Christmas 2011

We had such a fun Christmas season this year.  I think it's taken me awhile to blog about it because it was so much fun and now I have the post Christmas blues!  From Disneyland, to riding on the Santa Train, to seeing Christmas lights, it was just a blast!

We started off the month with a visit to see Santa.  A good friend of ours has "Santa Mike" to her house every year for a one on one visit with the kids.  For the last 3 years now Savannah has wanted nothing to do with Santa....this year was no exception.  So, there is no picture of Savannah with "Santa Mike" but at least we got one of Madeline!

Madeline meets Santa for the first time!

I felt like I spent the whole month of December wrapping presents, thank goodness I had a little helper to lighten the lode :)  Savannah LOVED wrapping presents.  Her favorite part of course was sticking all the bows on.

Savannah wrapped a present for her Groppy!

Later in the month we had a great time riding the Santa Train.  We got to ride a real train to Santa's Village and meet Santa for a second time!  This time I got what I had been hoping for, a picture of both girls willingly sitting with Santa!  Don't the girls look excited?

I love how Savannah is protectively hanging onto her sister :)

Christmas Eve was a very fun day.  After eating a very delicious dinner we took a ride to look at some amazing Christmas lights.  Then we came home and opened our stockings.

Madeline ready to go look at lights on Christmas Eve

The girls ready to open their stockings!

Me and my girls on Christmas Eve

Christmas was a fun and interesting day.  The morning started off great!  Madeline decided to sleep in until almost 9am so Derek and I were able to spend some very special one on one time with Savannah opening some of her presents.  For months prior to Christmas if you asked her what she wanted for Christmas her answer would be "a pink vacuum".  Needless to say she was very excited when Santa came through on Christmas morning.

Trying out her new Dyson!

Soon after Madeline woke up to join in on the fun!  I am pretty sure she enjoyed eating the wrapping paper and ribbon more than the actual presents!

Excited to open a present!

The big present for the girls was a brand new play kitchen!  We are still working on the sharing aspect but they both love playing in their new kitchen!

My little chef ready to cook!

My mini chef :)

Our Christmas got interesting around 11am.  Our electricity went off!!  I was sure it would come back on within a couple of minutes but boy was I wrong, it didn't come back on until 11 that night!  Derek cooked our lunch on the BBQ which was kind of fun.  We were planning on having a dinner at our house but thankfully my step sister got the day off work at the last minute and offered to host at her house.  So, we packed up the ham and headed there for a great dinner!

The girls listening to the emergency radio with Daddy trying to find out when the power will come back on

Groppy and Poppy spent the night with us by candlelight and we enjoyed opening presents with them the next morning.  Our girls love their grandparents and are alway so excited when they come to see us.

Madeline snuggling with Grandma

Savannah reading the newspaper with Poppy

We hope everyone had a great Christmas.  Happy New Year!

Disneyland Trip!

We just got back from spending 3 days at Disneyland and we had a great time!  It was a very special trip because our family met us down there and spent 2 days with us.  Savannah fell in love with her cousins and is still adjusting to the fact that she can't see them now that we are home.  We had a great time and can't wait for our next trip!

In front of the Disneyland tree

Savannah in the Paradise Pier Hotel lobby, it was a fun place to stay!

Riding Dumbo with daddy.  Don't mind Savannah's grumpy face, she was having a rough morning :)

Meeting Tinkerbell & Vidia

Savannah & Cousin Nolan ready for A Bug's Life

Riding the tea cups with Daddy and Nana

Madeline and Aunt Amy

Meeting Pluto!

Mommy and Madeline on It's A Small World

Our family

Our Christmas Photos

Here are our 2011 family Christmas photos.  As luck would have it I had the stomach flu on the day of our photo shoot, hopefully you can't tell!  Merry Christmas!

A fall day in the park

We had a beautiful clear fall day last week so I decided to get the girls out of the house.  I figured it would be the last time in awhile that we would have such nice weather so we took full advantage.  We enjoyed a nice walk to the park and played in the pretty leaves!

Madeline all bundled up and ready to go!

This next picture is my favorite.  Not only do I love how much fun Madeline is having but there is a cute story behind it.  I put Madeline up on the play area and Savannah was so scared she was going to crawl off the edge.  I barely had a chance to snap the picture because protective big sister was crying and telling me to "pick up the baby"!

As always, Savannah had a lot of fun on the slide and Madeline enjoyed her first slide experience too!

My little mouse having fun......

We made our way over to the path by our house where we had fun playing in all the pretty leaves!  I was hoping to get a really cute picture of Madeline in the leaves but she was too fascinated with playing and eating them to look at the camera.

Savannah didn't miss out on the fun, she thought throwing and kicking the leaves around was tons of fun!

This is a picture of one of the trees in our neighborhood.  Before we know it the leaves will be gone and winter will be here.  I'm glad we got the chance to enjoy such a beautiful day!

Halloween!

We had such a fun Halloween this year!  Savannah was super excited and really enjoyed herself.  We started off our weekend with pumpkin carving.  Savannah had a lot of fun helping mommy carve a pumpkin even though she wasn't totally thrilled with getting all slimy!

We weren't the only ones to get into the spirit, Derek jumped in and carved his pumpkin as only a true handyman would.....

All his hard work paid off!  Savannah thought Daddy's pumpkin was by far the best :)

While I wasn't brave enough to let Madeline help with the carving, she did get to have some fun with the pumpkins too!

She thought the pumpkin made a great teething toy!

And finally, it was time to get the costumes on!!!  Savannah was looking forward to being Tinkerbell for weeks and I must say she was the cutest Tinkerbell!  My little ladybug was pretty cute too!

Savannah loved trick or treating this year but I think she liked handing out the candy even more.  When we got home from trick or treating she was so excited every time kids rang the door bell.  She would drop whatever she was playing with and dash to the door and grab the candy bowl.  It was really cute :)

All in all it was an awesome Halloween and we're looking forward to next year!