more Christmas

On the way to visit with my husband's side of the family on Christmas Day, we saw this Eagle!

We spent the day with his family, then went to my parents' house, where the girls fell into bed.

The next day they waited and waited and waited for their cousins to come, so they could open more presents!  They finally arrived and the present opening began.  

All season long I heard about a Frozen Fantasy castle, which Rebecca really wanted.  It was a huge plastic monstrosity, which I really didn't want in the house.  Not only did we not have room for it, but it was expensive and didn't do much.  My mom found this smaller version, and we were worried she would be disappointed that it wasn't what she wanted, but she loved it, and I haven't heard about the other castle since.  

She has played with this and her Bitty baby the most.

We took some family pictures.....first the immediate family.....

And then extended family with my uncle, aunt, and cousins.

We hadn't all been together in a few years, so it was a lot of fun.  We ate too much great food and played games, and had a wonderful day.

(See the girls' matching doll dresses?  They opened them that day--made by my talented mom!)

Christmas Morning

Christmas Eve before church, in their dresses, lovingly made by Grandma....

After church, in their new matching PJs

Christmas morning.....the Bitty Baby she's been asking for for a year!  She was so excited!

Wonder Woman nightgown!

Another nightgown....Elsa....with an Elsa braid falling out of her hair, and a matching Elsa gown for her doll

Daddy made a bed for her new doll.    It's not quite finished, but close.

Bitty Baby got a matching nightgown, too!

Rachel was thrilled!  Minecraft Legos!

After present opening, she got right to work!

Saige, Rachel's doll, also got a matching nightgown, so here are all four of them together.

It was a fun morning and they were excited.  I'll add more in another post from the rest of our celebrating.

house for a mouse?

Tonight we read a christmas story called Mortimer's Christmas Manger, where a mouse tries to live in a nativity set at the house where he lives, but then learns that it belongs to baby Jesus, so he moves out, and into a gingerbread house that the family had made.  Rachel and I were wondering if the gingerbread house the girls decorated today would become a house for a mouse.  I sure hope not!  We've had enough trouble in previous years with mice.....none this year, please!!

But anyway, here's the gingerbread house the girls and I decorated today.

One of the sides caved in while we were working on it, but they had fun anyway, and at this angle you can't tell!

While we were waiting for parts of it to dry, they made their own graham cracker gingerbread houses.

new ornaments

Christmas festivities have begun around here....Rudy, our elf, made his yearly trek, much to the girls' delight, our advent calendar is in use each day, and the girls got their new ornaments for the Christmas tree.  Every year I try to get them one that reflects their current interests.  The problem this year was that Rachel's biggest interest, Minecraft, doesn't have a Christmas ornament available to purchase, and Wonder Woman, Rebecca's favorite thing, is equally hard to find (old ones are available on eBay, but that's the only place I found any).  As I was searching online for minecraft ornaments, which don't exist, I came across a few etsy shops where people make them.  Several were made out of perler beads.  Well, Rachel has a mosnterous sized jar of perler beads, and it looked easy enough that I could figure it out, so that's what I did!  I made my own!

Then, I thought, why can't I just make my own Wonder Woman ornament too?  So that's exactly what I did.

I felt kind of silly during nap time, sitting at the kitchen table all by myself doing perler beads, but I was pretty happy with the results, and the girls were really excited about them.

Happy December!