Christmas Eve 2011

When you're little, waiting for Santa to arrive can make Christmas Eve feel like the longest day of the year. Thankfully, Ariella had plenty of fun activities planned to make the time fly by, including our annual Graham Cracker House decorating extravaganza.

Last year, Gwen was too little to build Graham Cracker houses. This year, she happily joined in the fun. She added candy and cereal to her house. But she enjoyed most was rocking back and forth to tunes playing on Aunt Lindsay's iPod.

Around 5pm, Ariella and Lindsay took the girls for a ride to see all the Christmas lights on people's houses. So the girls got to eat their Christmas Eve dinner on-the-go.

When they arrived home, there was just enough time to put out cookies and coffee for Santa (and carrots for the reindeer) before it was time to go to bed. After all, they had a big day coming up tomorrow.

Making Her List and Checking It Twice

Morgan was playing Santa this morning and wrote up her final list to bring with her on the sleigh. (She wrote it on a paper towel for some reason.)

At the top are all the gifts she needs to bring for people: markers, clothes, Dora and records.

At the bottom left is the "nice" list, which includes Morgan and her friend Laila (twice). On the bottom right is the "naughty" list, which also includes her friend Laila (twice again).

Apparently, Santa is going to have quite a tough decision to make when he gets to Laila's house tonight.

Merry Christmas to all!

Sakraida Christmas 2011

Christmas arrived two weeks early this year -- well, part of Christmas, at least -- as we celebrated the holidays with Nanna and Grandpa Sakraida during their recent visit from Utah.

Opening presents under the tree, visiting with Aunt Kathy, Uncle Mike and Great-Grandma Marge (a.k.a. "G.G."), a trip to the aquarium, and decorating lots and lots of cookies were just some of the highlights of the pre-Christmas festivities.

On Saturday morning, the girls were surprised to see presents from Nanna and Grandpa under the Christmas tree. By day's end, Morgan's present haul included a Christmas set for her dollhouse, a new game, a giant roll of paper to draw on, big & little sister dolls, "big kid" Legos, and a Veterinarian play set so she can take care of all her stuffed animals.

Gwen has grown a lot since last Christmas, and was excited to open all of her presents, which included a bath set, car seat and feeding set for her Baby Stella, a toddler "Belle", and a set of Duplo blocks of her very own.

At one point, Morgan grabbed the camera and started snapping pictures. This shot of Andy is the best one.

Gwen got into the holiday spirit by donning her Santa hat, and then decorating Aunt Lindsay with stickers.

In the afternoon, G.G., Mike and Kathy came down from New York to partake in the holiday festivities and have the annual gift swap. Jenny busted out her outrageous Christmas sweatshirt for the occasion (although that was hardly the biggest surprise she and Jon would drop on us that weekend).

Having raised four kids of her own, G.G. is a natural with the girls. Morgan and Gwen are always so happy to see her.

Ariella and the girls took a couple days off from work and school to spend some extra time with Nanna and Grandpa and to continue another Sakraida family tradition: making a mountain of Christmas cookies.

This year's cookie menu included Peanut Butter Reindeer, Chocolate- and Candy-covered Pretzels, Sugar Cookies, Gingerbread, White & Dark Chocolate Chip cookies, and Loaded Oatmeal cookies.

On Tuesday, Ariella, Nanna, Grandpa and the girls took a roadtrip to the Adventure Aquarium to see Scuba Santa. Morgan has been watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer a lot, but still wanted Nanna to be her wingman before she approached the Bumble decoration for the first time.

You'll be seeing more pictures of the girls posing on the Aquarium turtle for another year. That's because, for the second year, Nanna and Grandpa's Christmas gift for Ariella and Andy was to renew our membership to the aquarium.

That, as they say, is a gift that keeps on giving.

Waiting for St. Nick

When you're a little kid, the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas seems like it lasts forever. But thanks to the wonders of the internet, this year, we discovered that December 6 is St. Nicholas Day -- a day when children all over Europe leave shoes out for St. Nick to fill with toys and candy.

Since we hadn't had a chance to hand over the girls' Christmas wish lists yet, we also figured St. Nicholas Day would be a good chance for them to be picked up by St. Nick himself, and maybe leave a little treat for the girls to hold them over until December 25.

The girls had written up this lists shortly after Thanksgiving. Gwen asked for a Dora doll and an Aqua-doodle.

Morgan has been practicing her writing at school, so she wrote her own list this year. For the record, the note below says:

Santa,

Pink hamster

New Play-Dough

Morgan

On the night of December 5, we left the girls slippers outside their bedroom doors, along with their wish lists.

The next morning, the wish lists were gone. And in their place were Princess stickers for Morgan, Dora stickers for Gwen -- and snow man marshmallows for both girls. It was a perfect way to break up their long wait for December 25.

Thanks St. Nick! (Or is it Mr. Claus? Or Mr. Kringle? I get confused.)