Merry Christmas & Happy Boxing Day

It was a busy and fun week for us. Katie and I spent more time in "the factory" before we left for Indianapolis. We assembled teacher gifts and baked three different kinds of cookies Tuesday night. Katie loves helping me cook- it just takes a bit more patience and a watchful eye as my helper loves to sneak sugar, butter or whatever other ingredients look yummy.

Tuesday night we also celebrated Christmas with Lily as the girls helped her open her stocking. Later that night as I crawled into bed, I was rewarded by finding her rawhide bone tucked beneath my pillow. She really prefers to hide her new treats and toys than play with or eat them.







Wednesday morning we got packed up and headed to Aunt Jen & Uncle Buddy's house in Indianapolis. We were there by lunch time and got the girls settled in for a nap before the very early Christmas Eve mass (3:30). Grandma and Poppy went early to reserve seats for us, but while we were all still busy getting ready we got a call from Grandma saying that they were starting mass 15 minutes early, so we had a mad dash out the door and then had to coerce the strict ushers to let us in. From there it was a zoo-y time as we corralled the girls and tried to keep everyone happy. We're pictured here after we returned home from mass.


After a yummy dinner, we read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and got some cookies ready for Santa.

Katie also spent some time writing a note to Santa and making some pictures for him.












The kids all slept until around 8 a.m. and gathered in Hannah's bed as they awaited the singnal to come downstairs.
They were excited to see that Santa had been there and started by checking out their stockings.

Here is Miss Emma ready to celebrate her first Christmas!





As you might suspect the girls received lots of nice presents. Katie was excited about her play makeup set (what was I thinking), the art kit that Aunt Jen made for her and some new things for her American Girl doll. Caroline was thrilled with the purple dog that Katie bought for her and her new purse and accessories and spent most of Christmas morning brushing her hair and "putting on lipstick".

It was very chaotic, but fun to open our gifts together!




Poppy and Emma enjoy a catnap.
Caroline with her purse.
We enjoyed a nice Christmas Day. Jamie kept busy playing Billy's Wii and had Katie golfing, bowling and boxing. After a lot of playtime, Billy's family joined us and we enjoyed a great dinner.
Friday Poppy kept the little girls busy doing puzzles.
Katie in her matching pajamas!
After lunch we headed back home. Katie watched her new Jon & Kate Plus 8 DVD the entire way home and didn't even ask to color until we were picking up Lily at her camp.

Caroline kep busy with her usual antics, including taking her socks and shoes off and putting on her hat and gloves.
When we returned home, Caroline had a snooze and Katie and I got to work assembling Caroline's new Cherry Blossom Market. When Caroline awoke we opened our gifts from Jamie's family, including these adorable hats and mittens from Great Grammy and Great Poppy.

Caroline really did like them, she was just waking up!
After we opened the gifts, Caroline had some time to play in her market. She was very cute with her little apron on and Katie was so excited to show her everything.

Katie got right to work with her new Tag reading system . . .
. . . and Lily enjoyed cuddling with her new toy.
That night after Caroline went to bed, Katie finally got to break out her makeup kit and I managed to rein her in to justpink lipstick for starters. We then "adopted" her new Webkinz- Cocoa the monkey and spent some time on the computer setting up her room and playing games on the site.







Saturday morning I tackled the dreaded post-Christmas cleanup-- putting boxes away, cutting off tags, finding places for things.

And later that afternoon we went to the Cincinnati Zoo for the Festival of Lights. It was shockingly warm (73 degrees!) so we all went light jackets and were able to see a few more animals than we might have. Penguins and polar bears were on our list and we saw both.
The girls enjoyed the special Christmas displays and the lights were beautiful.


After dinner, we got gingerbread cookies and enjoyed a puppet show. On our way out of the zoo, we encountered Rudolph. Caroline was so excited to see him and then once I got her out of the wagon, she wanted no part of him.

After Katie got her picture with him, she decided that she would approach him with me, and ultimately gave him a hug.

Sunday we did some errands and just let the girls hang out and play with their new toys. Miranda came over to play with Katie and I let them dive into the makeup. The results were a little frightening!

Hope everyone had a great holiday!

