Christmas was incredibly sweet for our little family. It was the first we spent in our new house, which made it a little extra cozy. We kicked off the festivities a couple of days before Christmas with cookie baking with Naomi. The girls love to see each other whenever they can, even though we now live about 40 minutes apart!
That evening, we had the family over for a little fun. Hope recently learned how to make paper doll chains and snowmen, so we all tried our hand at it. Grant had a hard time with the tissue paper, so he opted to just cut up construction paper.
While dinner baked, we settled in to watch the Charlie Brown Christmas movie. It is very cute, but even at only 25 minutes, it didn't fully keep the kids' attention. Maybe when they're a tad older and can appreciate Charlie's angst they'll like it more ;)
The morning of Christmas Eve we brainstormed about who and how we could serve a little bit. We decided to bake a bunch of goodies and take them to the fire station, to thank the firefighters who were on duty and apart from their families for Christmas.
By late afternoon, it was snowing heavily. But that made tromping out to the fire station seem all the more festive and meaningful. And Firefighter Eric was so gracious - above and beyond! He accepted our goodies with sincere thanks, then invited us in for a tour! He let Hope and Grant explore all the trucks to their heart's content. It was ~awesome~ and something I know we'll do again!
After the fire station, we headed to Grandma and Grandpa's, where we opened stockings and had dinner together. Then we each did a little "something" for Christmas. Grandpa, Grandma, and Aunt K each did a reading. Hope, Daddy, and I put on a puppet show. Daddy read the story of Jesus' birth from Hope's storybook Bible, while she and I acted it out with the puppets she made.
Christmas morning with a 3 and 5 year-old is FUN. They were excited and enchanted and giddy! Grant says his favorite present is his light saber, and Hope's is a toss up between her jewelry box and her microphone. They certainly had fun exploring all the new toys!
We had a little fun that afternoon throwing snowballs and trying out Hope's new motor scooter, but it was so cold that didn't last long. Brr!
Back inside to finish dinner and play some more, then a sweet little family dinner with Grandma and Grandpa, Aunt K and Uncle E.
A couple of days later, we took a road trip to visit our extended family six hours away. We drove through a blizzard to get there, but the kids were road warriors! Long drives are so much easier now that nobody wears diapers and we don't have to stress about missed naps or nursing schedules or any of that! Once we got there, we barely saw Hope because she was playing with her cousins Josie and Hannah the whole time. She loves them so much, and for being five years older than her, they're very good to play with her. We so enjoyed seeing Uncle Bill, Aunt Cathy, Grandma Pickle, and Lee. Hopefully we can do it again soon!
We did a 'pretend' New Year's Eve celebration while we were there, with sparkling cider and party poppers. Nobody minded at all that it was 8pm on the 30th :)
According to the calendar that Hope made on her first day back to school yesterday, her resolutions for 2013 are to
- Play with her cousins
- Learn how to read
- Learn how to ice skate with her Daddy
- and make a snowman
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