Christmas Morning 2015

I read this great blog the other day which gave me the idea to use my interval setting on my camera for Christmas photos. We practiced Christmas Eve, well I first practiced with the kids Wednesday during the day. But we had a longer practice when we opened up one gift each on Christmas Eve.

Here are a few photos from Wednesday morning, and as you can tell I needed to adjust the focus, but that's what practice rounds are for, right?






And here is the Christmas Eve interval video: (sorry no music in the practice version)


My three favorite photos from that collection:






Miss Mary being goofy:


Christmas Eve night, mom and dad enjoyed some Moscow Mules while waiting for Santa to arrive (which according to Norad went through Brookyln Center at 12:00am)


Isaac left Santa one cookie and counted out eight carrots for the reigndeer. He also stayed up to write Santa a note


Santa dropped off the present while his 'elves' aka mom and dad set it up


Ready for the morning


Emma was so funny with her stocking, she took the things out and put it on her foot like a sock!


I got a selfie stick! YAH I can take family photos of all of use now.




Isaac going through his stocking taking a cash register break


Emma enjoying some of last years puppets while wearing her new baby carrier




More selfies :-)


Using the selfie stick to get a better angle of Isaac opening a present












Mary wasn't as into opening the presents as Emma was.


And Isaac literally was glued to the cash registered which was an open gift 'Santa' left.


But Mary was really into the Woodzeez house that Grandma Judy got them.




Here we are playing a game of Pop the Pig which came from Grandpa Del


Emma running around


Of course they all loved ever gift and we had a fun day of playing with everything!

Once the girls went down for a nap we watched our new movie Inside Out. Then Isaac worked on some new legos from Grandma Judy


He was pretty into them the rest of the night


And I got to use my new wrap!


Great day of playing at home in our jammies all day!

Here is the Christmas morning video:

Merry Christmas

Joy to the World!

Our Elf on a Shelf

We started this tradition in 2013 and Isaac named our elf "Elf", original I know. We decided he wouldn't come visit this year until after daddy's birthday which also worked out because it was the day after Isaac saw Santa. Here were his seven resting spots. (Oops forgot to get a photo of his first spot)

The girls really had fun finding him throughout the house. Elf knew with little ones in the house that all his landing spots needed to be up high out of reach. 

Cookies!

Our Christmas cookie baking has been over the past couple weeks. I was going to make a huge batch of shortbread  cookies for an exchange I was participating in... but the numbers kept changing and in the end I decided not to participate. I didn't have time or supplies to make 10 dozen cookies!

So when my mom was visiting we made a batch of shortbread cookie dough and took about a third of it to experiment with stain-glass cookies. After the kids were in bed I crumpled up some jolly ranchers and baked a dozen with this method.

They turned out cool and were fun with the hard candy in the middle. However I was not a fan of eating them because as you chewed the jolly rancher got stuck in my teeth. And I didn't think the hard candy would be good for the kids to eat, although Isaac liked it.

With the rest of our shortbread we made chocolate chip cookies and cut them in fun shapes. (this is my ultimate favorite!)

A week or so after the shortbread batch we made some gingerbread men and women. Isaac got a new book from his preschool's book club and there was a gingerbread recipe on the back.

Emma pretending her gingerbread girl was walking.

Mary liked the icing

So did Isaac, haha.

This was humerus how his 'arms' turned out. He did end up adding 'feet' at the bottom as well.

I'm not really a fan of gingerbread cookies, I think it's the molasses that I dislike. But the kids enjoyed decorating them and Isaac liked saying the rhyme from his book as we made them. He likes eating them so I guess that's all that matters. They aren't getting gone through very fast though.

Then yesterday we made daddy's favorite cookie: snickerdoodles. Mary was a little upset that Emma had gotten on 'her' step stool.

Isaac was a good helper and loves baking with me.