Scenes from Christmas

Christmas morning this year went much like christmas mornings of the past: with David and I pondering how long we're going to let the kids sleep!  I thought this might be the year Hannah woke us up, but it wasn't.  

They eventually wandered out just before 8.    

Grandpa Davis, Grandma Moon and Papa Tom were all here to share christmas morning with girls.  

Santa brought Riley a train set.  

Santa brought Hannah a bath robe and slippers. The bath robe is a huge hit, Hannah has worn it everyday since receiving it.  

Santa also brought Riley that lion, because she loves lions so much.  

David and I got her Pitch Perfect and a Where's Waldo book.  She sat down to do her Where's Waldo last night and found him 4 different times with relative ease!  

Grandpa Davis gave Riley a Sofia the First Doll.  She came with animals and they talk to each other.  

Here's Grandpa putting together Hannah's Fluttershy doll.  It flies, which amuses both girls.  

After opening, the kids just explored all their new toys.  Both girls enjoyed the train.  

Riley received some finger paints, along with finger paint paper.  So she spent some time finger painting while Hannah put together her new lego's.  

It was a lego Christmas for Hannah.  She received a bunch from her Great Grandma Davis, Aunt Marilyn and Aunt Brandy.  

Santa also brought her the police station.  

Joshua received a couple of ball caps from Santa and some Monsters University slippers.  He was so excited he couldn't get his eyes open.  And neither could Grandma Moon.  

Riley, with a travel art thing.  

Hannah also received Scrabble Flash, which is a great game.  All of us adults enjoyed playing a few round while the kids were occupied with other toys.  

We ended our evening with a fantastic meal cooked entirely by David: prime rib, sauteed green beans and oven crisp potatoes.  He cooked everything perfectly and it was a great meal!  

Scenes from Christmas Eve

Disclaimer: Many of these pictures are blurry, because the kids were moving so much!  

On Christmas Eve we went to my moms house to spend the evening with my mom, Art, Ethan, Bryan and Jaime (Ethan's dad and step mom).  Ethan's only here for a couple weeks, over his christmas break so it was great to be able to open gifts with him and let the kids play together.  

We decided to open gifts first, and let the kids play together while we socialized and snacked after presents.  

As you can see from these two photo's, once the gifts were open, the kids were wide open.  

You can see David holding Joshua in the background.  He slept almost the entire, with the only exception being a 15 or 20 minute snack.  

David got a copy of Jurassic Park on Blu Ray, I got a very nice necklace and earring set.  The kids got all kinds of goodies.  Riley got a band in a box, which I'm sure you can imagine how much she loves.  Hannah received some very nice roller skates.  The whole family ventured out to the skating rink this past Saturday.  I'll talk about that in another post.    

A pretty good family photo.  Only missing 3 Bergers in California.  

Both girls were asleep within minutes of leaving Grandma's house.  

Christmas Festivities

Note to readers: moving during the Christmas season is rough.  You have so much to accomplish from moving, and you have christmas visiting requirements, which make for a SUPER busy holiday season.  

Ours started with my Grandma Davis' house on the 23rd..  

The photo's are all a little blurry in spots but they're the only ones I have.

Cousins, aunts and uncles.   

My dad, helping Hannah.  

Riley, with my grandma and aunt, in her christmas best. 

Hannah, getting her nails done by my cousin.  

After we left my grandma's we went home and pulled in the driveway at the same time as David's dad.  David had to work on Christmas Eve; when he got home we piled in the car and went to my mom's for dinner and gifts.  Hannah, in more of her Christmas best.  This is actually an outfit my mom and Art got for Hannah last christmas.  

Me and momma

Dinner, yum. ; )  I took this picture to send it to my sister; ham, butter beans, corn casserole, tomato pie and mashed potatoes.  To make her jealous.  It worked.  And then I stuffed myself.  

Riley, being uncooperative.  

Ready to open gifts, especially Hannah.  

I don't even know......

Grandpa Bob being silly with Hannah's reindeer antlers.  

The Merida wig.  

Red looks good on Grandpa.  

The complete Merida outfit.  

My leftovers.  Another picture I took to send to my sister.  

Jewelry Tree and Ring

This was another Christmas present we made this year: jewelry trees complete with a wire wrapped rose ring.  

I collected more sticks from Amy and Tom's back yard, but I looked for one with short sticks going out, that would be good for hanging jewelry off of.  

Then I baked the sticks in the oven for 10 minutes, just to remove any moisture.  

Then Hannah and I took some acrylic paint and painted them.  I went over the branches with paint a few times, to give them a nice smooth texture.  

The base is made from a candle dish and plaster of paris.  If you attempt this at home, just know that the plaster of paris hardens quickly!

Then, to distract from the somewhat sloppy plaster job, we adorned the base with beads.  I used a hot glue gun for this part, which I would not recommend using because the beads pop off easily.  

This ring was super easy to make.  I got the tutorial from here: Tutorial.  

The completed project:

Twig Picture Frames

This was one of the things we made and gave away as christmas presents.  December can be a quiet month of blogging for me and this is one of the reasons why, I don't want to blog about the gifts we've created until I give them away.  

So I went in Amy and Tom's backyard and collected twigs.  They have lots of them.  Lots of twigs.  

Then I loosely bundled them and wrapped floral wire around them until it became fastened.  

It's hard to see with the table cloth underneath the frames but here are two, assembled.  

I bought two different ribbons to wrap around the frames.  

Then I just wrapped a length of ribbon around the floral wire and hot glue it down.  You could get pretty creative with the ribbon.  

The almost final look.  I took wide shimmer ribbon and placed it across the frame completely, for the backing to hold a photo.  I just now realized I didn't take a photo of that though.  

It was so easy.  I made 8 or 9 in no time at all.  Next time I'm at my mom's, I'll take a photo of hers, she's already got it hanging up.