Christmas 2014

Before January is gone...Let's recap Christmas, shall we?

About a week before Christmas Elaina and I went back to Painting with a Twist with her BFF, Kaitilyn.  Just the two girls painted and they had a blast.  The moms just watched and chatted.  We love this little girl as much as Elaina does....

Finished products...

Christmas Eve

...keeping in tradition (since it's the second time we have done this, it can be called a tradition, right?) our dear friends the Halls and the Breaux came over that morning.  Christine helped Elaina decorate the birthday cake for Jesus just like she did last year.  And, Elaina got presents.  We ate a yummy breakfast too.  We love these families so very much and I am glad we are creating this this tradition with them.  They love and spoil Elaina so much!

Finished - it looked good.

Make a wish...oh wait, it's not their birthday - HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS! 

Giant Hello Kitty Pez dispenser.. Do they know my child or what?

And the most hilarious picture of all (at the bottom)  I love everything about these pictures!  

 Later that day we did our traditional - went to mass with my mom then over to her house for a yummy dinner and present opening.  I've got to tell you, my picture taking this year was minimal.  I usually take a zillion pictures but I was out of sorts.  Not sure why.  But, I did get a few.

Nell, Dave, and Sloane made it to Christmas Eve - very cool.  Love this little girl to pieces.

Our very excited little girl to FINALLY open presents!  This is a gift card to Target.  My mom always plays a game with gift cards as gifts...it's always fun

Then it was home to get ready for Santa...and he did not disappoint.  An Ipod with wireless speaker - Elaina is really into her music and loves to sing loudly to it in the shower so this gift from Santa was perfect.   A luggage bag for our Disney trip in May, some Frozen and Hello Kitty stuff and stocking stuffers galore.  As usual she made out....

Santa did his part and ate the cookies and drank the milk

Christmas Day....re-cap = lots of presents, yummy cinnamon rolls, coffee, and good times.  Got it?  Okay.  Now for some pictures

Elaina helping Erik open his stocking

 

So, her stocking was filled with these things called Shopkins and a bunch of blind bags...  This is VERY MUCH her thing right now.  A bit obsessed with them, she is.  She watches videos on YouTube of people opening these blind bags - all the time.  She prefers to do that over any other type of TV.  It's very boring to me but she loves it.  They don't even show their faces most of the time - it's people's hands opening them.  Anyway...she loves it and that is okay by me.  The idea is you don't know what you are getting in each bag and you try to collect the whole set.  I don't know....She was so excited about getting a bunch of these things.

This gal LOVES her some magic tricks so this little magic trick set was exciting for her.

Someone tell me where my little girl went....clothes from Justice (her favorite right now as most kids her age), boots, a purse, Ipod and speakers.  This is a teenager, I think.

This picture was from later Christmas day at Erik's parents house....Elaina and Kelsey pretty excited about presents, as you can tell

That sums it up for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day...there is more Christmas festivities to be seen.  Stay tuned.

The days/weeks leading up to Christmas

Since we love to play catch up....Let's check out my photos from the days leading up to Christmas (this will be a long post....sorry).

As customary, we went to Fantasy of Trees the weekend of Thanksgiving.  It always gets me in the Christmas spirit.  Elaina has been asking about going to Fantasy of Trees since July so she was excited, to say the least.

First order of business....ride the carousel.  She loves 'em.  She rode it a few times.

 Then we take off to do the myriad of crafts/items they have to choose from.

A hand print pot holder.  This would be our fourth one of these.  I love that we have them all through the years

Fingernail painting....

Showing off her newly painted nails with Anna and Elsa

Face painting...I am glad this one is free because you can't tell from the picture but this is really bad.  It was way goopy and smeared and didn't really resemble much of a penguin.  She wiped it off in the bathroom moments after I took this picture :)

And finally a pose

The next weekend, we went to have breakfast with Santa (our tradition) and to the mall to buy our family ornament:

 First there were pancakes....

