Elf and Advent Update

We definitely have a sad little girl in our house since we had to say good-bye to our wonderful little elf, Fern. She actually got to stay with us an extra day so she could open presents with us but that night Santa came and got her to take her home to the North Pole.

Lily did not want to say bye to her and continues to ask where she is when she gets up in the morning. Usually she says, 'Fern's gone, that's sad.' I told her that Santa allows her to come back for special things, so maybe for Lily's birthday she'll make an appearance, who knows?!?

But, Fern had fun playing in our house until she left Christmas night. She loved getting into food for some reason. She had a bowl of Kix cereal, some Cheerios and even spelled out Lily's name, she made a really small gingerbread house, enjoyed some of Emma's snacks, gave the girls special outfits for our Special Day and had some left over popcorn. Fern played in the laundry, had a puppet show behind a pillow, tried to go for a ride in a little sleigh, swung from the ceiling fan and helped Santa fill their stockings on Christmas Eve. Fern was a very busy little elf during her stay in our house and we really enjoyed the Christmas spirit she instilled in all of us. We look forward to her coming next year and we heard she has a sister and are wondering if she'll come too?

As for our Advent calendar house, it was just as fun and is missed just as much as our fun Fern. The way I did these activities seemed to work out great. I made a list, printed out picture icons and wrote the activities on the back but left them all in a baggie. The morning of, before Lily got up, I decided what we would do that day and put that paper into the house. This way, I could pick and choose according to what our day had in store and what we would have time for. I also made these activities realistic and family fun things too. The second half of the month entailed two nights of Christmas light trips, a Special Day, getting dressed up to get our pictures taken, making Christmas cards for friends, helping our bird friends stay warm (I saved lint from the dryer and Lily put it in our front yard so the birds could use it for their nests), shopping for sister gifts, watching a Christmas movie, having hot chocolate, going to the library for Christmas books, making cookies, opening ornaments and sissy gifts and then of course, Merry Christmas!

Loving these two traditions we began this year and

now the countdown begins for December 2011!

Christmas Eve

Our Christmas Eve began with getting our last packages full of gifts from Aunts and Uncles. Lily loved helping open the boxes and helping put the gifts under the tree. With each package that came she just kept saying she couldn't wait until Christmas and that it was so exciting. And, yes it is exciting to watch the amount of presents under your tree grow by the day.

Mike and I decided that we would wait until Christmas Eve night to put out the gifts we had gotten the girls to make it that much more exciting.

During lunch we suffered a loss. Our Cookies for Santa plate lost it's battle with the ceramic tile floor. Can you guess the grabby hands that did this?? It wasn't the guilty little girl you see in the picture was it?

Our morning continued with more cookie baking! Today, cut-out sugar cookies and thumbprint cookies. Lily did great today. She listened extremely well, was very patient and was so excited to finally bake more cookies. When it was time to ice the cookies and decorate them she did great too. But, she taste tested a lot of the toppings :).

While we were baking and getting ready to get the house ready for Santa, Emma did a lot of playing. Finally we were able to see if the pack-n-play doubled as a ball pit and it worked like a charm. The girls had a lot of fun.

We then were able to go to our church for the first time on Christmas Eve. They offered three services this evening 5, 8, and 11 but we opted for the 5pm service just due to scheduling. There were a lot of kids at this service for obvious reasons I'm sure but otherwise not too crowded. I think our most favorite part was at the end when we all held lit candles, the lights were turned off and we all sang Silent Night, without music. It was the most quiet, surreal experiences we've had and it was amazing. The girls were mesmerized by the candlelight and were absolutely silent which definitely helped.

After returning home, taking a few pictures and changing we ate dinner. Our dinner, another tradition continuing, consisted of the leftover stuffed peppers and homemade pizza. Yep, the pizza is from my side of the family. We never really traveled during the holidays so the four of us would always make pizza as a family. So, we have adopted this as well as our Christmas Eve tradition.

Next was opening of ornaments. This tradition is from my side of the family, where we each get a new ornament for the tree and a new family ornament. Mike and I are in awe of my parent's tree and can't wait to see what ours will look like after almost 40 years of marriage. But, it's already fun to look back at the ornaments we have collected on trips and from our years together.

And, a new tradition that we've added...sister gifts. Lily and Emma shopped for each other and tonight they were able to give them to one another. Emma didn't know what was going on but absolutely loves the Ariel doll Lily picked out for her. And, Lily was so excited to not only get her sissy gift (a learn to dress doll) but to give Emma hers. It was so sweet to watch them be genuinely excited for each other and sharing their dolls.

The final stop of Christmas Eve was leaving cookies for Santa, an apple for Rudolph and a letter for Santa. This year, Lily wanted to ask Santa if Fern could stay with us to open all of our gifts instead of going back to the North Pole with him. She loves Santa and has like the 'Polar Express' girl has, a lot of Christmas Spirit.

