Christmas Morning 2013

Oliver's getting older, and so he had some specific requests for Santa this year. He wanted Minnie Mouse, Mickey Mouse, Thomas the Train, an umbrella, and M&Ms. He must have made it on the good list because Santa delivered! 

Santa must have known that Joanna likes to build things because she got Lincoln Logs!

Christmas morning was a big success.

Oliver was very happy to open his Minnie Mouse cash register! Santa got that for free at JC Penney last year when they did their button promotion.

Joanna decided to organize her Lincoln Logs.

The kids are so cute. What a fun morning! I think Jo was a little overwhelmed by it all. She had a ton of fun but spent most of the afternoon in tears.

Santa's North Pole Adventure at the Georgetown Loop Railroad

Andrew and I took the kids up to Georgetown to meet my friends for a train ride with Santa Claus! Oliver went on their Pumpkin Fest train this year with Grandma Judy and last year with us and Grandma Colleen. This was his first time doing the Santa's North Pole Adventure. Tickets were pricey, but they included a nice, long visit with Santa (complete with photo op), a jingle bell ornament for the kids, hot cocoa, a cookie, and a candy cane. We had a great time, but Oliver decided the train didn't go fast enough. 

There were many light displays along the loop. I guess they run a nighttime Holiday Lights train and have all of the decorations lit up. That would be fun to do one year!

Oliver adores Baby Grace.

Family photo!

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

This past weekend was also the Georgetown Christmas Market. After the train ride, we went to town to enjoy the market. Georgetown is such a cute mountain town. It's a charming place for the Christmas season.

Our Gingerbread House

Oliver and I made a gingerbread house together! Well, I did most of the house. He decorated Christmas trees for it all by himself, though!

A few years ago, I tried to make a gingerbread house, but it didn't go very well. I wasn't expecting much this time, but I was pleasantly surprised. I used the children's gingerbread house recipe from allrecipes.com. I needed to add more flour than the recipe called for, but it otherwise worked out perfectly. All of the pieces I cut out kept their shape and didn't need to be trimmed. The frosting from that recipe held like glue! The house ended up being really easy. I used a template from Martha Stewart's website, which is also where I got the idea of using cinnamon sticks as a bundle of logs.

I wanted to add "stained glass" windows to our gingerbread house. Apparently, there are two ways to do it, one is before you bake your cookie pieces, and one method can be done after baking. To make stained glass windows before baking, you first put your cookie pieces on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Break some Lifesaver candies, and put the broken pieces where the windows are cut out. As the cookies bake, the candy melts. When you pull them out of the oven, the hot candy should cool and solidify to form the "glass." I would have done that method if I'd read about it before I baked my cookie pieces. So, I did the window method for after baking. I used a Pyrex liquid measuring cup (since it can take high heat), and I melted some yellow and orange Lifesavers together in the microwave. It actually didn't take that long to melt them. I think I zapped them in 15-second intervals, and it took just 2 or 3 cycles to melt the candy. Be careful if you do this method because melted candy is very hot and sticky. Once mine was melted, I poured it into the window holes of my pieces, on top of parchment paper. Once it cooled, it looked like stained glass. I piped frosting for shingles on the roof as well as for trim on the windows and doors.

I gave Oliver some ice cream cones to decorate like Christmas trees. He squeezed and spread green frosting on the "trees," and then he shook some sprinkles on top. He had a ton of fun with the first one! He was bored with the project by the second tree. Oh, well!

I pieced the gingerbread house together as Oliver decorated the trees. The frosting held like glue! I did the four walls first and let them dry completely before putting the roof on. I placed some flickering LED candles inside the house before putting the roof on, too, so it is lit up from inside!

Christmas 2012

I woke up at 5am on Christmas morning and couldn't go back to sleep. I felt like I was a little kid, jumping out of my skin because it was Christmas. The kids couldn't get up soon enough!

Oliver and Jo both got up at about 6am. I ran into their room and told them, "Santa came!" Oliver's eyes lit up because we'd been discussing Santa Claus all week. He said, "Santa came and ate the cookies!"

