Had Ourselves a Merry Little Christmas

The week long Christmas break started with a visit from Santa Claus and making chili for a good friend.  Although the girls were hesitant when it came to sitting on Santa's lap, they did love looking for him out in the yard and tried to spy Santa's reindeer.  Later on in the week Emma and Ani received a picture in the mail from Santa that thanked them for the little Christmas cake that they gave him.  Over the weekend, we visited the Macy's display where the girls saw the animatronic version of Santa's Workshop.  We also delivered homemade caramel yogurt dip and pumpkin peanut butter dip to neighbors.  The girls had a blast over at our new neighbor's house.  They were able to try an Indian sweet treat and play with balloons left over from Prince's birthday party.

 What could be better than chomping on cucumbers?

During the week, the girls reenacted the Nativity scene many times.  Ani loved letting the three kings ride around in style on her pink scooter.  As the week progressed, more and more Nativity characters were found riding the trendy scooter.  Besides the Nativity, we loved reading stories by the Christmas tree and pretending to be elves working in Santa's workshop.  The day before Christmas Eve, the girls decided to make some bath salts to give the relatives at Christmas.  Our first attempt ended up a bit too fizzy, but we plan to try the project again soon to see if we can get better results.

 Grandma Walczynski's tree is always a fascination for the girls

 Grandpa, Emma and Ani playing with a train set from Great Aunt Marchie that is 60 years old

On Christmas Eve, we spent the evening with the Walczynski and Hill Family.  Church was beautifully decorated and very crowded.  Lots of Mommy's friends from her faith formation group were back at church with their children.  Ani and Emma did a great job bringing up food to the alter for families in need.  After church we headed to Grandma and Grandpa Walczynski's house for Christmas dinner and opening presents.  Everyone loved the idea of the birthday cake for Jesus that Grandma did this year.  As for presents, the favorites were My Little Ponies, a baby doll and a Sophia music player.

 

The Happy Birthday Jesus Cake

 You can never have enough hats, mittens and baby dolls

When Emma and Ani awoke the next morning, they found that Santa had left them a trampoline and a juicer for making smoothies.  Daddy spent all morning putting together the trampoline (each spring had to be individually pulled to the correct position).  As Daddy worked on the contraption, the girls happily played with their new toys.  We spent a bit of time sledding out at the park and played board games, read stories and danced around for most of the day.

 Not too much snow on Christmas day

The following morning, Grandma Jan and Grandpa Bruce arrived.  The girls were thrilled to have them visiting for the weekend.  Emma and Ani loved the color changing ponies that Grandma Jan found and the face paint from Grandpa Bruce.  We visited the sledding hill once again, painted our faces multiple times, painted pictures, read lots of stories, played new board games, visited the Children's museum and went to church at the Cathedral of St. Paul.

We are all so thankful to have such wonderful relatives and friends with whom we spent the holidays.  Our Christmas was filled with so much love!