Puppy Ornaments

Heidi gave me these ornaments last week for the puppies for Christmas.  I just got around to making them this morning.  Can you tell which paw belongs to who?

Dan's paw took up almost the entire ornament so I didn't carve his name on the front.  He has a big head and big feet!  Here are the happy puppies with their new prizes:

Christmas

We had a great "first" Christmas!  Christmas Eve we spent making monkey bread, jellos, and cookies for Santa. 

The new plate Aunt Rhonda gave us for Christmas

Santa ate almost all of the cookies, and the reindeer had a few bites of carrots.  But...we forgot to leave him a glass of milk so he was probably thirsty. 

We opened a few presents early: new jammies and new games that we played Christmas Eve.

Uno Moo and Sorry Sliders

 Isabella like making Dad draw two in Uno Moo by giving him the "stunk" (skunk) piece.

New jammies for all.  (Shane did not get the Electric Jamz, much to his disappointment).

 We tucked in and Shane read us all this book.

At midnight Christmas morning, Shane and I were hearing all kinds of commotion on our street.  There was lots of cars and tons of kids talking loudly and laughing.  We went out on the porch (in our new jammies) to see what was going on and why a bunch of teenagers were going to wake up two sleeping girls before Santa had a chance to come.

Our Russian teenage neighbor asked us if his churchgroup could carol to us in Russian. Shane said "Why not?"  So out of what looked like 10 cars parked in front of and next to our house, came about 40 teenagers into our front yard. This is the same teenage neighbor who shoveled our driveway a few weeks ago unexpectedly.

Here's some vid - I decided to quit recording since you can't see anything except blackness...but the music was beautiful.  It gave us a warm and fuzzy feeling before we tucked into bed. 

After they were done, they gave us this Christmas card, written in Russian.  If anyone knows what it says, I'm all ears!

Santa didn't disappoint this year.  He brought really great gifts to our house and to their Meme and Papa Don's. Shane spent most of Christmas Day assembling small pieces to Isabella's gifts!

Ariel's makeup station

 

Mommy Play Center

And yes, you are seeing Isabella in one of many new outfits she got for Christmas this year.  Nanna Bonnie got her an entire treasure chest of these beautiful dresses, it even came with tiaras and many jewel bracelets and necklaces.

Kennedy painted me this special mug because she knows how much I love to drink coffee!  What a special girl and gift.

Primpin and pampering at Ariel's Magical Talking Salon - this is no sassy salon! ;)

She is very excited to do anyone's hair...no appointment necessary...just stop by! She gives curls just like she had for wedding-palooza this summer, so expect it to take awhile - good work takes time.  I had an appointment last night and if you don't mind get a curling iron twisted in your hair so bad you need Shane's assistance to get it out, or mind getting an occasional poke in the eye with the comb, this is the salon for YOU!

Hip Hop till you drop (or just get hot, sweaty, & tired)

This morning we made crayons with our new crayon maker.  And yes...the pink dress is back on! 

Shane ran to HomeDepot for a lightbulb for the crayonmaker and Isabella wanted to go with him. She wanted to go and wanted to go wearing her dress.  So he told her to put a coat and shoes on and off they went.  I thought if was funny that instead of taking off her pink princess slippers to put on socks, she used her slippers as socks and put her TwinkleToe Skechers over the top of them. She is quite the diva!

Kennedy and I worked on a few things with her new Cricut papercutter and her new scrapbooking paper and supplies.  Expect amazing homemade Thank-You cards this year that she has made! I may turn into a crafty person just yet...but a cook, probably not!

Isabella got a growing frog in her stocking and the girls both got dinosaur eggs.  I wondered why we spent so much money on huge gifts after seeing how much excitement they got out of these $2 items.

Before

This morning...with two more days of growing left!  We went to Walmart to find a bigger Tupperware bowl for this colorful friend.  After seeing that the big Tupperware containers were $10, and rationalizing that we were buying a $10 plastic dish for a frog, we decided against it.  The frog will be relocating to his new growing grounds, the upstairs bathroom, where  he can have unlimited water and growing potential...for free.

Isabella was excited to see that "my creature is coming out!" 

We had a great Christmas!  I missed my family this year but I'm glad I got to connect with most everyone by phone or at least through voicemail!  Love you guys!

