Santa's return trip

I guess it happens some times that Santa has to make a return trip. I mean staying up all night is really hard and can make you a little out of it (not that I know anything about that!). The girls woke up from their naps to another huge Christmas gift...their very own bounce castle...and they were estatic! If you know my dad you know he loves any great big unique gift and this one is it for our girls. With the furniture moved against the walls it fits perfectly in the living room. While that might seem strange it is a wonderful thing for winter when we're stuck home hiding from the cold and germs. It blows up and deflates in less than 2 minutes each so it is super easy to deal with. Several of our friends have one so the girls knew exactly what it was when they came downstairs. We all love it!

More Christmas

These are some random shots from Christmas day. Matney wanted her Daddy to teach her to ride her new bike. It has different games and connects to the TV. Super cool. Halle Kate loves Mickey Mouse and choo choo trains. She's spent some serious quality time with her new Mouse train set...when she wasn't on the caterpillar. Matney had fun playing playdough with Grandaddy. She makes him play with playdough every time he's here. Halle Kate also bonded with her Uncle Josh. She's wild and has NO fear. She desperately wants to go up and down the stairs like Matney but we won't let her. How she conned Josh into taking her up and down over and over and over I don't know. However, several weeks past Christmas and she still goes to the stairs and yells "Josh!". Ha! We are still pushing the girls around on the airplane and Jared finally got "the boy he'll probably never have". The girls have taken to their baby brother and love to feed him and push him in their strollers. He fits right in and since he sleeps through the night I say he can stay!

Christmas Morning!

Anticipating this Christmas has been so much fun. Over the past few months as the girls got excited and we found gifts that we knew they'd love I've been so impatient for Christmas morning! Matney's heart's desire was a "duck with a bottle" and if HK heard the word "Santa" she immediately started saying "pillar, pillar" for caterpillar. She's been in love with a rocking caterpillar for months at church. Literally when we go she gets on the caterpillar as soon as she's in her classroom and does not get off even one time the entire few hours we're there. She loves him. Once when we were in Toys R Us she saw one and once she was on there was no getting her off. We finally ended up putting the caterpillar in the cart and she rode on him, in the cart, through the rest of the store. I need to find that picture and get it on her. Seriously, Halle Kate (when she feels good) is so ridiculously funny!

I'd set my alarm for 6am so that I could get up and shower before the girls were up but since the kids were sick that didn't work. They were both up in the middle of the night and had new medicine but it was wearing off by 6am and they were awake and unhappy. We all jumped up quickly and kept the girls upstairs until everything was ready and the cameras were on. So much for that shower, hope we all appreciate the no shower, mom-in-glasses for years to come. Boys have it so easy, they jump up and brush their teeth and look the same as always!

Anyway, when the girls got downstairs they first saw their new princess tent. They were super excited and HK went in right away. I think part of Matney must have been thinking "where's my duck, Santa?" because as soon as she realized there were toys under the tree she literally pushed me out of the way squealing and dove under my legs to get by. Ha! We were cracking up and yes, we got it on video. It was so funny! HK was content in the tent for a while...until she saw her beloved caterpillar.

 Matney's duck with a bottle.

 Halle Kate trying to decide if she'd leave the caterpillar long enough to push her new stroller. Eventually the stroller won and now she flies around the house pushing every doll we own.

The aftermath. What a mess! The guys were in charge of all things that had to be put together while the ladies made breakfast.

Delivery from Mr. Claus

Rudolph the reindeer must have seen the glitter Matney left for him from the sky because he drove Santa's sleigh right to our house! These pictures were taken before the chaos of two sweet girls took over!

She made this special plate at preschool. I love seeing her sweet handprints on things.

Christmas Eve Prep

Matney made cookies for Santa with LOTS of sprinkles. I am sure I will still be finding red and green sugar on my floor in July. Jared's office gave the associates IPads for Christmas and it worked well to keep Halle Kate entertained for a while. Eventually one IPad wasn't enough so she had added an IPhone. Then she was so miserable we jumped in the car and headed to urgent care before they closed. I so badly want my sweet girls feeling better! And you notice where the guys were for this? Outside discussing plans for their annual Christmas Eve movie night. No worries, they made it inside to eat warm cookies!

As soon as the sun went down Matney went into the yard to put out the reindeer food she made at preschool. Once the sprinkles were on the cookies and the glitter was in the yard we were ready to get to bed!

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve with Jared's family at his parents house. Jared and his sister sat on the rugs you see below to open Christmas gifts when they were little. I think it is neat to see our girls sitting on them now. Both our girls and Jared's dad were sick, in fact his Dad stayed upstairs while we were there, and we remembered that his Dad was sick last year too. We could tell by lunchtime that HK's fever was coming back quickly so we headed home. She ended up at urgent care again that afternoon. Hopefully next year we'll all be well for Christmas! It was still fun to be together and everyone got lots of great gifts. Jessica and Nick (Jared's sister) got the girls this super cool airplane to ride on and we all took turns pushing them in circles around the house!