Christmas in April

Right after Christmas our house was filled with germs, injury and sleepless babes. It has taken a while, but we seemingly have sorted much of that mess out. Soooo...now I can post an extremely delayed Christmas blog and a couple belated bday posts too (hopefully soon to come). Honestly, so much time has passed and sleep is still quite broken that I'm not sure that I remember much, but I know some day I'll want to look back and see my little Christmas babies, so here goes! :)

The season started out with getting the tree. For the past 4 years, we have gone to pick out a tree on December 7th, the anniversary of Sofia's birth - a tradition we are going to change next year as the current tradition is way too hectic on a day that I just want to reflect and honor her. But this year, we went. It was bone chilling cold. Like 15 degrees plus windchill. Way. Too. Cold. for such recent Californians and way too cold for little people. Lesson learned: if it is below freezing, postpone tree getting. We went to Bauman Farms, saw Santa (though we have kept the Santa talk pretty low key, Nolan is pretty obsessed), drank hot chocolate, rode a hay ride out to the u-cut (they really cut for you, but you get to pick which one...and could cut it yourself, if you really wanted to) field, picked out our tree, attempted to roast s'mores while we waited for it to be all netted and loaded up on the car, nearly broke our teeth on frozen chocolate, made an unfortunate decision to go to the petting zoo that required Nolan to remove his mittens...and then wash his hands (doh...only added to the extreme cold), lost one super cute Aiden and Anais blanket and got a pretty sweet tree - our biggest to date! :)

Then of course came the decorating. We decided it a good plan to put the ugly, yet very useful baby gate around the tree again this year. It was a very wise choice. All the favorite ornaments were put up, popcorn strung and even a few special family ornaments and some from my childhood were added this year as well. Nolan was really into decorating this year, which was quite fun. We kept up the tradition of Nolan and I making an ornament for Sofia and we made gingerbread ornaments this year too.

On Christmas Eve, the babes get to open one present - their Christmas jammies. Some day when I'm old and gray and they are all grown up, I'm going to make them quilts from all those years of jammies...or so I think I am. ;) I was a little worried that Nolan's were going to go unworn as he pretty much refuses to wear pajamas and definitely not pajama pants, but he surprised me, put them on and loved them. All three still wear them at least once a week, in fact all three wore theirs today. We read some Christmas stories as a family and off to bed my little elves went.

Bug woke up with a fever Christmas day, so we kept it pretty quiet. Presents were a big hit. The girls mostly just wanted to eat the paper/ribbon/tags. Nolan was very helpful in getting the girls' presents open. Ha. We had a small family dinner of delicious prime rib, Oregon Dungeness crab, au graten potatoes that never really cooked through (doh), green beans, Nicaraguan avocado salad and I don't remember what else. It was tasty.

That pretty much sums it up. What came after was nothing short of a plague of illness that swept through the house. Luckily we all got over it and are seemingly healthy now. :)

Merry Christmas. ;P

Nolan visits with Santa. Santa asked Nolan what he wanted for Christmas. Nolan's reply: "a Christmas tree". :)

Me and Alice all bundled up for the sub-freezing temps to go get our tree!

Anthony and Lilah.

Turns out...not nearly bundled enough. :/

Getting so big.

Hayride out to the trees!

Did I mention it was cold?

Tree huntin'.

Checking out the ice.

Yup. That's the one.

Grandma and Nolan waiting for the guy to come and chainsaw it down for us. We chose not to saw it by hand. Ha.

Kissies while we waited for the hayride to pick us back up.

Excited about the s'mores.

Not so excited about the s'mores. :(

Goats!

I think it was so cold that the girls had to conserve energy by sleeping. Lilah.

Alice.

Lilah and Daddy.

Hanging out in the car with the heat blasting, trying to regain feeling in all our appendages.

Alice.

That face.

Nolan whipping up a batch of gingerbread people/shapes for us to make into ornaments (except half or more of the cookies were eaten before we painted them...ha).

Me and the sissies cooking with Bug.

Cracking the eggs.

Molasses face. He REALLY loved the molasses.

Rolling out the dough. Note the wardrobe change. This project was completed in multiple parts.

Cutting the shapes.

The painting begins...

Yup...I was trying to multitask and make dinner as he painted.

Nothing to do with ornaments, but a cool picture of Nolan practicing his writing. :)

Waiting for the tree to make its way into the house to decorate.

We ended up with a tree that looked very much like our son.

Me and sissies (Lilah left) getting ready to decorate.

Alice checking out the tree. Good thing we put that gate up!

Nolan LOVED decorating this year!

A little help from mom to get to the next tier.

My babes.

Nolan hanging up an ornament that we made in 2012.

Of course Daddy got to hang some too (and I only moved a few of them around afterward...hehe).

Cheeeeese!

Sissies checking out the tree. Again...good thing we put up the gate! Ha!

"Whatchu talkin' 'bout, momma?!" Ha. Lilah left.

Kissie-face Alice.

Lilah likes to bake while doing acrobatics.

Nolan's first Jesus craft. ;)

Pretty cute, eh?

Christmas Eve jammie opening.

In all honesty, I generally try to down play all things Santa, but these were the cutest jammies we could find in his size...luckily, he LOVED them (and wore them today).

My littlest elves.

Best shot of the season! Lilah left.

Rudolph and other Christmas bedtime stories. Lilah in Daddy's lap.

Christmas Day! Lilah and the tags...

Alice and the tags...

Sissy...don't eat the paper!

Alice.

Lilah. Note: eating tag, not toy. Haha.

Lilah.

Alice also rather enjoyed the ribbon.

Lilah checking out the lights.

Lilah at Christmas dinner.

Daddy and Lilah.

Love.

Don't let Alice try and convince you otherwise, the food was delicious. ;)