Ornaments

Shane and I are celebrating our first married Christmas together.  We got 3 great ornaments this year to celebrate.  The snowmen ornament came from Aunt Rhonda and I think it's just adorable!!!

Debbie also bought us new ornaments for our tree. She even remembered the puppies! Here are the girls and dogs with their new treasures.

Shane took this picture of us 5 warming up by the fire.  It feels amazing!

GingerBread Houses

Debbie and Don came over tonight and we made the GingerBread houses Debbie bought for the girls.  Isabella would put one candy on the house and one candy in her mouth. They turned out really cute.

Isabella's

Kennedy's

Wagner Family Christmas

Aunt Rhonda, Gramma and Grampa Rambo came over for Wagner Christmas.  The girls had a blast opening their early Christmas gifts.  It was really unexpected to have everyone do so much!  Brittany and Ryan got Isabella a bridal Barbie since she has had such a fascination with brides and weddings this year.  She decided it was "fashion fairytale Barbie."  Nicole and Matt got the so-ugly-it's-cute Sing-A-Ma-Jig doll. I think the adults thought it was just as fun (funnier) than the kids!

Go Heals! Kennedy was sure to notice how soft the t-shirt was Kelsey and Kevin sent her. She also loved the chapstick because Isabella somehow always ends up with hers.

Isabella didn't let her Chapsticks out her sight all night.  She carefully tucked them in her Santa giftbag for safekeeping on the ride home.

Mom had asked me a few months ago what Isabella liked and I had told her anything Dora. Mom bought her this dress-up outfit.  She was very excited!

During gift opening, I made her leave her tights and undershirt on because it seemed a little scandalous not to.  She had fun putting spells on everyone.

Feelin' foxy

The next morning, I didn't have the same luck keeping the undershirt/tights on.  Now she is feelin' really foxy. 

 

I'm not sure if you can see the Dora plastic emblem on her slippers, it is a little blurry.  But she has one on each slipper and one of the bikini top (which I don't think is intended to be a bikini top).  After 2 days of continuous wear, two of them came off.  She was so disappointed her "diamonds" came off.  Mom fortunately had a hot glue gun (yet another instance where hot glue guns are handy) to repair these.

Ginger-Sleighs

Aunt Nicole bought the girls ginger-sleighs that they made during our Wagner Christmas visit. While Nicole, Brittany, and I made tacos (along with Gramma Rambo's much needed help), Aunt Rhonda and Shane helped the girls put their sleighs together.

On a side note: Gramma thought it was so funny we couldn't figure out the can opener. FYI: the Pampered Chef can opener is not for the novice cook.

We learned that the pieces do not stick well together with just frosting alone.  It required assembling the sleigh in pieces, letting the frosting dry, and then decorating later. We didn't get to finish some of the sides of the sleighs because they kept falling apart.  They still look cute. 

We considered this a good lesson learned because Meme bought the girls gingerbread houses to make later this week.  Thinking I would be uber-prepared for this up-coming round of gingerbread construction, I purchased my first hot glue gun!  I was so happy to tell Shane, only to find out he already has one.  I think that owning a hot glue gun should be part of the "welcome to parenthood" manual.  Apparently everyone knows (except me) that hot glue guns are vital to any home with kids - but I know now!

Time Capsule

So it's been awhile since the 4 of us girls were home and wearing hair bows or bun bonnets.  (sigh of relief that bun bonnets are no longer in style).

The girls found the hairclip drawer that is seriously like a time capsule - left exactly the way we left it. I'm thinking it's time to clean that drawer out, except that they had a ton of fun trying everything on!  

This was Isabella's favorite.

Side profile

I didn't quite catch Kennedy with the bun bonnet on - dang!

Christmas Quilt

Kennedy and I started a Christmas table-runner last year.  It was our first project together like this.  We finished it just in time to enjoy this Christmas.

Isabella wanted to help too so while we trimmed batting, she did some cutting of her own.  Who lets a 3-year old play with scissors this big?  So...I'm still learning about kids...give me a break!  I didn't realize how bad this looks until I saw my picture of it.  Eek!  On a side note, she does have the Michael Jordan concentration/tongue thing going on which I appreciate.  I think she may be a future quilter!

Sewing the binding

Ta-Da!