this).  Just like last year, we went to Lakeside Tavern's breakfast with Santa event.  There was a change from last year being that Elaina was excited about seeing Santa and was not scared of him.   She wrote him a note that she would show him before we went.

Some Christmas poses....

Santa came in on a fire truck

I love the smile and excitement

She gave him a hi-five on the way in

Erik's mom went with us this year...

Waiting in line (with her note)

Showing Santa her note..precious

And for memory's sake.... a picture of the note.  I love the cake pop maker that has been circled and "X" out to tell Santa that she has changed her mind and she doesn't want it anymore.  Picture of Santa and her in the corner. :)

The picture.  I normally wouldn't have bought this but I thought it was a good pic so I did...

I love how we are developing our own traditions throughout the years.  Good stuff and good memories.  We are truly blessed.