Christmas 2011

 Christmas Morning started early.  We got up with Emma, and discovered that Santa had visited and left lots of presents for Emma.  We explored our Stockings, and started in on the unwrapping.  Emma was loving her presents, but after about half were opened, she came over to cuddle Mommy and seemed a little glazed over.  After a few minutes, she got back up, walked to the middle of the room and got sick.  After a quick bath and clean up, she was a good as new. We finished opening our gifts, called family to let them know Emma was sick, and decided not to go to church as who knew if it would happen again!

Here is our annual Christmas Photo by our tree.  We usually take this when we decorate the tree, but it just had not worked out this year.  we could not get Emma to look at the camera, she was far too interested in her presents.  A lesson learned to make sure to do it before we have gifts to concentrate on!

 None of our family had issues coming over with Emma sick, as it was Christmas and they didn't want to miss seeing everyone.  I was very excited to host this year.  I wanted something special for my nephews Pirate Cousin and Army Man, so I made up a Treasure Hunt with bad Pirate poetry.  Here is Pirate Cousin reading the first clue.  He was not overly excited as there was reading, and he wanted his presents.

 Army Man was all excited for the treasure hunt.  Their mom Meredith helped read all the clues, and Army Man was fairly good at finding the hiding places.  Pirate Cousin followed along, and I think he had fun, but was a little shy about it.  After they found their "Booty" in the hope chest in the living room, they were more then ready to open their real gifts.

We had a wonderful afternoon with great food, and even better company.  Emma cuddled up to her Pirate Cousin and just enjoyed being with him.  Army Man was thrilled to play with his new Army Men her received.  I love watching how much my Emma loves her cousins and how much they care for her.

Christmas Eve 2011

 On Christmas Eve Morning, Glenn left early to pick his brother Jeff up from work down town.  They then came back to pick up Emma and I so that we could all go visit Grandma Sharen at her place.  We brought a basket full of presents for Jeff, Sharen and Emma (from Grandma Sharen). 

 We took Sharen back to a quiet visiting place, and had a nice Christmas celebration with her. Emma loved the gifts she opened from Grandma and Uncle Jeff, and had a great time playing with them.  I had brought a Cinnamon Coffee Cake along to brunch on, and after our snack we called Sharen's Sister Lori in Arizona.  We have sort of made this a tradition, putting her on speaker phone and having a good chat.

When it was time for Sharen to go to lunch, we packed up and headed over to our house.  We were going to try to catch a movie, but Jeff was exhausted after working all night, and fell asleep.  After we all took a nap, we decided to eat dinner out.  We had a nice meal at Hanan's downtown, then took Jeff back home. It was a good, relaxing day.

Emma's First Gingerbread House

 I picked up a Gingerbread House kit this year to do with Emma.  After dinner last night I pulled it out to make.  Much to my suprise, I discovered that you needed to let it sit for 12 hours after construction before decorating.  So, I built the house, and first thing this morning, Emma insisted that we decorate.

 Emma has newly discovered doing projects with Mommy, and loves it.  I did all the frosting, and Emma took her time decorating.  Of course, she had to sample some of the decorations along the way.

 I was very impressed with her focus and precision in decorating.  She did a great job for her first time.  Now to limit her eating of it so she doesn't get sick!

 This past weekend we traveled to Otis to visit with Emma's Birth Family.  We love their house in Otis and enjoy visiting there.  It was cold, but dry so Emma was able to play outside with Kristen and her Uncle KJ.  They had a great time bouncing, swinging and chasing the dogs.

 Emma received many gifts from her Grandma Kim, Grandpa Karl and Great Grandma Linda.  She loved the Hippo tent that they gave her, and crawled in it right away.  This is something she will use lots at home, when we let it out. Even the cat enjoyed the Hippo

2011 Christmas Tree

 One of my favorite things each year is to get our Christmas Tree and bring it home to decorate.  This year, we got our tree, but waited to decorate it.  It was just suppose to be the next day, but ended up being a few days that we had a bare Christmas Tree in our family room waiting for lights and decorations.

 Emma was so excited this year.  It was the first year that she could really help us decorate.  We got out all the stuff, and started putting lights on the tree.  I had purchased some new lights this year as our broke last year.  As I started putting them on, we realized that we did not have enough lights, so Glenn went hunting.  You would think you could find what you want in early December, but most of the colored lights seem to be sold out. Lucky for us, Glenn found our lights and bought several more boxes.

I also tried some ribbon on the tree this year along with our bead garland.  it was really wide, and metallic, so really had a good shimmer against the lights. I was really happy with the overall effect.

Emma loved exploring the Disney Ornaments Glenn and I have collected over the years.  I decorated the top half of the tree, while Emma did the bottom half.  We had purchased her ornament this year, the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Balloon with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Donald.  She was so excited to hang her ornament.

We thought our tree was beautiful, and plan to enjoy it throughout the season.  Merry Christmas!