L.C.P.

Lights. Last night we went to see Holiday Lights at the Beach at the oceanfront. It wasn't as grand as the Botanical Gardens but we're glad we went. Lily sat on my lap while Emma slept through the entire thing. Not sure we'll make this a yearly tradition or not but it was neat to see all of the lights on sand and watching the waves.

Cookies. This was the first opportunity, since Daddy could occupy Emma, that Lily and I could begin some baking. We did peanut butter kiss cookies. Working with a preschooler is definitely a lot of fun but it also makes you adjust your cookie making procedures :).

For example:

1. Had Lily cover pb balls with sugar, pick them up to place them on cookie sheet next to her.

~Lily was completely flattening the balls when transferring to the cookie sheet..Had to adjust~

2. Moved coookie sheet so I would transfer from the bowl of sugar.

~But Lily was still destroying the small pb balls in the bowl..Had to adjust~

3. I made the pb balls, dropped in bowl of sugar and this is when Lily took handfuls (huge handfuls of sugar) to dump on the cookie (and the table, the chair, the floor, her lap...) which then I took to put on the cookie sheet.

While the cookies were in the oven we unwrapped a whole bag of chocolate kisses and she helped push them into the baked cookies when they were done. Can you guess which one she did first??

Peppers. Mike and I have decided to incorporate both of our families traditions to make our own. This of course means food too. There are certain dishes that we have on Thanksgiving, a special meal on New Year's Day, and this year we get to start our Christmas meal tradition.

Today, the 23rd, I made Grammy's (Mike's mom) Stuffed Peppers. I had a recipe but as we all know, recipes are only as good as what you know about them. I knew a little but not enough so we called :). I spent a good amount of time on the phone and she talked me through the whole thing. I also made enough so that we had left overs for Christmas Eve, and both nights they were absolutely delicious!

You can see that Lily and Emma found other activities to keep them busy through the whole thing even if they were ready on time and I did much of it during their nap.

Loving all of our traditions.

Letter from Santa

Today, Lily got a letter in the mail and it was from Santa. I wanted to open it as soon as I saw the return address but I had to wait until Lily got up from her nap and Daddy got home from work.

According to Santa's letter, Lily and Emma have been very good little girls this year and he plans on stopping by our house on Christmas Eve. He also said that he was planning on bringing Rudolph!

So Exciting!

NBG-Christmas Lights

We took our first trip to the Norfolk Botanical Garden's, Garden of Lights. And, we are soooo glad that we did. We had no idea how extravagant they were and how much Mike and I would like them too!

We left as soon as Mike got home and had dinner while we drove around the gardens looking at all of the lights.

I'm not the best photographer by any means nor do I try to be but this is the best one I took the entire time. But, I did have Emma on my lap, in a moving car, eating my sandwich while trying to enjoy the lights at the same time. At least we'll remember the fish.

Lily helped Daddy drive and Emma enjoyed climbing all over me.

There were lots of ooh's and aah's from Lil and lots of bouncing and dancing from Emma so I'm sure that this will become another yearly event that we will enjoy going to.

Advent Update

Since we are now halfway through December thought I would document or wonderful advent activities! Lily has absolutely loved doing this every morning. She rushes out of her room first to find Fern and then returns to move the candy canes on her and Emma's tree calendars. Then, she rushes to her "Christmas House" to open the door of the day to find a little piece of paper with an activity written on one side and a picture on the other.

Above are just a few of the fun activities we have done so far. We fed the birds by making a bird feeder out of her milk carton (but she of course spread the seed ALL over the front yard), had a parade with homemade instruments (we marched all over the house ALL day long), we colored ornaments for the tree, decorated a Christmas tree with ornament stickers and colored her very own Christmas book (Brown Reindeer, Brown Reindeer, What do you see?).

Some other activities that we had fun with are decorating our small tree for the playroom, having a movie night, going shopping for an Angel Tree gift by being an angel for the day, making a snow globe out of baby food jars, having hot chocolate with marshmallows, AND making a list of things to ask from Santa which then turned into a Santa letter. This letter will be mailed today and we hope for a response :).

Looking forward to the rest of the month with daily fun activities!!

Fern Fun

We love Fern.

We are sooo happy that Santa sent her to us.

We don't need her very much to help remind us of good behavior but it always helps if nothing else works. Especially since she is Santa's most favorite elf.

Lily gets to feed Fern every night at bedtime. We sit her on the table and give her crackers, to remind her of the crunchy snow, ice water, since it's like melting snowflakes and of course, the magic snowflakes that Santa sent us. These magic snowflakes is what makes Fern magical at night.

And, Fern has been a very busy little elf at night...

