Hike

Monday morning after Christmas arrived. Christian and Marian managed to get her car to the dealership for  repairs.

We had been talking about New Year's resolutions and the fact that we have all gained back some of the pounds we managed to lose last year. All the Christmas goodies, parties and excellent dinners and desserts did not help.

We had been talking about taking the girls up for a hike up to the "C" for a while now. Since we were waiting for Marian's car to be fixed, we decided that it was a fine day for a hike. And so we dragged her and one of her dogs with us. It was quite a beautiful day for a hike...only it is a bit steep for the girls and their out of shape mom but we finally made it up to the top. We have proof!

This was only the second time I'd been up there. The last time was in college and it was getting dark when our group finally made it up. It was getting difficult to see and we were nearly to the top. Christian was hiking up behind me and I slipped and slid down a bit but not before kicking Christian's legs out from under him! I may be more out of shape this time, but I had a lot better luck getting up without any problems in the light of day!

Christmas Day

Christmas with my family went off almost without a hitch. When we arrived at my brother's house. My mom called saying that her car was not working! So Christian and I drove to my mom's house to check out her car and perhaps to give my parents a ride over. Luckily, they don't live very far away. Christian was able to get my mom's car started though, so they were able to drive in on their own and we followed them back. 

The girls love to play with their cousin Lauren so the little nephew sometimes gets left out. Luckily, the older nephews usually are pretty good about playing with him and helping him do boy stuff!

The big gift for the night was a photo book we made for our mom. My brother, sister and I got together to make a book of all her grandchildren in their various stages. It took quite a bit of work and we had some complications in trying to all work on the book on-line at the same time but in came out really nice.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning

Our best friend, Marian, comes over every Christmas Eve and spends the night with us so that we can spend Christmas morning together.

picture courtesy of Auntie Marian

This year, Marian arrived a little early to take the girls out to watch a movie. It's actually the first time the girls have been to a movie theater. We usually just watch movies at home. There are never any really compelling movies to go see that is worth the price, hassle and having to deal with other people. I almost took them at the end of summer, but they started misbehaving and I decided not to take them. Anyway, they went to see the Muppets. They went to McDonald's for a treat afterwards.

Unfortunately, Marian had some car problems on the way home. Luckily they were just up the hill but I'm sure it was pretty stressful having the added problem of having the girls with her at the time. Anyway, Christian went out to get them and they managed to get the car back to our house.

We tried to make the best of it and have a nice evening. Marian also brought a prime rib roast for our Christmas Eve feast. So while she was off with the kids, Christian and I prepared dinner in peace (prime rib, braised carrots and french onion soup...mmm). As usual, we ate too much and stayed up too late talking.

We had our usual belgian waffle breakfast on Christmas morning then we were off to church (yes, we made the kids wait until after church to do presents...got to have our priorities straight you know).

As the kids didn't whine or complain about the wait, we did finally get to the presents shortly after returning home.

It's fun to see that the kids are finally old enough to really think about others for Christmas now. During the week before Christmas, they would go through some of their stuff and secretly wrap them for each other and for us. Plus the girls got out their jewelry making stuff to make gifts. Caitlyn made me a bracelet and Emily made me a necklace.

So during the week before Christmas, Christian would take turns, taking each of them to work for a few hours in the morning to give me a break and I would take the other one on errands to deliver treats or to help make goodies or clean. Then we had them collect their money and I took them to the Dollar Store to buy a present for their sister with their own money. They were really excited about it. Emily got Caitlyn a little fairy snow globe (or glitter globe, I guess) and Caitlyn got Emily a little kite.

Christian got me more parts to my Willow Tree Nativity set. I've been wanting it for a while now but never had the heart to spend the money on it. Christian started getting me the pieces in November for our anniversary.

Normally, Marian would take off at this point and we would prepare food for the potluck dinner at my family's house while the kids played with all their new toys. But unfortunately for Marian, she was stranded at our house. And to add to her bad luck, no one would be open to fix her car until after Christmas. But, her misfortune was our good fortune. She helped entertain the kids, helped with dishes and peeling and slicing potatoes for the gratin I was preparing for my family's dinner! I also made dessert but I made cheesecake so that I could make it ahead of time on Friday night so that I would not have to spend time doing it on Christmas Eve when we had a house guest already. So everything worked out for us pretty well...sorry Marian : )

Caldwell Christmas

We had Christmas with Christian's family a week before Christmas. It helps to separate the celebrations so that we pace ourselves and the kids can enjoy it more. Otherwise, it is just too busy and overwhelming for everyone.

Unfortunately, before we arrived, both the girls got car sick at separate times on the way down...Merry Christmas for mom and dad! Emily even had on her accu-pressure bracelets. I think we can safely say that they did not work. She got sick first and we were not even out of the county yet. Caitlyn got sick as we got off the freeway at our destination. Caitlyn told us she felt fine not 30 seconds before getting sick. Lucky for us (and Caitlyn) that her cousin has clothes that can fit her in a pinch.

They always love making gingerbread houses with their cousins. Aunt Erin sets them up with all the fixings and Aunt Danielle helped out our girls with their projects. As all the kids are getting older, you can see their gingerbread houses gets more complicated and fancy.

We had lots of food.

A Christmas program put on by all the kids.

And of course, the presents.

Grandpa narrated the nativity story while the kids dressed up and played piano pieces in between parts in the story. Unfortunately, Caitlyn was too shy to play her song. We knew there was a possibility that she would not play it. We actually forgot our music sheets but Caitlyn had the songs memorized and had to refresh her sister's memory earlier in the day regarding Emily's song. So she knew both songs and played them when the whole family wasn't in the room staring at her but would not even put her fingers on the keys when it came to her turn. Oh well, maybe next year.

It was fun but I don't think we'll be driving the little up-chuck princesses back down there any time soon...or any where else for that matter. We were planning a little winter trip but I think we may have to rethink that idea.

Holiday Cheer

There is something about carollers that seem to really bring about the holiday spirit. Some friends came by a couple of weeks ago to share some of their holiday spirit. 

So even when I'm feeling tired or stressed or whatever, I always feel a whole lot better after they have come and gone. I don't know if it's because they can actually sing or just because they are friends, but I am always a bit more cheerful and thankful afterwards!

Awards assembly

A couple of weeks ago, the girls' school held award ceremonies for the first trimester of the school year. Caitlyn got honor roll and perfect attendance.

I couldn't really get Caitlyn to smile as she knew everyone was looking at her!

The next day, Emily's grade had their assembly. They separated the ceremonies because there are too many kids (and parents) and with the early rotating lunch schedules, we don't have enough time to do more than two grades at a time.

Emily got high honors (which is advanced in every category) and a citizenship award.

We usually work on giving or doing something special with the girls when they do well in school as a reward for their diligence and hard work with something extra special at the end of the school year if they do well all year.

So far, we are off to a great start. We are so proud of the girls!

Tree Decorating

We generally get the tree out as soon as Thanksgiving is over so that I can work on the girls' annual Christmas picture. So, we got the tree out Friday and it got put up but we really didn't decorate because of certain kids' trantrums and stubbornness and really, I was ready to leave it as is...a bare tree just strung with lights for this year because their attitudes and behaviors have been that good this past week.

But they finally shaped up and so Saturday morning, I set out some decorations and Christian did this fun stop motion video of them decorating. It was so fun, I had to share.

It's kind of hard to see with these little thumbnail versions they let you post but you get the idea. It was Christian's first attempt with doing the stop motion videos so now our minds keeps racing to see what other fun things we can do with it!