More Christmas and Katie's Fifth Birthday

If you received a card from us this year, you might have noticed signs that I had a helper working with me at "the card factory"-- that's what Katie and I called it when we sat down at the kitchen table with all of our stuff and got to work on the cards. In a few cases the envelopes went upside down, there were several mishaps with the return address stamper, some ripped labels, but it was great to have a willing assistant, who considered it a reward to be able to join in the holiday card fun! You might also have noticed that my personal notes were short (if there was one at all). That might be attributed to the fact that every time I put pen to paper, Katie would ask "Who are you writing to?" "What does that say?" . . . which is not especially conducive to the note-jotting process.

Our big activity for Saturday was a visit to "our Santa". We traditionally visit the same little mall and particularly enjoy seeing Santa there for many reasons (authentic beard, real black boots, as opposed to the "boot covers" over black Reeboks, etc., but one of the nicest things is that you get to take your own photo, so it is casual and fairly stress free. After recently printing out some photos from past years' Santa visits, I realized that it is also very special that our Santa looks the same from one year to the next.

We did some prepping in the car and Caroline decided she would tell Santa that she is a "WONDERFUL GIRL" (all caps becuase she was yelling it in the car). Once we were there, Katie went right up to Santa and Caroline spent her time peaking in his goody baskets. Then Caroline decided she was ready for a quick visit, but which point Katie was done. We did manage to get her back on Santa's lap for a brief moment before they both had had enough. Santa did verify that he had been hearing reports from Elfie, our "Elf on the Shelf" (or rat fink bastard, as Uncle Glenn referred to him, after a brief meeting at Thanksgiving).

Following Santa, we went to a little local Italian restaurant that we hadn't been to in years, and had a nice dinner. Although Christmas dresses and Italian cuisine don't mix well, so the girls did a quick wardrobe change in the car before we went in.

And now, I will interupt my stories, for Dad's Worst Quote of the Week. That night when we got home we enjoyed the last evening with our four-year-old. And I told Katie that she wouldn't be five until almost midnight on Sunday. When she asked why, Jamie said "because it took that long for you to come out." At this point he received the look of death from me, since this seemed to set up numerous follow-up inquiries. Thankfully I was able to distract her before she could fixate on the "out of where" line of questioning.

Sunday was birthday morning Katie picked donuts as her breakfast of choice so we went to the donut shop before church. Katie didn't have Sunday school, so she came to mass with us, and did fairly well. Afterwards, we picked up the balloons for her birthday party and then came home to bake her cupcakes. She invited Caroline to help and offered her her old apron, while she put on her new Christmas one. I asked them to pose for a picture for me and this is what I got!

For Katie's party we decided on an arty theme and hosted the event at a paint your own pottery store. She painted the cover of her invitation, which I scanned and printed and we made the invites ourselves (which was a whole other factory). She had seven friends there, including her buddy Zach who has left preschool for kindergarten and she has missed him terribly. After a minute of shyness, they picked up where they left off and were totally hyper and silly.

The kids each picked an ornament to paint. Katie had a blast, but it was very zoo-ey trying to keep the kids focused on completing their three coats of paint. The kids whose parents were there did much better than the kids whose ornaments consist of all the colors mixed together in a pukey brown. I think one of the little girl's ornaments may still be wet next week- there was about 1/2 an inch of wet paint on it.

After the paiting was done, the kids moved on to decorating their own cupcakes, which also got a little crazy- especially when Katie spilled an entire tub of pink sprinkles on the floor.

Jamie and Caroline arrived about an hour into the party, since we didn't think we could entertain her for two hours in a shop full of breakables!

After all of the cupcakes were sufficiently decorated, we sang to Katie and then the kids dug in.

As always, Caroline enjoyed her ice cream. Then Katie opened her presents, passed out her favors (sets of paints) and then we had to fill the last 15 minutes, as we waited for some of the parents to pick up. We were so grateful that the store had some coloring books, which kept us out of trouble until it was time to go.

Katie told me she had a terrific time and each time she cites a different thing as her favorite part, so I am happy that it was a fun day for her. Although, I must say that I was exhausted. Thank goodness for the parents who stayed!

When we got home it was luminairie night in our neighborhood, but with a windy day with temperatures in the teens, not many people participated. We got a few of ours lit for about a minute, and then called it quits.

Then we went inside to have pizza for dinner- Katie's choice . . .

. . . and marked off another year on her growth chart. It's very hard to believe that she is five already!