{ twas the night before christmas }

We made the decision this year to be at our house for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. O and S are getting older and it just seemed like a good time to start our own traditions and be able to wake up in our own house, finding Santa's gifts and stocking fillers.

Grandma C came early to help us bake sugar cookies for Santa.
We quickly discovered Oliver has a serious sweet tooth and quickly discovered how good cookie dough is.

They were good cutters and we ended up with some interesting shapes and designs from them helping place them on the cookie sheets.

Though I don't have any pictures of it, we headed out on Christmas Eve morning to burn a little energy and went swimming at the Y. We hadn't been there since last winter/spring and O and S LOVED it. They are able to do so much more walking and playing in the water now and had a blast.

We came home for naps and upon waking, the Christensen family came over for pre-church appetizers and gift opening.

The cousins exchanged gifts and the princess and CARS pajamas that they received were a big hit.

We walked just a few blocks to Knox church for a nice Christmas Eve church service. The trick was just getting Oliver and Stella to stay relatively still and quiet for the 45 minutes. Stella did awesome and Oliver, well Grandpa C took him out to play for part of the service.

My favorite, and theirs too, part of the service is the candlelight singing of Silent Night. A beautiful reminder of all the blessings in our life.

We headed back to our house for some hot soup and a few more gift openings. And, of course, preparing cookies and milk for Santa. After getting them to bed for the night we starting wondering what the clock would start with the next morning when they woke up! More on that in the next post.......

{ downtown adventures }

The week before Christmas we headed downtown for one final visit with Santa.....and daddy! The Macy's Santaland display is a fun kid outing and with Chop nearby, we decided to pay his office a visit while we were down there.

There is so much to look at and see at the Macy's display and Oliver and Stella loved it all.

Bonus at the end is that you get a visit with Santa. Based on our prior visit this year, we weren't sure how this would go over. Oliver was a-okay with sitting right next to him.
Chop had to initially sit with Stella next to him but she ended up sitting on her own. All while holding a very serious expression showing that she was trying her hardest to be brave about it. She still likes to say "I sat on Santa's drum".

A visit to the Target offices followed. Target mascot Bullseye was a big hit.

Followed closely by the discovery that daddy and his team have stashes of candy, most importantly lollipops, at all of their desks.

Stella seemed right at home in the desk chair eating a cookie.

And Oliver fit right in playing cubicle hoops.

We left wondering if they actually do any work while at "work"?!

{ december hodgepodge }

The title of this post is hodgepodge because well, this post is pretty much just that. A whole bunch of random stuff.

We are in full fledged holiday mode these days, including little Rudolph reindeers running around.

Although they know what reindeer are, evidently we have some work to do on what a proper snowman looks like. Especially for Oliver.

Included in holiday decor this year is our friendly little "elf on the shelf" named Emma. First thing out of Oliver and Stella's mouths every morning is "Where is emma?" and then they search around the house to find her. She moves locations every night after returning back from flying to Santa to give him a report.

In non-holiday related news, both Oliver and Stella went on the potty for the first time in the last week! Poor Oliver didn't even get any celebration for it because Chop was too busy chasing Stella around to get her diaper back on to realize he had actually gone. It wasn't until an hour later when he was in bed that Chop happened to look in the little potty and notice it!

Stella decided yesterday that she didn't like diapers and that she wanted to wear underwear. She then proceeded to sit on the potty and actually go on it for the first time. She cried and cried for underwear so I put training underwear on her, explaining that she couldn't just go in them like a diaper. Well, 45 minutes later and accident number one. She was NOT happy about that and went back into a diaper without a fight!

We went last week to toddler heaven: an open gym at a gymnastics studio. Two hours of play on huge trampolines, mats, foam pit, and swings. I'm hoping to sign them up for a gymnastics class at the gym so we went to see what the facility was like. It was a BIG hit!

Another sledding outing was enjoyed with their cousins last week. It included lessons in making a snow angel, as Stella's original technique was to wave her arms and legs in the air instead of in the snow.

We were out the other night and drove by this Christmas display in Minneapolis. Can you imagine having them as your neighbor?!

Oliver got a new haircut! I finally sent Chop with him for this cut. I don't know guy hair lingo and I was always nervous they would buzz it, so in the past I never let them cut it short enough. He's stylin'!

