Namely:
Gingerbread House Building 2010. This year the gingerbread house was already constructed and all we had to do was decorate it. Pretty lazy, eh? I actually really liked having that part done. We didn't have to wait for Rich to build it, have it be steady enough to decorate, to only have it crash to the ground several times during the process. We followed the box almost exactly. Creative, right? The girls, as usual, snuck as much of the candy as they could. Their favorite part by far.
The annual Movie Date w/ Papa. Every year Rich takes the girls to the movie. They get popcorn and treats, and feel really special to have their dad all to themselves. This year Rich got to see "Yogi Bear" twice. Lucky him!
Some of the other activities we did this year: Seeing the lights in downtown Ogden, Santa at the mall, plenty of nights getting ice cream cones and driving around to see the lights, girls night out to see the Rockettes, John Schmidt Christmas piano concert, family parties, and Lili participated as an angel in the nativity at our church party (she was so excited to be in her first play!!)
This years Christmas Card. Thrown together much later than I normally do, this year's Christmas card actually got sent out. I was surprised that I was able to throw something together. This fall was crazy with my photography business, and to tell the truth, I had 0 motivation for taking pictures of my own family because I was so burned out....let alone create a Christmas cards after making them for clients and family. Still, somehow I mustered the energy. Here is how they turned out.
Creche 2010. One of my favorite parts of Christmas is putting up our creche. It's the French nativity story with unique "santons" who represent various characters from Provencal village life. It's a tradition in France that I've been doing since I was a child. My mom has a whole village and it was always so fun to unwrap each piece and see who you got. Now that I have my own family, with the help of my wonderful family in France, I've been able to slowly collect my own pieces and see my little village grow. Also, one Christmas my parents surprised us by making each family their own buildings and props for the village. I love my creche and hopefully my girls will cherish it as much as I do.
This year my Aunt sent us the animals for the manger. They are blowing on the Baby to keep Him warm. Merci Giselle!!
Christmas 2010 was wonderful this year. We enjoyed spending time together and with family. Rich was able to take the week off after Christmas and we spent our days playing games, eating snacks, relaxing, watching movies, and playing in the snow. This year we surprised the girls with a trampoline. We opened our presents upstairs and then asked Lili to run downstairs to get the telephone to call grandma to wish her a Merry Christmas. When she got to the bottom of the stairs we heard an audible gasp as she saw that Santa had set up the trampoline in our living room! Oops!
It's been fun to have the trampoline inside for a few weeks. The girls are getting great exercise that they don't normally get in the winter, they've had sleepovers on it, and since we don't have any furniture yet, why not?? Some of our other favorite presents are some puppets for puppet shows, wood blocks (old school, but classic), walkie talkies, and some fun new Wii games.
Poor little Hazel did not feel well Christmas morning.