We hurried downstairs. Oliver's eyes grew wide when he spotted the gifts under the tree. He started to walk to them but then stopped. He was more interested to see if Santa ate the cookies he'd set out for him the night before. He ran over to the fireplace and announced, "He ate them!" Oliver was so excited that Santa ate the cookies. Let me tell you, that's the best Christmas gift I've ever received. All I've ever wanted since getting pregnant for the first time was to experience Christmas as Santa. This is the first year I really got to do it!

Oliver wasn't very interested in the stockings at first.

Here he is, helping Jo with her gifts. Every time Oliver started to open play with one of his gifts, he'd change his mind and go back to Jo's. Oh, and isn't this a very attractive picture of me on Christmas morning? Ha! I was actually really into it, though, and definitely not as tired as I looked...

Joanna's favorite gifts were the jingle bells and the box of Kleenex. Here she is in action!

When all of the presents were opened and examined, Andrew made our Christmas breakfast tradition: donuts. We use a recipe from a childhood friend of mine (well, from her mom). All you do is heat oil (enough for frying) to about 350 degrees. Then, you pop open a package of Pillsbury (or generic, of course) biscuit dough. Poke a hole in the center to make it a donut, and then fry it.  After a couple minutes, you flip it over and fry it on the other side. We let them drain on paper towels and then dunk them in cinnamon and sugar. They are so good, but we limit ourselves to once a year ;-)

After breakfast,  Oliver figured out the stockings. He made sure we all opened ours.

As a Christmas treat, I lit some candles and let him blow them out. He really loves blowing out candles. I even sang, "Merry Christmas to you!" so he could blow them out like a birthday cake.

We took his new shovel for a spin!

It was the best Christmas morning I've ever had. I'm already looking forward to next year! After lunch and nap time, we went over to my in-laws'. It was warm and cozy, and Oliver got to brew coffee. For dinner, Paul and Colleen made some lasagnas and pasta. It was delicious.

Oliver got to open gifts, of course. He got a suitcase (with his name on it!) and his very own mixer from Grandma Colleen and Grandpa Paul.

The mixer actually doesn't work, so it's perfect for a kid obsessed with small appliances. It's staying at Grandma Colleen's house, and he's going to look forward to playing with it every time he goes over. 

Joanna got some stuffed animals and some stacking blocks. She was mostly interested in the Play-doh Oliver got from Uncle Scott. Actually, to be more specific, Oliver got a Play-doh ice cream maker. He calls it a blender and has a lot of fun cranking out "ice cream" with it and pretending to eat it.

Aunt Bonnie, Uncle George, and Cliff brought a Christmas cake. Every year, they bring the most beautiful cakes from some bakery up in Arvada. Last year, it was a yule log cake!

Family relaxing and opening gifts on Christmas. Uncle George, Aunt Bonnie, and Cliff gave Oliver his own headlamp, and Jo received some two-piece puzzles!

We had a very merry Christmas. I hope all of my family, friends, and readers got to enjoy their Christmas (or their favorite winter holiday). Happy Holidays to you all!

The $3 Christmas Present Piles

Santa pulled it off again this year!

We managed to create a pile of gifts for each of our kids for less than $3 each.

Up first is Oliver's. He got a new child's snow shovel from Home Depot. This past fall, Home Depot had a Facebook game in which you mowed down zombies with a wood chip mulcher to get free certificates. We used a $5 off of $5 purchase to get Oliver a free snow shovel. On Small Business Saturday, we went to a toy store called Timbuk Toys. As I posted before, we got a "Honeybee Tree" board game for Oliver and some jingle bells for Jo. After the $25 Small Business Saturday discount, they came to $2.28. I took Jo's summer clothes into a consignment shop and got enough credit to pick out the baseball mitt for Oliver. On Black Friday, I scored two baseballs for less than 50 cents. A fellow mom in MOMS Club was cleaning out her daughters' bookshelf, and she gave me a pile of Clifford books. They were in great condition, so they went into Oliver's Christmas pile. Finally, I went to JCPenney every day between Black Friday and Christmas Eve to get free buttons that they were giving away. Each button came with a code I entered online. One in four buttons was a winner. I won a substantial quantity of free $5 and $10 vouchers. I worked hard to make purchases of their exact amount to get items for free. Below, you can see Oliver got a toy birthday cake because he loves candles. It was on sale for $10, so I got it for free with one of my $10 vouchers. The Melissa & Doug stamp set was on clearance for $8. I picked up a $2 pair of socks and got the stamp set for free!