Then we went to watch Santa arrive

Then we talked to Santa to tell him all those things you tell Santa.

And, a couple of poses....

 

Next was the mall to get our ornament.  This is literally one of 2 trips I make annually to the mall.  I know so many people who frequent the mall.  I am not one of those people.  While we were there Elaina said "I want to get my ears pierced."  We have talked about this off and on for a while.  We have always been okay with it but have left it up to her after explaining to her that it does sting a little and there will be cleaning and maintenance to do.  She has always then said, "I am not ready."  But, this time when she asked, I said if you are serious, the place to do it is around the corner.  

So, low and behold, we ended up there.  We got lucky because right when we walked in, there was a 5 year old getting her ears pierced so we got to watch.  I knew it would either go well and Elaina would follow suit or the other little girl would freak out and Elaina wouldn't go through with it.  

Well, let the pictures tell you what happened...I have got to tell you, I was so nervous about this but I tried not to show it.  She was so brave.  I think I was nervous she was going to think it hurt and cry.  She didn't even flinch.  I am such an over-reactor.

All the moments before...

This was the only moment of fear I could tell she had and by that time it was happening

And there you have it...  So pretty!

You only thought we were done this day....

We then had an appointment for a family painting with a twist event.  This was SO much fun to do as a family.  I want to go back.  Erik had never done it and he really enjoyed it as well.

Freshly pierced ears...

Step 1 completed

Step 4 completed

       

Masterpieces!  

whew!  I am tired after just going through all that.  That was 2 weekends.  We don't normally cram all that into 1 day but we had a busy December so we were trying to get some memories made.  I think we accomplished that!

Thanksgiving was just yesterday, right?

I know....I know.

The past 2 months has been a blur....But, I good blur.

So, in an effort to document memories, on this day - January 10, 2015, I want to talk about Thanksgiving 2014.  It was great.  We traveled to Nashville for the whole weekend to spend with my mom's side of the family.  Like, her whole side.  All her siblings, her sibling's kids, their kids.  So, all my aunts and uncles, cousins, and their kids.

It was a crazy good time...It was packed full of activity.

Wednesday night - we had dinner at my sister Nell's house
Thursday - we all did a 5 mile walk/run Thanksgiving morning.

Here are the 3 of us before the run. All bundled up.

Then, Thanksgiving dinner at my sister, Abby's house that afternoon.
Friday - we had a dinner/talent show at my uncle Doug's house.
Saturday  - a wedding shower for my cousin, Anna, who is getting married in May.  This shower was at a place called the Pfunky Griddle which I would recommend to anyone.  Each table has a griddle in the middle so you can make your own pancakes and eggs.  You get your own pitcher of batter and bowl of eggs and you can go to town.  It was SO good and even more fun.  We need a place like that here.

Here is Celia and Elaina ready to flip it up!

Got all that?  Okay, that is it in a nutshell.  Except to say that I simply love all my aunts, uncle, cousins and all their kiddos from this side of the family.  I am very close to all my cousins on this side of the family.  We definitely know how to have a party or two....or three.  Fun.  Great memories.  And speaking of memories, we have over 1000 pics that are shared on a photo stream so to pick out a few pictures of the weekend's festivities would be nearly impossible.  So, I will give you this one....

This is everyone that was there.  We had shirts made that were a duplicate of ones that we had made in 1992 for a family reunion.  A family tree with my grandparents at the trunk and all the kids/grand kids/great grand kids veering off from there.  The new version has a lot more names.  I love it.  Like....A LOT.

Here is a shot of the 1992 shirt

And 2014...  We've added a few branches since then.

And one quick video of the talent show of Elaina.  We had a lot of great acts...everything from hoola hooping, to magic tricks, to banjo picking.  It was great!  Elaina did a few acts of her cheer leading dances which you have all seen before so I won't show you those.  But, she is really into her jokes so this is her "joke telling" talent piece....  Erik was her sidekick.  Erik's talent is off the charts!