Friday, December 30, 2011

Getting Ready for Christmas!

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We had a wonderful Christmas and really the whole month leading up to Christmas was filled with little preparations and celebrations!  There were lots that I didn't photograph...parties, the Christmas parade, gatherings with friends, and lots and lots of tasty treats, but here is a glimpse...
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The kids loved decorating the tree...over and over and over again!:)
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And my parents even got to help with the first tree decorating while they were here.  And I love how the pom pom garland I made turned out!
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Lily has been on vacation for much of the holiday season (her school follows the university schedule), but for her last day of school they had pajama day and here she is in her matching pajamas with Bitty Baby!
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We did a giving basket for the kids again this year and once again Lily just LOVED creating some special little goodies that she could give out to anybody she wanted.  She really gets so much joy out of giving- I think it's a gift of hers.  This year we made carmel corm again, these adorable snowman ornaments (which she gave to everyone in her class among others)...
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And these cute Christmas tree brownies!
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Lily helped make each thing...baking, stirring and decorating the treats and cutting, paiting, and clueing the ornaments!
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And we enjoyed a few fun little Christmas crafts like these nativity stick puppets (we printed some in color and the kids colored some themselves).
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Our giving baskets and the little glitter trees that we made for the mudroom.
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I don't even remember which yummy Christmas treat Eli had smeared all over his face here, but I couldn't resist these pictures!
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Every Christmas we look forward to the cards and hearing from many of our friends and family.  This year we hung our Christmas cards from lights around our front door and we put the picture cards under the glass on our kitchen table (so we got to see all of your lovely faces during every meal)!
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Making beaded candy cane ornaments- Lily did such a great job at beading them and Eli even did pretty good at threading the pipe cleaners through the beads until he decided that it was more fun to dump out the beads from bowl to bowl (and ALL over the floor)!
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And of course there were cookies!  We made a more reasonable sized batch of cutout cookies this year and other than the last few that Joe helped Eli with the kids cut them all out themselves (I would roll the dough for Eli).  They really enjoyed being able to do it on their own and they did such a great job!
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And while the cookies were baking I let them clean up (and play) in the sink.  This has quickly become one of their favorite activities!
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Getting ready for Christmas sure was fun this year!!!

Saturday, December 24, 2011

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Wishing you a Christmas that is merry and bright!
Love,
Joe, Angie, Lily, Eli & Indy

Friday, December 23, 2011

The countdown is on!

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The Countdown Is On!!!
Lily and Eli have been counting down the days 'til Christmas all month with the advent calendars my mom made for them!  Each day they pull out a little box and not only only get to enjoy the little treat my mom has hidden inside (candy, stickers, etc...) but they also get to see what creative, festive picture my mom made on the other side!  They look forward to doing their advent calendar every morning and they are so excited that Christmas is nearly here!  Yesterday we were planning to head to Bar Harbor (without snow we were going to hit the beach to collect some rocks for a gift I am making for Eli).  Instead we decided to slow it down a little and stay home.  We made and decorated cookies, went to the pool, Joe worked on a homemade gift for the kids, and we all ate pizza in the living room while watching the Muppet's Christmas Carol.  What a fun day!  And this morning we woke up to snow and the hope of a white Christmas after all!:)  We had our Christmas celebration with my family over Skype this morning and overall it has been such a nice couple of days as we continue to countdown 'til Christmas and celebrate all the while along the way!

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Guest Reader

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The day before my parents left my mom was the guest reader at Lily's school!  I'm so happy that she got the chance to do it and I know that Lily loved having her there (G-Pa was there too- you can see him watching from the rocking chair in the 2nd picture)!  As you can see the kids were pretty interested in the book by the end!:)  And mom didn't just get to read- she also got to dance with the kids (since there was a little bit of time left at the end of class)!  We are, by the way, very much missing school.  This is Lily's 2nd week of break and we still have a few more weeks (it's such a long break because the school follows the university schedule).  It is giving us time to do some fun things together but Lily does miss seeing her friends everyday.  For now we'll just try to enjoy the time at home!