Santa Came! Christmas morning

At 6:15 AM Christmas morning, Daddy Pete and I excitedly woke up, unable to go back to sleep in the anticipation of the kiddo's reaction when they saw that Santa had FINALLY come! Avery and Pete had been asking for weeks if Santa had came and today they were finally going to get their wish! The kiddos usual time for waking up is about 6:30 and wouldn't you know that since we were waiting for them they SLEPT IN! The nice part was that we got to individually spend some time with each of the babes when they came downstairs to experience SANTA!

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Pete came down first. He gets so funny and "impish" when he is super excited. He kept just grunting his answers. Luckily that wore off after awhile and he was super excited to see his bike. The bike kept him busy and he didn't realize there were alot of other presents under the tree. I'm not sure how we would have kept him from waiting until his sisters woke up.

Hailey got up next. She came down the stairs and seemed shocked by the sight of "daddy-razzi" snapping her picture and momma videoing her every move. She liked her little cozy coupe but seemed to enjoy her brother's new helmet and bike horn just a bit more! She kept honking that horn, and I just knew it was going to wake Avery up!

But, little Avery just wanted to sleep, sleep, sleep! Finally I went to wake her up and it was priceless. I told her Santa came and she said, "I got a pink bike???" and "SANTA CAME!!!" I could barely keep up while she was running upstairs. She was uber excited about her new pink bike! She has been asking for that for weeks!!!

We had a really great time riding bikes inside, eating cinnamon rolls, opening presents, and checking out our stockings. What a special day for our family!

"S" Christmas celebration

We spent all of Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa's house. The kiddos were super excited to see the family and all of their cousins. They are lucky to have so many young cousins to play with!




The weather provided a beautiful backdrop, as it was one of those wintery Texas days that leaves you barely even needing long sleeves (I think "white Christmases" are probably overrated!!). We were able to play and run around in the backyard and enjoy being together.





Christmas Eve is also the kiddos first taste of opening presents every year. They started out slowly opening, but by the end were ripping through packages like old pros! One of the kiddos favorite gifts of the day was a new musical keyboard from Grandma and Grandpa. I think at one point I saw ALL the kids gathered around it singing (maybe a few adults too!)


After dinner and some more playing, we gave the kiddos a bath, dressed them in their Santa pajamas, and headed for home. They were dozing in the car before we even hit the freeway. We very easily got them into bed and awaited Santa's arrival . . .

Cookie Bake Off

Every since I can remember my mom, sister and I have been baking cookies for Christmas time. We always rolled out the dough, stamped out the cookies and then decorated them. Ashley and I used to spend so much time perfecting our cookies (and probably quite a bit of time eating them too!)

I definitely wanted to try to continue this tradition with the kiddos. We were going to try last year, but we all got sick around Christmas. So this Christmas I just KNEW we were going to do it.




My mom made these adorable little aprons for us. The kids really loved them, but I think were really excited about them because they knew that it meant COOKIES!! They rolled the dough, played in the flour, stamped out the cookies and had a grand time! Avery and Pete became little pros at it, while on the other hand, Hailey just wanted to eat it!

I was so excited for the babes to see these amazingly shaped cookies! I put them in the oven and then went to look at them a few minutes later. Our beautiful reindeers, Christmas trees, stars, ect. had all turned into little BLOBS of cookies. We have no idea what happened other than maybe all the touching and working with the dough got it too warm. Who knows, the kids sure didn't care! They decorated them with a little bit of icing, but basically just scarfed down as many cookies as I would let them.


Avery was SOOO sweet because she put one of her cookies aside and said that it was for Santa. She was very adamant all week that particular cookie needed to be left for Santa. Still, to this day when Santa's name is brought up she replies, "Santa LOVED my cookie and just left itty bitty crumbs!" Yes, he did baby!

Rockin around the Christmas tree

All three of the kids loved participating in decorating the tree this year. We only had 1 broken ornament and and all of the ornaments were clustered around the bottom of the tree, but they had fun! Avery and Pete are really catching onto the idea of Santa Claus coming this year. One night the doorbell rang and Avery yelled, "It's SANTA!!!"




Every morning for a few days after the Christmas tree was up, A & P would expectantly wake up and wonder if Santa had come. Poor darlings seemed a little dissapointed when they did not find anything under the tree! Guess it will be great anticipation for Christmas morning!!

Pre School Christmas parties

I made gingerbread cookies and went to preschool to read the Gingerbread Man story to Avery and Pete's class. A & P just ate it up that their mom was reading to all their friends. I learned the hard way that it is just easier to buy the premade dough, roll it out and cut out the gingerbread kids. I tried to be "that" mom that made everything from scratch . . .yeah, that won't happen again! I am slowly learning that often the easiest way to do something is usually the best way!

Hailey's class wasn't having much of a party, but I made enough cookies for her and her friends to decorate too!! Hailey loved the icing!!! She also held onto me for dear life and would not let go!!

Christmas card and Santa visit

I love having a family picture of all of us, but we always seem to run out of time and run out of people to take our picture. Therefore, this year, we loaded the kiddos up, went to the beach and snapped some shots of them. I did not have ONE photo of all three of them smiling, so I had to photoshop them together. My thought - Oh well if you can tell it's been photoshopped - that is our life right now!


I had heard great things about the Bass Pro Shop Santa and the Christmas area they have set up there. We met Daddy after work one day and plopped the kiddos in front of Santa. He was so great! Avery walked right up to him and said, "I want a bike" (girl knows what she wants and how to get it!). Pete looked at him, did not cry but was in no way getting close to the big guy with a beard. Hailey started screaming as we were walking to Santa. We tried to plop her in his lap but she went wet noodle on him and was shrieking as she was sliding out of his lap. So, that is the long story of why we are all in the photo! After we saw our Santa photo I was so upset that I had already done the Christmas card because it would have been perfect!!!

Birthday and the birthday that would never quit . . .

These kiddos are so lucky . . . we just kept celebrating their birthday for almost a whole week! Saturday was the party, Sunday we kept the bounce house and had dinner out with Nana,Papa, Ashley and Bobby, Monday was their actual birthday with brownie sundae, and Tuesday they celebrated with cupcakes at school - WHEW! These kiddos sure are loved!

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Avery and Pete's Birthday Party

This year I hemmed and hawed for ever trying to think of a good theme for A & P's birthday party. Twin parties can be tricky - they need to be individualistic but still go together and make sense. I was almost set on doing a Dora and Diego party when I came across the idea of a favorite COLOR party! DING! We have a winner! A & P are all about their "favorites" right now - favorite color, favorite stuffed animal, favorite blanket, ect. that I thought this would be perfect!



So the pink and green party was born! Invitiations were pink and green dots with tulle tying them all together. Pink and green plates, balloons - you name it, it was probably pink or green! I even asked the guests to wear pink or green to the party which many people did!





We did two cakes this year - first time for that! It worked out really well, and hope to continue doing that. I mean you had your own birthday cake, right?? Why shouldn't twins too! Avery had a beautiful butterfly and flowers in PINK (all favorites of hers). Pete had a dinosaur in GREEN, which is a total fascination of his right now too!



We rented a huge truck bounce house that was a hit! Amazingly, December isn't a big renting time of year so they let us keep it ALL DAY Saturday and Sunday! Totally made it worth it! We bounced, bounced and bounced some more . . . what else could a 3 year old want!!!




This was by far our BEST kiddo party yet! The weather was absolutely gorgeous and warm so we just left the door open and people mingled inside and out giving everyone plently of room! Plus we had a fantastic group of people who all came because they truly love our kiddos. Many of A & P's friends from school came to make te birthday kiddos day.