We hosted an adult holiday party this past Saturday. Included at the party was a few good rounds of Jenga, white elephant gift exchange, and pin the nose on the snowman. As you can see, not many got close. It was either the blindfold, spinning, or alcohol that played a part in the success rate!

While this might be the "Jolly Green Giant" to most of us, Oliver's interpretation was a little different: "Oh, look mommy - it's the Incredible Hulk!".

Chop had off last week on Friday and was treated to having some Stella time for her nap. The timing was appropriate after the heartbreaking news from Sandy Hook Elementary School in CT. There were extra hugs and kisses that day and we continue to hold all of those affected in our thoughts and prayers.

{ first snow }

The meteorologists said it was coming. And, for once, it did! It couldn't have been more perfect. A fluffy white snow that started falling overnight and continued throughout the day. We had nowhere far to go and nothing to do so being stranded by snow was invited on this Sunday.

We did have plans to head next door to the neighbor's house for some cookie decorating but obviously no issues getting there. The three kids had a blast decorating cookies. 

 

And, as expected, went just a tad overboard when it came to adding sprinkles and decorations.

 

As soon as we could tell that the cookie decorating was heading nowhere good (as in all they wanted to do was eat them or play with the sprinkles) we decided to head outdoors to play in the snow. We got outside and someone had the brilliant idea that our driveway would make the perfect sledding hill for two year olds.

Genius.

 

They would have stayed out for hours. As soon as they reached the bottom of the driveway they were instantly saying "more'.

 

As we put Stella down for nap she whispered "Can I go sledding again?" So guess what we did after naps? Yup, more sledding. And this time the added bonus of making a giant Frosty the Snowman in Viv's yard next door.

 

And as I put her down to bed tonight and finished singing her song and went to give her a kiss good night, she whispered to me "I go sledding again tomorrow."

{ here comes santa claus }

There has been talk of Santa Claus for weeks. Mainly "I want Santa bring me jumpy".  

We happened to be at the mall a few weeks ago and walked past the mall Santa Claus. Stella's feet were off the ground she was so excited.

 

I refused to pay money to see him but this Santa was still nice enough to walk over and greet these eager kiddos. Oliver and Stella were eager to talk with him, while Audrey and McKenna weren't so sure. Upon his offering of candy canes, all four of them were just fine with him!

 

I didn't want to pay to see mall Santa because I knew we would be heading to "Breakfast with Santa" for our official visit just a few days after. So last weekend we ventured to the fundraiser for Minneapolis Junior League at the Minnesota Valley Country Club. There was no question that we would be eating brunch AFTER our visit with Santa Claus.

We got in line and if Santa was even out of Stella's sight, she was upset....."Where is Santa, where is Santa?".  As soon as it was our turn and we started approaching him, we quickly realized she was all talk!

 

She wanted nothing to do with sitting on his lap and I unfortunately ended up in every picture of the two with Santa.

After our visit with Santa we enjoyed a nice brunch and story time and singing with Mrs. Claus. Overall it was a great event for a good cause!

{ oh christmas tree }

Being in the new house means something very exciting for Christmas - we have room for a tree! I thought it would be fun to head out and go cut down our own at a tree farm but life got in the way and well, we got lazy. So we headed a few miles away to a local floral shop owned by a friend that opens a tree lot for the holidays.

We hyped the excursion to Oliver and Stella and ended up with a Noble Fir. Oliver was less than enthused, he must have wanted a Fraser.

We loaded her up and hauled her home.

We made a pit stop on the way to let O and S pick out an ornament at Patina. After 10 minutes steering them away from the $10 breakable ornaments that they loved, they ended up with cupcake ornaments. Little did we know that these would cause major issues once we got home because they actually thought they could eat them. Should have spent the extra $15.

It was fun to see how excited they got about the light and ornaments.

Stella took the job very seriously.

Oliver was especially fond of the hockey player ornaments. Unfortunately that has led to broken sticks on both of them. Oops.

And we've found out that the promise that a Noble Fir will only shed 5 needles total only applies if you don't have toddlers shaking the lower branches vigorously!

Nonetheless, we are loving having a real tree to put us in the holiday spirit!