Merry Christmas!!

Such a great year. We celebrated with Shane's family first on Christmas Eve. I made potato soup for dinner and then we all exchanged gifts. The kids were great...all taking turns, watching everyone open their presents and waiting patiently till their turn came around again. After gifts we let all the kids decorate cookies for Santa. A huge mess! But they loved it. I think they might have given Santa a sugar overload.

 So many gifts!

Love this face!

 We had so much fun!

 Jim and Rose Marie

 Decorating Cookies

 Cute little fingers all ready for Christmas

Cookies and milk left out for Santa. I love Natalie's note!

The next morning I was in bed, waiting for the girls to wake up. They still weren't awake by 7 so I made Shane open their doors so they'd wake up. He opens Natalie's door and then comes running back down the hall. Two seconds later Natalie comes in and says, "Who opened my door?" I told her maybe Santa did. She wasn't buying it and seriously asked me the same question at least 3 more times. Finally I looked at her and said...Natalie...it's Christmas. Then it clicked and she got very excited. Heidi was already jumping on the bed totally excited about Christmas but Natalie was just worried about her door. That pretty much sums up my girls. :)

After Shane got the Christmas lights on and turned on the music, the girls ran down the stairs to their gifts. Natalie was so excited this year because she picked out gifts for all of us at school and wrapped the gifts herself. She kept asking if she could give us our gifts even before opening her stocking! This year I really wasn't very good with taking pictures. I was just enjoying every moment and kind of forgot about my camera. I think I took three pictures and one came out blurry! :)

The girls waiting to go downstairs...taken with my iPhone :)

 Shane opening his present from Heidi

Heidi's gift from us this year. We got her a bike for her birthday this year but she has already gotten too big for it. We were going to get her the Dora Gymnastics doll that actually does gymnastics. It was all she wanted. She has been talking about it since the Olympics this past summer. I kept seeing it at the store but waited till after Thanksgiving when Shane and I go shopping together. When we went shopping it was gone. I looked online at every toy store I could think of, I got put on email lists and even checked out ebay. They were going for $100 right before Christmas. Needless to say we got her a bike instead. :) But it's a Cinderella bike and she really wanted it so I think we did okay. AND....she hasn't mentioned the Dora doll again but I figure if she does, I can buy it for her at normal price. :) 

So after we did our own Christmas, we headed over to my parents house to do Christmas there. We all stayed in our pjs and I brought over Nutella cinnamon rolls. Seriously...so amazing! Click on the link to get the recipe...it's super easy and insanely good! Before we even started the gifts, everyone was looking for Shane. In my family everyone has to be present and paying attention before someone can unwrap a present! When I looked up he was rolling in a bike...for me! Such a surprise!

I was a little surprised! But seriously...isn't this the cutest bike ever?!?! After I recovered from my shock we started in on our presents. We do this weird thing in my family where we all throw aluminum foil balls into a bucket. Whoever makes a basket gets to be the first one to open a gift. Then we go around the circle and do it again for the next round. It's so much fun! Gift opening lasts forever in my family...it's awesome!

 Heidi and Natalie with my Mom holding their new dollies that Shane's mom gave them for Christmas. They are the cutest dolls and she got them from Cracker Barrel! 

 My gift to Bub...such a perfect gift for him!

 This is the ornament that Heidi painted for my mom at the ceramic store. It's an angel that she kept painting over and over and over until I finally told her to stop. It's got so many layers of colors!

 I painted the girls feet to make Christmas trees. They turned out so cute that I framed some for my house and also gave them as gifts to both of our parents. 

 Nokie was REALLY excited to get a new Splat the Cat book. :)

 Nokie with her new baby doll and me with my Nutella cinnamon rolls. 

 This was so Heidi on Christmas morning! I think Christmas Eve was plenty for her cause she was over it by the time we got to my parents!

