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These Little Hams
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It truly is the most wonderful time of year. Each Christmas gets better and better. This was our third Christmas with our Claire Bear and our very first Christmas with our Abby. Claire is understanding Christmas more and more, she was so excited for presents, Santa and decorating. Abby on the other hand loved the wrapping paper and Christmas music.
It has been a busy holiday season for us, we moved into our house at the beginning of December. I had not done any Christmas shopping before that because I cannot focus on more than one big project at a time. I began my Christmas shopping the following week after we got settled in at home. I did a lot of my shopping after the girls went to sleep at night. Then did my wrapping during their afternoon naps. I cut it very close with getting everything done, I was still shopping Christmas Eve Eve. I need to start earlier next year.
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| I'm a organized and clean person but when I wrap gifts I make a mess! |
To kick off our holiday celebrations we had our good friends over with their little ones on December 19th for dinner and gift giving. It was so fun watching all the kids together and we even managed to get an adorable group photos of the kids. It doesn't happen often that we are able to get all six of them in a photo together. Our friend Erica had a brilliant idea of doing a book gift exchange. Each child received a book from each other under $10, it was a big hit. I think it will become our tradition now. We had a delicious dinner with Costco special marinated chicken breasts, creamy parmesan risotto, and tomato and zucchini sauté. Angela made a delicious Beach Salad like the one from Joey's Restaurant. I had seconds of that one, soooo good! Erica brought my favourite cupcakes from Lilac Bakery. I found a new favourite, salted caramel cupcake. I had too many of those. Abby took her first steps while Angela and Dustin were leaving. She took three little steps in the front entrance it was exciting to see. It was a fantastic night, I can't wait to get together again.
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| Abby and I both look out of it! |
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| Books everywhere |
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Presents!!
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More presents
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| These two being silly |
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| Goodnight! |
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| At least one of them is smiling |
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| Yay we got a group photo! |
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| Another one just in case |
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| Everyone pile on Kyle |
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| Awe, so sweet! |
Kyle and I had both been talking about converting Claire's crib into a 'big girl' bed very soon. On Saturday night December 20th he took the front panel off the crib and put up the little bed rail. She was so excited to sleep in her new 'big girl' bed for the first time. We were a little nervous because we thought we would have to deal with her leaving her bed and getting into stuff in her room but she did awesome. Kyle had a talk with her about making sure she stayed in her bed all night. She followed the rules but did accidentally roll out onto the floor a few hours after she fell asleep, poor girl started crying. Luckily the bed is low to the ground so she didn't roll too far down. She just startled herself. We were so proud of her and it made me feel a lot better about how she will do once we move her to a full size bed later on.
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| Claire waking up Sunday morning after sleeping in her 'big girl' bed |
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| Abby wants to check out Claire's new bed |
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| Abby is so proud of her big sister |
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| Claire is so proud of herself YAY! |
On the Sunday December 21st we brought both girls to Kyle's work Christmas party. There are quite a few little ones in his GT work family. They had fun holiday crafts and snacks for the all the kids. After lunch they each were given a gift to open, it was a really nice way to spend the afternoon. Claire opened a cute Minnie Mouse doll house and Abby opened a Leap Frog My Pal Violet. Perfect gifts for them, though Claire loved playing with Abby's Violet toy as well.
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| Claire wasn't interested in photos |
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| All the little kiddies in the GT family |
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| Time to open presents |
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| They can't wait to open presents |
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| Claire's Minnie Mouse House |
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| Abby loves the tissue paper more |
On Monday December 22nd my sister and mom came over to visit with the girls in the morning. My sister had been wanting to make ornaments with the girls. She had two recipes, one for handprint ornaments and one for cinnamon ornaments that you cut out into shapes. Claire loved rolling out the dough and cutting the shapes. The handprint ornaments turned out amazing. We just need to paint them now. The cinnamon ornaments were tricky and didn't turn out the way my sister remembered when she made them last time. But the house sure smelled fantastic!! My mom helped me wrap gifts and did some cleaning for me even though she had stitches on her foot she managed to do things around the house. If anyone knows my mom she doesn't know the meaning of relaxing, she is always on the go, cleaning, organizing or cleaning. Lol! We love her!
It was so nice to have them over to hang out with the girls. My dad had made pulled pork for dinner the night before with coleslaw and sent that with my mom for us to eat for lunch, oh bless his soul. It was delicious, pulled pork on fresh buns with coleslaw piled on top, how could anyone go wrong?!?
On Tuesday December 23rd I continued my preparations for Christmas. Claire and I tackled the baking items on our to do list. We made a batch of shortbread cookies and sugar cookies. Oh man did the house smell good again. I wanted to make sure Claire had fresh cookies to put out for Santa on Christmas Eve, plus Christmas isn't Christmas until you have baked some cookies. Here are the two recipes I followed this year and they did not disappoint. Holiday Cut-Out Sugar Cookies and M&M Shortbread Cookies. I love Sally's Baking Addiction (where I found the sugar cookie recipe), she knows her stuff. I modified the shortbread recipe because I didn't have M&M's or chocolate I just made plain shortbread and had Claire cut out circles and add sprinkles. Delicious!
Then on Christmas Eve day I iced the sugar cookies. I ran out of icing because I wanted to fill in the cookies but opted to just outline most of them instead. I will for sure use the same recipes next Christmas.