Here is Jo's pile. The mailbox was actually once Oliver's. A few months ago, I cleaned it up and replaced the batteries. I stowed it away in the closet so it would be fresh and new for Jo. I got the basketball game from a gift exchange from MOMS Club. We brought in some toys we no longer used and got this in return. The wrapped gift was a bathtub coloring set that I got for free with my Pampers rewards points. I posted previously about good rewards programs, but I ended up saving the bumble bee flashlight and the Dumbo puzzle to give to the kids next year instead. The bathtub fishing net was also free. We ordered a Christmas present on Amazon that came to $20. We were going to have to pay $5 in shipping, or we would get free shipping if we spent $25. So, I searched the website for a $5-$6 toy, since I would pay that much for shipping anyway. Jo loves taking baths, so I chose that for her. The book was saved from Oliver. I paid for the box of Kleenex (which she loved). You can also see the jingle bells poking out from behind the wrapped gift, which, as I mentioned from Oliver's pile, came from Timbuk Toys on Small Business Saturday.

And, so, once again, Santa pulled off a good but affordable Christmas. All told, we spent about $7 in our piles of presents from Santa. In addition, we got a number of gifts using the JCPenney vouchers for next year. Santa plans ahead!

Christmas Eve 2012

Merry Christmas Eve!

We spend every Christmas Eve with my parents. From the time I was a small child, we spent Christmas Eve with my dad's family. We spent Christmas morning at home, and then we'd go over to my mom's sister's condo for Christmas dinner. We've continued that kind of tradition for our kids. Christmas Eve  dinner is spent with my family. Christmas morning is spent at home, and then we go over to my in-laws' home for Christmas dinner.  It works well!

Julie made chicken salad and vegetarian chicken salad for sandwiches. She cooked some Swedish meatballs in the Crock Pot, which Oliver enjoyed watching. She made fixings for grilled cheeses and just pulled off an amazing spread.

Oliver got really excited for presents this year. He enjoyed "reading" the tags to figure out which present went to whom, and then he put them in piles. 

He opened a book from Aunt Julie that he gets to fill out about himself. We'll work on reading and writing, and then he'll be ready to go! She also gave him new undies! Oliver gets the best undies every Christmas from Aunt Julie. Every time he opened a gift, he was immediately ready to move on to the next one.

Joanna was very deliberate in opening her gifts. She'd examine the packages and then tear off the paper in strips.

Oliver got a rolling pin and spatula baking set from Uncle Andy and Aunt Erin. They couldn't make it into town this year, but they sent packages with love! Oliver also got a bubble set that he's been begging to play with. It's hidden in the closet for warmer weather, but I think it'll make an appearance when we go on vacation!

Joanna got a new French bulldog sweater from Aunt Julie. She loved crinkling the package.

Oliver got a French bulldog hoodie from Grandma Judy and Grandpa Larry. He also got a drill set that he loves!

Here are Oliver, Julie, and Joanna all in their French bulldog tops. There's Arthur (Julie's French bulldog), posing handsomely for this Christmas photo.

Andrew got a new tall-person tie as part of his Secret Santa gift. He was thrilled to tie a double Windsor and still have it be long enough for him.

Joanna got an elephant ball popper from Grandma Judy & Grandpa Larry. Both she and Oliver love it!

Loved ones also gave a sticker set, some Smarty Pants flash cards, and a practice pad to learn how to write letters. Oliver had enough presents, so he opened those at home from Santa the next morning.

Thank you, Family! We had a lovely Christmas Eve. It even ended with some snow for a white Christmas.

Happy Holidays 2012

We selected a tri-fold Christmas card this year in order to include this series of images:

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!