 Natalie got a locket from my parents for Christmas

 Heidi decided to put some bows on Nan. Makes me laugh every time I see it. :)

My mom painted me a Precious Moments nativity set for Christmas. So so cool! I love it!

After all the festivities we went home and took a nap, showered and then headed back over for dinner. Nan made her famous lasagna...the traditional Christmas dinner for our family. It was a perfect ending to a perfect Christmas!

  

What a Week!!

Holy Moly! This week has been insane. Monday morning Heidi's allergies were out of control. She was blowing her nose every 5 minutes and eyes were running all day. So I called the doctor just to see if she needed a change in her allergy meds. After her nap she woke up with a fever and was burning up all afternoon. Natalie came home from spending time with my mom and Heidi all of a sudden was fine. But Natalie fell asleep on the couch at 6 and was burning up all through the night. The next morning they let me bring both girls together. Natalie's whole throat was swollen. You could literally look at her and see that her throat was swollen. She had strep throat and the doctor said Heidi did too. We got them both on meds but for some reason Natalie's strep was a million times worse than Heidi's. Heidi never got another fever but Natalie had a fever for...well today was the first day that she didn't have a really high fever.  The poor girl! Really! She has been so so sick. I even had to take her back to the doctor on Thursday because she had blisters all over her tongue. Not a big deal I guess but it totally freaked me out! I'm really hoping that she has a full and complete day of no fever tomorrow so that she can go to school on Monday. 

 This is pretty much where we stayed all week. Natalie wanted me close to her every minute. Heidi, on the other hand was not even allowed to touch her on accident or she would freak out. It was a very emotional week for her too. 

Today was much better. It actually felt a little bit more like normal. Natalie still isn't eating. She is pretty much living off of gatorade, Dannon smoothies and the applesauce pouches that you basically drink. Anyway...the girls remembered today that they haven't taken any circles off their Christmas countdown chains and they haven't opened any of their advent boxes. Today was make button ornaments and it was so fun. A perfect craft for two girls who are still pretty weak but wanted to do something besides watch tv. :)

 Such an easy fun craft. Florist wire and some buttons. They picked out the buttons, put them on the wire and then we closed it up to make a button wreath. They turned out really cute!

 Natalie organized her pattern out before she put them on the wire! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Such a great weekend! We celebrated Thanksgiving with my family on Thursday and with Shane's family on Friday. 

Thursday we got up late, watched a movie with the girls and then Shane went to play football with some friends. I started working on a tree skirt that I found on Pinterest and the girls played together. Just a wonderfully relaxing morning. We went to my parents house for an early dinner. It was a gorgeous day so we ate outside on the patio. She had to put 3 tables together for us all to fit! The food was amazing as usual. All of our places had questions for us to answer. The best part was Natalie reading her own question out loud. I was so proud of her! No one had heard her read before and they were very surprised! I took a bunch of pictures of the family too. This was probably the last big family meal before Luke leaves for boot camp so it was really special. 

 Colie and Gracie

 Mom and Dad

 Colie and Mom

Me and Gracie

 The guys watching football

 Me and Nan

 Mom, Luke and Daddy

 Mom with the girls

 Mom and Dad

 Mom and Natalie

That night I finished my tree skirt. It was so easy and it turned out perfect. If you want to make one...here is the link. This is how mine turned out. :)

So then Friday we had another wonderful day. Nice and lazy in the morning...I think I even took a nap. We headed over to Shane's parent's house and all the kids played in the backyard. I took some family pictures for Sabrina that turned out pretty awesome. Natalie started feeling a little punky so we put her in the back bedroom with the tv while we ate dinner. She didn't want to eat, poor thing. We had another really good dinner and then I took Natalie home. Heidi and Shane stayed and Heidi loved getting to play with Ava. 

 The table was set so nice! 

 All the kids playing on the piano together....it sounded lovely. :)

 Heidi and Ava

 Shane and Rose Marie

Colby and Sabrina