christmas highlights ~

our 2013 christmas card:

(photo taken by grama in her backyard)

our mischevious christmas elf, fred charles --

and a few of our favorite sillies that the girls woke to
(and made tom and me laugh):

our christmas tree:

an oldie but a good (favorite homemade ornament 

made by a 3 year old zoe):

our new star:

gifts for the girls' teachers included finger-knitted bows
handmade by ella and zoe ~

first santa picture (8 months old):

most recent santa picture

(8 years 8 months old):

{the girls are questioning santa this year and have

decided there are a lot of 'helper santas', that you

never know if you've met the real one.

i thought this guy seemed pretty authentic -- he was actually

small in stature, elf-like and truly jolly, but the girls 

weren't sure.  ella later told me it felt like she was just sitting

on some old guys lap.  ha!  i found that comment hilarious

as well as somewhat disturbing.

right before the holidays tom and the girls went downtown
and hit some favorite places we haven't been to in
a while:

christmas eve started with our traditional viewing of santa's
email message from the north pole -- cracks us up that they
both still are a little nervous until they see they are not on the
naughty list : )  their expressions through the viewing just make
me smile:

we also decorated gingerbread cookies ......

....... while tom cleaned our oven (that was so dirty and kept
smoking) so we could cook our christmas eve dinner ......

which turned out just fine ; )

though i do LOVE this photo!!

christmas eve gifts:

putting out the reindeer magic food ....

that worked!  the reindeer brought good old santa right to our
house, right on time ......

and this photo makes me smile too -- it looks like
they both got caught doing something they weren't
supposed to be doing ......

we spent christmas day at my mom's,

eating, talking and laughing while the youngest

5 cousins played and played and played.

later that night we stopped at one of tom's brother's

homes on our way home and had a chance to visit

with his oldest nieces and nephew, and their significant

others -- which was SO nice.  i wish i had gotten a picture

but i didn't take one photo after we opened santa gifts 

that morning.

it was a great couple of days ......