Saturday, December 31, 2011

Christmas 2011

We celebrated Christmas as our little family of four on Christmas Eve morning. After our traditional homemade hot chocolate, popcorn, and Christmas Vacation the night prior that is.

This year my baby sister joined us, which made all of us super happy =). Abbey and Luke slept until about 7:30am - a vast improvement over last year, to be sure. We started with stocking stuffers; new Elmo pop-up books, new racecars, dumptrucks, teddy bears, sippy cups with straws, and harmonicas... because David and I momentarily lost our minds while in ToysRus.

Then we moved on to opening under the tree presents. The twins really seemed to have the hang of opening gifts this year...I get to tear at this paper? And there is something fun inside? Awesome!!

My Mom and StepDad gave them baskets of pretend healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner foods, which they seemed to love playing with. But they loved it even more when we pulled out the Big Guns from the laundry room...



A new play kitchen!

To say this gift was a hit is a giant understatement. Our kids have played with it practically non-stop since that morning. They love putting things in the microwave and pressing the buttons (that make noise!). They put food in the fridge and pretend to wash their hands in the sink. My favorite thing they do is ask us to move way back when they open the oven - something they know is expected of them when we open up the oven. "HOT!" they say. Too cute.

After lots of play time and a good nap, we headed to our Church's Christmas Eve Service, which was wonderful.

Christmas morning we got up and enjoyed a quick breakfast before packing up the van and heading down to celebrate Jesus' birth with David's family. We were so happy to see everyone and enjoyed watching our kids' faces light up anew.


We don't have stairs in our home, so it's always a favorite at Grandma and Poppa's house!




Abigail hardly let this Elmo out of her sight all day.



We're so lucky to have such sweet cousins!!




Luke checking out his new "laptop".



Ab's showing off her piano skills.



Daddy set right to work on putting together all the new toys...



A new play tent and tunnel from Grandma and Poppa!



A fuzzy picture of our family (the only one I managed to have captured)



After seeing Luke enjoy playing with these cars and ramps so much, it made me wish we hadn't talked ourselves out of getting him this for Christmas. On the birthday Wishlist for sure!



David enjoyed re-discovering some of his old toys, and sharing them with his babies...



After a day of fun, before we knew it it was time to settle in for bed...



The next day we enjoyed some more playtime...


...before we were off to visit some of our favorite friends on their farm!

Lo and behold, we were having so much fun I hardly took any pictures.


An indoor slide might have to go on the Birthday Wishlist as well...



Luke was fascinated by their chickens...


2011 has been a wonderful year, full of blessings. Our Christmas this year was another thing added to our long, long list of things to be thankful for.
I hope yours was too.

6 comments:

Julia said...

Oh, that Little People bus your hubby is holding----that is an absolute favorite around here! The girls got it last February for their birthday, and still play with it every.single.day.

Our play tent gets lots of use too. Isn't it such a huge blessing to watch your littles run around and play with all their toys?!

Even when their toys are strewn everywhere---I try to sit back, and say "thank you, Jesus" :)

Happy New Year, Kendra!

Jen S. said...

WOW--looks like you all had a wonderful Christmas. That is great!

Happy New Year! :)

Once Upon A Time said...

Looks like your duo had as much fun as ours did. And the ramp? Besides the play kitchen we got, the next most favorite toy they got. I highly recommend getting it!

a said...

Glad you are starting your own holiday traditions and not stretching yourselves so thin that you can't enjoy yourselves.

Rathnashikamani said...

Nice pics! Happy new year!

Laura said...

It looks like everyone had a great time. I think it is great that you have all this family that just adores your children. Wish I was there!