Holly, Jolly Christmas 2012

Howdy! It's been a while since we've posted any pictures on our blog. Raising our two little girls has been taking up more and more of our time. But we wanted to make sure we shared some photos from Christmas before the New Year begins. 

Our holiday festivities kicked off on Friday 12/21 with Morgan's Pre-school Holiday concert. The kids opened with "Jingle Bells", recited some holiday poems, and closed the show with a rousing rendition of "Jingle Bell Rock". It's hard to believe this is Morgan's final holiday concert at her pre-school. By this time next year, she'll be rocking around a kindergarten Christmas tree.

With Christmas falling on a Tuesday this year, it meant we had to get through a 3-day weekend before we even got to the big day. Ariella, Andy and Aunt Lindsay had the tough task of finding activities for the girls to distract the girls from asking, "Is it Christmas yet?" -- but not wearing them out before Tuesday. 

On Saturday, the girls relaxed with a marathon of Christmas specials (Rudolph, Frosty, Here Comes Santa Claus). On Sunday, the girls played outside and decorated the patio with Christmas chalk drawings in the morning, then toured Christmas lights on houses in South Jersey at night. On Christmas Eve (Monday) we enjoyed our annual tradition of decorating graham cracker houses (just like gingerbread, but a lot easier to assemble).

Ariella wanted to start a new tradition this year of lighting luminary candles in the driveway (so Santa knows where to land his sleigh). The girls helped Ariella and Lindsay load up bags with sand, and then lit the candles. Finally, after three days of waiting, it was time to set out some cookies and coffee for Santa (and 8 apples for the reindeer).

Morgan was the first one up on Christmas morning (just about 7am). She quickly scampered downstairs and saw that Santa and the reindeer had gobbled up the cookies and apples. Before long, Gwen joined Morgan in sizing-up the massive pile of presents under the Christmas tree. 

Once all the grow-ups had grabbed their coffee, the girls dove into their stockings and presents around 7:30am. Princesses. Toy story dolls. Bubble shooters. Science experiments. Games. Puzzles. Dress-up clothes. Movies. A new bag for Ariella. And a new camera for Andy. 

Despite the fact that the girls wanted to play with everything as soon as they opened it, we somehow managed to make it through the entire pile of presents in the morning (the first time that's happened in 5 Christmasses).

    

After such a busy Christmas morning, the girls needed some time to rest before the festivities kicked off again in the afternoon. By 2pm, the Saucier and Coleman gangs had arrived. The girls strapped on their party dresses and got ready for round two of presents.

Andy's Mom made a playhouse for the girls using a card table and whole bunch of quilting fabric. Morgan and Gwen were a little confused when they opened the present. But once it was put together, they quickly made themselves at home.

After opening a flurry of Legos, books, games and pajamas, it was time for dinner. Ariella and Lindsay cooked up a delicious beef tenderloin along with all the fixings for a Christmas feast.

As the kids get bigger every year, each Christmas seems to become a bigger and bigger event. This year gave us 25 days of advent calendar goodies, elves on our shelves, Christmas lights, visits from grandparents, three trips to New York City, holiday concerts, and so on. So it was no surprise that when it was all over on December 26, all of us were exhausted and ready for a long winter's nap.

Going Orange

The girls know the word "college". And they know that Syracuse is the team that Andy watches on TV. But until last weekend, they didn't quite understand that they were the same thing -- and that Syracuse is where Mom and Dad met, and eventually got married. So we were happy to finally take the girls to Syracuse -- not just for a football game, but also to show them a University that will always be special to us.  

We loaded up the car and hit the road for our 5-hour drive. But, as always seems to be the case, our trip didn't didn't go quite as smoothly as planned. Two hours into the drive, Gwen started complaining about a rash she developed earlier in the week. 3 hours into the drive, we realized Gwen had taken her monkey and elephant out of the packed bags and left them at home (more on this later). And then, 4 hours into our trip, the car broke down and we spent 2 hours at the Honda dealership getting it fixed (luckily, it was minor and covered under the warranty). 

So our 5-hour trip ended up taking 8+ hours. Needless to say, after being trapped in the car all day, the girls wouldn't settle down once we got to the hotel. When it was finally time for bed, Gwen wouldn't sleep without her elephant and monkey, so Andy ventured out in the rain to try to find a replacement. Unfortunately, Gwen only wanted the "real" ones. To make a long story short, Friday was a bust. But the weekend got much better on Saturday.

  

On Saturday morning, the girls were back on their game. We ate breakfast at the hotel, swam in the pool, and visited with Ariella's friend Amy and her little boy, AC. Then we headed off to campus for pre-game festivities.

We showed the girls Hendricks Chapel (above), where we got married and introduced them to the statue of Heisman Trophy winner Ernie Davis (below).

Pre-game festivities on the Quad have changed a lot since Andy and Ariella were in college. The girls enjoyed some of the "new" events -- they danced to the DJ's music and slid down a giant slide. But they really loved the "classics" -- once the SU marching started playing, the girls were hooked by the music.

Gwen really enjoyed the drum line's performance. After each cadence, she screamed, "Again!" and asked "My turn now?" Meanwhile, Morgan loved watching the color guard twirl their flags. (Basically, don't be surprised if we have a couple future band members in our  midst. The apples didn't fall far from the tree.)

Finally, we were off to the Carrier Dome for the football game. The girls saw Otto the Orange and ate their first Dome Dogs and Dome pretzels (while Mom and Dad enjoyed a Dome Beer). Unfortunately, our long day on Friday finally caught up with Morgan. By halftime, she was practically falling asleep  (okay, it didn't help that the game wasn't very exciting either).

  

We left the game early and waited for Morgan to get her second wind. By the time we had crossed the Quad, she was feeling herself again. The girls stopped to look at the Sacco and Vanzetti mosaic. "Why is everyone so sad?" Morgan asked.

After a pitstop at the Schine Student Center, we caught the end of the game at the Varsity. Syracuse won 28-17 for the Orange's first win of the season! It was a busy couple of days, but in the end it was totally worth it to finally share our college experience with our little Orange fans.

Weekend epilogue: Luckily, Gwen fell asleep in the car Saturday night on the way back to the hotel after the game. So we avoided another night of screaming because she didn't have her monkey or elephant. But when we got home, she sprinted into the house and grabbed her monkey and elephant. She had hidden them in the living room, but remembered exactly where she had put them. (Little stinker.)