Christmas 2009

We had a wonderful, yet busy Christmas this year! After opening presents, grandpa Bill came to celebrate with us. Next, we visited grandma and grandpa Gerry and then, we went to grammy and bebop's house for Christmas dinner. Please enjoy some pictures of our Christmas 2009:)

Cinderella chapstick: the first present opened and the first present thrown away after I found Lily and Sophie "writing" all over their mirrored closet doors with the chapstick 2 days later- Oh brother!

mmmm, chocolate Santa!

Sleepy daddy, but at least he's awake:)

Lily's first easy bake oven! She kept saying over and over again, "It's real and not pretend, right mommy!?" just to make sure:)

This neopet stuffed animal from grandpa Bill is now Lily's favorite stuffed animal friend. She sleeps with it nightly!

The race is on!- I think Sophie won this one:)

On to grandma Darby's house:

Lily had such a great time opening the presents from grandma Darby that she sometimes forgot to pay attention to what was inside! She recovered from her stupor soon after.

Sophie's favorite part was carrying around her gift bag!

Unfortunately, we forgot to get a picture with Grandma together with the girls due to the Christmas chaos:(

On to grammy and Bebop's house:

(by the time we got to our final destination I had totally given up on the camera, but thankfully bebop took a few pictures of everyone)

Wow! a shot of our entire family in one picture- thanks Larry!

We got to meet my cousin's daughter, Allie, for the first time this Christmas! Here she is with uncle JG. She and Lily became fast friends and were soon running around like wild animals:)

Back home:

This little bag lady is wiped out!

This little lady is pretending to be wiped out:)

To all of our family, thank you so much for celebrating such a wonderful Christmas with us this year!

December fun!

We've been keeping busy this December! Check out some of the fun we've had so far!
( if you're short on time, I'd suggest you read this later- LONG post)



Play time in the first (and most likely last) blizard of the year:

Stocking up prior to the storm.

Yikes- thanks for digging me out, honey!




Wait a minute, doesn't everyone make snow angels on the hood of their daddy's car?





The snow, at this point, went up to the top of Lily's legs

and up to Sophie's waist! for those of you who are concerned-she was removed quickly:)

Cookie baking at Grammy and Bebop's house:

Grammy hard at work

Lily hard at work

Sophie hard at work. . .

eating all of the M and M's!

Some of the final results (by sheer coincidence, some of the scraps of dough turned into: a reindeer (top, middle) and the USA (left, middle):)

he he- its an inside joke-for brevity's sake I'll spare you the details here:)

Christmas photoshoot:

Because most, if not all of those reading this blog have seen the picture used in our Christmas card this year, I've included some of the pics that didn't quite make the cut:)- Geez, its hard to get a good picture with two very active and at times uncooperative little girls!

As you can see we also tried using a prop.

They turned out to be too distracting. . .

we also tried to get the girls to hold their hands in their laps- still doesn't look quite right:)

My attempt at encouraging Sophie to smile gone awry!

Christmas tree Decorating:

Will actually surprised us with this real Christmas tree almost fully decorated(of course the kids still found many places to add more ornaments!) The design and variety of lights may be a bit confusing to the eye, but overall he did a great job:)

Christmas crafts:

The designs in the bottom left hand corner were created by none other than Lily Hesselton!




Too bad I didn't take a picture of this sooner(took Lily and I almost 2 hours to get it all to stick together)!- Unfortunately, Sophie strategically removed the Christmas tree star, candy canes, bows, and of course frosty's head before it was photographed, but its still kinda cute:)

Christmas party at Chris, Laura, and cousin Paige's house:

The kids table

No you did not just put your roll into your water- arghh!

Best buds!

Paige's new cousin, Sophia!

School events:
Lily was the star student of the month at school:

Christmas Program at Lily's school:

Here is Lily with her teacher, Mrs. Vargas. She is a saint:)

James 1:17 and Silent Night.

Finally, as Sophie is demonstrating, we've also been spending December all nice and warm and bundled up!

Snug as a bug in a rug- right Sophie?