Christmas 2011

Wow, what an exciting and full Christmas holiday we had! Daddy was on vacation, so it was nice to have him home with us... unfortunately, we all ended up sick (thankfully in between Christmas and New Year's).
Christmas Eve we went to our church's Christmas Eve service (I enjoyed it by teaching the preschoolers - what an awesome bunch of kids showed up that night!) and then we finally got to see Andrew's brother, sister-in-law and our nieces, Addy and Zoey. Avery was super excited Addy showed up in her class that night - they would not stop hugging and kissing each other.
When we got home, we spent a little time with his family, but we also gave our gifts to the girls: new sets of pjs for each girl, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom books for Hadley and Llama Llama books for Avery, as well as an ornament each (Belle for Avery, Baby's First Christmas for Hadley). Avery surprisingly understood she needed to go right to sleep and bedtime was fairly easy. She sad goodbye for the year to Horton our Elf (who left her presents and some books before he left).

The next morning, I woke up about 7:30 am (I am usually the first up). Neither Avery or Andrew wanted to get up to open presents, but since my family was coming at 9:00 am, they finally consented.

Avery was SO excited for all she got from Santa! And Hadley really liked the presents she got too. She tore right in to the wrapping paper! :)

We had breakfast with my family and then opened more presents. Avery got way too much - you can tell when she's tired of opening them.

After that, we headed to Andrew's parents' for the rest of the night - where we also received way too many gifts! Our families are so good to us, and to our girls.

Monday night/Tuesday morning I ended up with the stomach flu. A few days later, both girls woke up puking. And Andrew suffered from an ear infection. It was a week of laying around the house! Thankfully, we were good to go by New Year's and spent the New Year with some family and some of our great friends.



























Avery's favorite gifts:
Pink CD player with microphone
Play kitchen
Ariel salon
Baby Alive doll
Disney princess "Barbie" dolls
Portable DVD player
Cinderella Cat (thanks to some Build-A-Bear giftcards)
Cinderella alarm clock
Books - the girl can't get enough

Hadley's favorite gifts:
Violet
VTech jungle toy
Crawl ball
Ball popper
(At least, I think so - these are the ones that have captured her attention the most)


So thankful for the time we got to spend with family this past week and a half. We are both very close to our families and we enjoy spending time with them, and I know Avery absolutely loves it; especially the time she got to spend with her cousin, Addy.