Festive-ities

Tonight officially wraps up the holiday season, hard to believe how fast it always goes.  Putting away all the Christmas decorations always makes me feel a little sad, all that anticipation and excitement gone already, but this year I've decided to just move on and look forward to next year.  So far every year's been better than the last, and I know with Sis being a little older we'll have even more fun with everything. 

We did a lot of festive activities this year, and the girls were so cute with it all.  And although most things went smoother once they lost interest, it was a little bit of my dream come true to have my little ones joining in the fun Christmas traditions like making and decorating sugar cookies. 

Here are some pics from the season.

Happy NYE!

- K

 

I don't know why, but Lyla was completely obsessed with stars on the tops of Christmas trees this year.  It was cute seeing her try to reach and put it on top by herself.  :)

 

I'm a little bit obsessed with Christmas trees myself, and found this one at a thrift store to put in Lyla's room.  She loved having her very own tree, and of course a star on top! 

 

I got this Disney Princess village when I was in college.  I never opened it and thought "this will be cute for a daughter some day", and then I blinked and had two daughters to share it with.  Lyla was so excited to open it up and put it in her room.  Most of the pieces have already been super glued back together.  :)

 

Something you may not know about Ryan is that he is actually super artistic, and really good at well, pretty much everything.  Which can be really annoying, but that's another story for another day.  He's also a liiiiittle bit Type A when it comes to artistic things, which doesn't go well with doing anything artsy with a 2 year old.  Namely coloring coloring books, building gingerbread houses and decorating sugar cookies.  I laughed inside when I bought this kit because I already knew what was coming.  Lyla was dying to open it up when Dad got home, and she immediately took about 500 bites out of the gingerbread, and Ryan had a heart attack.  It got off to a really good start.  :)

I'm going to have to go ahead and take the glory for this gingerbread house.  They had to give up before anyone had a complete meltdown and I sat down and made all the finishing touches.  :)

 

 

One day Lyla and I made sugar cookies - one of those activities that went much smoother once she lost interest.  I have to say that besides all the dough she ate (seriously, she might have worms), she did pretty darn well.  I think that face above is her "Hey Mom, what'd you say about not eating dough?!" face...plus a middle finger or two.

 

She was so proud of that first cookie!

 

There it is, and it is really darn good!

 

Dad got to help with the decorating, and I'm guessing you can imagine how smoothly that went.  ;)

 

Always sneaking a taste.

 

We went through our fair share of sprinkles.

 

 Our friends had their annual Christmas party for the kids, which is always so fun.  Evie learned she loves frosted rice krispie treats, and Lyla got to shake her margaritas (maracas).  :)

 

 

These were just after church one day, but give another look at that stinking bunny dress that I probably shouldn't have bought, but love SO MUCH.  Also, how old does L look here?!  Freaks me out.

 

These girls were hilarious and actually pretty accommodating to me and my photo shoot.

 

These were from the Life Time Reindeer Games - at which they had Santa, a real reindeer, and a mini horse.  Nothing says Christmas like a mini horse.  ;)

Lyla was really into Rudolph and all the reindeer this year, so seeing one up close was pretty magical for her. 

 



 

Evie Sis gave Santa the cold shoulder.  Lyla asked for a sheep blanket from Costco.  :)

 

L had the best time in the bounce house until getting nailed by these knuckleheads.  Luckily she's a tough cookie.

Sis stole all of Lyla's snacks, per the usual.

 





 

This little stinker hates looking at the camera for me.

A Very Chapman Christmas

You can go ahead and put this one down in the books as the best Christmas ever.  Lyla is at the perfect age to understand the whole Christmas thing, and every bit of it was so fun.  Getting out the Christmas decorations, reading the Christmas books, talking about santa and presents, and Jesus and why we give those presents.  Experiencing it all with our little girls brings all that bright eyed amazement right back to me.

Ryan's family came into town on Monday afternoon, and as always, it was great having family in town for the holiday!  We watched Christmas movies, made gingerbread men, drank champagne and went to Target an average of 3 times a day.  On Christmas Eve we followed our traditions of going to our church's Christmas Eve service, followed by bagels and lox for dinner and everyone opening one present.  The hands down best part of the night was Lyla singing at church.  She was putting on a full blown performance, singing her guts out, just whatever words popped into her little head.  Everyone within 3 rows of us was thoroughly entertained by the crazy little beauty.  This was also the first year since I was little that we left out cookies and milk for Santa before Lyla went to bed, and left the empty dishes for her to find in the morning.

On Christmas morning Lyla came straight into our bedroom and asked excitedly "Is it Christmas?!"  It was pure sweetness, and thinking back to that tiny girl standing in the dark in our room, and getting to say "Yes!  It is!! Let's go see if Santa came!"...that was a moment I could live in forever.  She immediately checked if he ate his cookies, and was so excited he had.  The whole thing was just almost too much for my heart to handle.  Best ever.

We had so much fun, Lyla and Evie got beyond spoiled and are loving all their new toys.  I think my personal favorite is the microphone Lyla got, which has resulted in so many amazing impromptu karaoke sessions.  I swear L will be some kind of performer some day.  The girl's got some confidence. 

Hope you all had a MERRY Christmas too!!

- K