Christmas at Home

Flu or no flu, Christmas was almost here.  Luckily, I am a planner and had pretty much everything done except our log cabin pretzel house...oh well.  We did finish our traditional cookie icing!

Amelia would only decorate the cookies she was leaving for Santa so had to call in Dad for some help.   

This is probably why we are all sick.

Amelia usually opens 2 gifts on Christmas Eve...games and pjs.  Since I was sick and forgot to wrap the games together and I found the cutest pillowcase for Christmasy dreaming, she got to open 4.  Might do that next year as it worked out great, her opening throughout the day and playing games.

It was time to take a bath, put on our new princess jammies and put out Santa's treats!

Amelia made a note to avoid confusion.  It took her 2 hours to fall asleep.

Then sometime in the wee hours...

Santa came....

Amelia awoke at 4 am.  Dad made coffee.

After perusing the goods, she emptied Santa's stocking first.

Then the stocking from Mom and Dad (yep you heard that right...it's our tradition).

She had already spied one gift Santa left for her unwrapped. 

She said this was her favorite gift...

Even though she only talked about a Hatchamil for the past 3 months. 

Time to take a little break and check to see Santa drank his chocolate milk and try to read Santa's fancy handwriting.

Have some breakfast with our new best friend...

and watch our hatchamil hatch.

Back to presents.

So many wonderful gifts.

But getting up at 4am means you make a teepee with the gymnastics mat Mom and Dad gave you and hop in your cozy sleeping bag Santa brought you...and take a nap.

Merry Christmas.

Christmas at the Farm...The Reindeer Farm That Is

Amelia has fought a cold and flu for what seems to be forever and I now share in that flu.  It was Christmas Eve Eve, the day we were suppose to head to the Reindeer farm for Christmas on the Farm with a couple of friends and their big brothers.  It was also below 0.  Amelia felt much better and really wanted to go.  We bundled up and I dosed up on Ibuprofen. 

We went last year and to their Fall Festival in October and had a blast.  For Christmas they only open for 2 days with much of the same fun but included an indoor glow in the dark snowball fight....a station to make magic reindeer food.....

and a thumbprint santa and reindeer picture.

Of course...there's always feeding the reindeer, but even more exciting as it was right before their big day.

 After a couple hours and our toes were beginning to feel the chill,  we stopped for a group shot and headed home.

Christmas was almost here...

Christmas Time

We have had a busy few weeks.  Not only a skating competition and show, but also all of this: 

Student of the Month Assembly...

Christmas Choral Concert...

and a Christmas Dance Demonstration.

I forgot to show a few pics of our St. Nicholas Day...

In the envelope held this...

Kevin our elf that evening took it to Santa.  On St. Nicholas Day, this was greeting her at the door. 

Found this on her dry erase board the other day...

Lastly, can share our gifts for skating that we handed out.  Other gifts will have to wait til after Christmas to show :)

Amelia received a furry stocking with a book and an ice skating ornament.  Her friend Kayla received the ornament and furry stocking with a bit of candy.

Her coach Malia received a gift card to one of our favorite coffee shops/eateries, Jitters and a dish we made and of course, some goodies :)

Heading to Christmas on the Farm today at near 0 temps...should be interesting.

  Will have pics of that next time.

Only 2 days left to the big day!