Ana, Gingerbread Houses & the Stomach Flu

So, after our trip to Michigan my sister Ana came some with us to Ohio for a week.  It was so nice having her here (she should move in).  It was fun sharing the days with her and the girls were giddy having Ana all to themselves!  We didn't do anything to extraordinary, a little shopping, some lunch outings and lots of spending time together.  We did venture out one night to a friend's gingerbread house making party.  It was a fun party.  We had a potluck and everyone brought some candy to decorate the houses with.  The kids ran amuck with too much sugar and the adults were able to visit in between helping with the gingerbread houses and monitoring sugar intake!  The one thing we did not bargain for was getting the stomach flu.  It started hitting some of the friends that went to the gingerbread making party and not too long after we got it too.  It was highly contagious and people from the party were dropping like flies.  Several people from each family got.  I was just thankful it was out of our house in time for Ana to fly home and before Christmas!

The Christmas tree at The Greene

Making gingerbread houses

Olivia and her buddy Ella at the party

Dads and babies

Some of the completed masterpieces

Josie and William.

They are only about 17 days apart.

The babies:

Josie, Luke and William

 Ana and the girls cuddling

Lots of Hockey!--and a Haircut!

The weekend before Christmas we went to Michigan for a multipurpose trip.  We were able to celebrate Christmas with Andrew's family and we were also able to see my mom and the twins because Mikey had a hockey tournament in Detroit.  While we didn't see much of Mikey face to face we were able to watch him play hockey and I must say, he is amazingly talented!  We had so much fun going to the ice arenas all bundled up to cheer on him and his team and we made pigs of ourselves snacking between each period.  Ana and my mom loved spending time with the kids and they sure enjoyed seeing them too, its been far too long.

We all stayed at Josh and Laura's house and Andrew's parents met us there too.  Josh and Peter cooked some very yummy meals and we had lots of fun sitting around chatting and catching up.  We also exchanged presents with Andrew's family.  Its so much fun to see the kids playing with their cousin Tyler, and we are excited to meet another cousin in March.  -- I didn't get any pictures of the present opening :-(

Andrew and I are beyond blessed that our families get along so well.  Its always fun when we can all get together and that is truly what the holidays are all about!

Sharing a "Baffo" with Daddy

Cheese!!!

So tired.

Olivia and Aunt Ana sleeping in the car

Gram-cracker and William

Gram-cracker and Abby

The girls with Aunt Ana and Uncle Mikey!

Olivia was NOT pleased with Daddy's choice for where to pose for pictures!

 My Brother and Sister!

William also received his first haircut!  

It was getting so long and crazy, so we asked Grammy Susan to get out the 

scissors and try to make him a bit more presentable!

 Normally I wouldn't include such a wonderful shot of myself but I find it hilarious

and it was hard to think that this is the last of my babies having their first haircut!

The Jolly Guy in Red

This year we went to Chick-fil-a for breakfast with Santa.  It was much better than the one we went to at the club on base last year.  The food was better, the service was better, it was closer, and there was not an hour long wait to see Santa.  In fact, we didn't have to wait at all to see Santa.   We got a picture with each kid with Santa that they printed out while we ate and they had crafts for the kids as well! All the kids sat on Santa's lap and the girls told Santa what they wanted for Christmas.  It was such a well organized event, we will definitely be going again next year!

William with Santa

The kiddos and the guy in red.

I love that William is looking at Santa, like "what is this guy's deal?"

Yay! They are all kind of looking at the camera....how rare is that?!?

My Big girl!  She asked for bike and a locket

Olivia was brave this year and sat with Santa and told him 

she wanted a "rockin' baby" for Christmas

Chopped

One morning in December I decided to do some Christmas shopping while Andrew stayed at home with the kids.  I didn't know I was going to miss a gourmet meal and a very cute edition of the show chopped starring my 2 favorite girls!  It was the breakfast edition of chopped and the girls were given crescent rolls, chocolate chips, and gram-crackers and had to come up with a breakfast food.  Andrew and William were the judges!  Andrew took video of a lot of it and it was adorable!!

The 2 chefs face off

Busy cooking!

Judge William

It was an intense competition

The best part was eating!!!

Olivia's Christmas Show

Olivia's preschool put on a Christmas show.  Olivia's class did The Polar Express and Olivia's line was "the first gift of Christmas!"  We practiced often and for the whole ride to the show, but believe it or not, stage fright got the best of my outgoing little firecracker and she just stood there like a deer in head lights.  Even though she didn't say her line, she was awfully cute and all smiles when the show was over and she was able to hang out with her buddy Jesse!

The stage.  

And they had a picture slide show set to music

A little nervous

Jesse and Olivia!

Decorating for Christmas

Decorating for Christmas was interesting this year.  William is at the age where is curious about everything and very mobile, he crawls quick as lightening and can pull up on anything.  He was very interested in all the decorations and the of course the tree!  I spent most of the time trying to keep him away from the tree while Andrew and the girls did the majority of the trimming of the tree, or as Olivia liked to say, "decking the halls".

Hmm, what do we have here?!?!

...and when he wasn't trying to get at the tree, he was doing his next favorite thing--DISHES!!

Of course we had to taste the ornaments to make sure they were good.

Olivia's "cheese" face

Abby and our "ball" tree

This isn't the best picture but it shows the tree all decorated and the gate 

we ended up putting around it to keep a certain little boy away from it.  If you 

look closely, even the gate is decorated!

and of course, Jake our elf, made his appearance on December 1st 

to look after the kids and report back to Santa!

Who You Gonna Call?!?!?