Christmas Eve

As I mentioned in my last post, usually we do a family get-together at our house on the 24th, but this year was a little different. We kept all of the appetizer traditions (lil smokies, cheese/ham/olive picks, and ghetto dip), decorated sugar cookies, made Stollen in prep for the morning, made Eggnog cheesecake for Christmas Day dessert, and watched Holiday Inn. I love Christmas Eve - I think it will forever be my favorite day of the year. You have none of the letdown (or mess) associated with the post-unwrapping frenzy of Christmas Day, and all of the excitement, anticipation, and love is at a peak.

Is That Wrong?

Usually we invite everybody over to our house on Christmas Eve, but we also like to host Boise State football parties, so this season we were met with a dilemma. Do we do the regular Christmas Eve thing, or invite everyone over for the bowl game two days earlier? BSU won. I think that might be bad. But what's done is done. We were all decked out in our blue and orange gear and enjoyed a smallish appetizer spread. The kids only peek in on the game, but somehow they manage to amuse themselves. Although she's not in the picture, even Elle was decked out.

As Good As It Gets

Today was the end of my first week. I'm down 2.4 pounds. That's good, I suppose. I'm a bit disappointed because I wanted it to be more. But I know that I shouldn't be. It's a good number. As long as I can sustain that on a week-to-week basis, I'll be happy. I didn't get as much exercise in as I wanted to, so one thing to work on more for this week.

Here's the ONLY two Christmas pictures I got of the kids in their Christmas clothes before the Christmas program at church. Every year we take a family pic of the kids in their nice, new clothes. This year went on record as the worst picture ever. Basically we gave up. Better luck next year, right? Let's hope...

Sisters

These pictures were taken at the same time as Elle's 5 month photo shoot. Ceci is playful and happy after her bath and she wanted to get into the fun too. I love this, and I hope it captures the essence of their future relationship - a whole lot of fun. I'm so excited to watch Cecily and Elle's relationship unfold as Elle gets older. I hope, hope, hope they will be the best of friends. As it stands now they seem to like each other a whole lot.

Elinor @ 5 Months

I totally missed Elle's 4 month pictures. How sad is that?! I had a good thing going with the monthly pics too. But I got back on board the wagon in December and did manage her 5 month pictures. She's really been working on hand coordination and is getting pretty good with them. She "talks" a lot, but is no better of a sleeper (yes, that's my self-pitying moment of the day).

On the lifestyle front - things are still going good. Going down the stairs is now pure torture, but I know it'll get better. The kids had a blast watching me get some exercise on the Dance Dance Revolution Wii game. They are convinced they are going to bring it to Grandma and Grandpa's house in April. I might pay money to watch them dance. :-)

Only One Program

Technically, of course, that's not true. Allegra, Ian, and Colin all were in the Sunday School Christmas program, and Allegra and Ian were in the Maple Grove Elementary holiday program, but we didn't take pictures of those (bad mom and dad!), so all we've got to share are pictures of Colin's preschool Christmas program. He's such a funny kid - so imperious and fearless at home, but tentative and nervous around others. He likes school and has nothing but good things to say about it, but the thumb definitely visits the mouth when he encounters a new situation. Cecily and Elinor enjoyed their littlest big brother's show.

Our Budding Star

So I have decided to try my very best to add in some exercise daily. Kind of the cherry on top, I guess. I've been doing the Wii Fit (since that was the whole reason we bought it) for two days and it's surprising that something so basic has made my legs feel all trembly and jello-y. But I kind of like that feeling - it let's you know that you actually worked out some muscles that you don't normally work.

To backtrack to December, let's first hit The Nutcracker. As Hero is no longer in ballet (and Hero's mom is still trying to come to terms with this) she got to be in the audience this year for the first time in five years to cheer on her little sister. Allegra is Nutcracker-obsessed. She dreams of being Clara, and we had to watch her dance all of the various roles for the entire months of November and December. Her official roles were Party Scene and Marzipan in the Mini-Variations. She was just all aglow and we had such a good time watching her and the production at large.