The first week or so it seemed as though Fern was trying to explore and figure out what our house was all about since all she did was hide in different places. She hid in the pantry, on the Christmas tree, on Santa's lap and a few places in the kitchen.

Then, all of a sudden she started to realize Lily and Emma had lots and lots of toys to play with! And this made Miss Fern a very happy elf. She played tea party, doll house, a memory game, little people, blocks (which led all the way from the playroom to the den), she had a movie night with Rudolph and read books with Cinderella.

We're still a few weeks away from Christmas and I have a feeling Fern has just begun her fun!

Finally...

I have finished our Christmas Tree Skirt!

I started this project Christmas 2008, yes I know a long time ago. But that's what happens when you have things to do, projects get put on hold. But today, I finally finished it!

I had this great idea to make a two-sided skirt, which I did, and then on the solid side put patches that best represents the year that we had. These I had to put some thought into, not the kind of patch, but how to actually do it. And, I figured it out. There's this great thing called Heat n' Bond and you iron it onto any kind of fabric, cut it to the size/shape you want, iron it on and it sticks! So, I embroidered the years and extra info on our patches and ironed them onto our skirt...and Viola!

I'm hoping that our Christmas tree skirt will be one of those things that we love looking at each year and the girls will want to continue this tradition when they begin their families.

The patches you see are:

'05: The year Mike and I met and it's in the shape of a kickball, since that's where we met- playing in the local kickball league.

'06: The year we got married. So it's a heart with our initials and the date of our wedding.

'07: One year anniversary and we took a trip to the Blue Ridge Parkway where we hiked. So, it's in the shape of a fall leaf. (I was also pregger with Lily)

'08: Lily was born. Her initials and birth stats on the fabric I decorated her room with.

'09: The summer of the beach! So I embroidered a picture of the beach.

'10: Emma was born. Her initials and birth stats also on the fabric I decorated her room with.

Can't wait to see our skirt fill up!

And, just a little video that makes us smile.

Emma has found her dancin' moves.

Happy December!

Happy Advent!

Today officially starts the countdown to Christmas and another tradition in the Check house.

The Advent Calendar

Found these simple, move the candy cane each day, felt Christmas tree advent calendars. I initially only bought one and quickly went to get another so Lily and Emma could each have one. This year Lily has agreed to help Emma move her candy cane each morning so next year she'll know what to do.

I got the trees since I fell in looove with the Gingerbread House Advent Calendar at Kohls and this will not be played with.

Lily immediately went to the "Christmas House" to open up door number 1 and was so excited to find something inside. We are doing a non-candy advent calendar so today we colored Christmas ornaments that I found at the dollar store.

Even Emma got in on the action.

Happy December!

Our New House Guest

is a very special guest.

Her name is Fern and she was brought by Santa!!

This morning we woke up to find Fern on our kitchen table with a letter from Santa himself! She came in a red velvet pouch, magic snowflakes and an entire page of Santa tips on how to take care of his magic elf.

And, I'm so glad that our handy, dandy little camera has a video camera :).

Moments like these we will cherish forever.

So, Fern is a member of our family until Christmas. When Santa comes to deliver presents she'll hop on his sleigh and go back home to the North Pole. Although, we did read on Santa's tip sheet that she can come back to visit throughout the year on special occasions!

So far, We Love Fern!

The Dress

My mom, their Nana, made this dress.

I wore it when I was Baptized at only a few months old.

Lily and Emma both wore it the first Sunday of November, All Saints Sunday, at around 7 months old.

This dress will be around for awhile, wonder who will wear it next?

And, NO this is not an announcement!

Back to...

normal,

laundry,

our own beds,

our playroom,

our stomping ground.

The first sand jar that our family of four added to our collection!

Welcome 2010

This evening we welcomed the new year by having our traditional New Year's dinner, courtesy of a mix from my mom and dad's side of the family. Our meal consists of pork, cabbage with quarters (every family member needs four quarters), black eyed peas (I have to mix them in with baked beans) and cornbread. These dishes are said to bring us luck and good fortune through the new year.

2009 was a wonderful year but we are looking forward to our very exciting 2010!

I have thought about making some resolutions and the ones that I have come up with are not too exciting but necessary and seemingly difficult at least for me...

1. I'm going to TRY to let go, relax and not be in control of everything.

2. I'm going to TRY to accept help when offered and ask for it when I need it.

3. I'm going to TRY to do things just for me and enjoy them (and not feel guilty).

4. I'd LOVE to start and finish a book that does not include Sesame Street characters, animals, numbers, the alphabet, Princesses or anything educational.

5. I would really like to throw away more, including junk mail instead of moving it from one pile to another, and make our home more clutter free.

OK...I think that's enough for me to bite off for one year. Mike will be doing a post to state his resolutions as well.

Well, 2010 here we come!!