Christmas {2015}...

We had a great Christmas week with lots of time spent with family.  Jeremy was off on the 23rd so we had a special day together as a family.  We took the girls to Bounce U to play in the morning.  After naps, we met the Lindvalls at our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner.

 

We spent Christmas Eve with the Roberts.  We enjoyed brunch together and then spent the rest of the morning opening presents and playing with new toys.  The younger girls and Jeremy headed home for naps, while Kensley and I volunteered in the toddler room during the early Christmas Eve service at church.  We only had two little boys to watch, but Kensley had a great time playing with them and helping out.  Everyone met us at church for the 4 pm Christmas Eve service and then we headed back to Grammy and Grampy's for dinner and the Christmas story.

Ready to open presents at Grammy and Grampy's

Doing the Christmas story on the flannel graph board

We were busy getting ready for Santa on Christmas Eve night.  We sprinkled reindeer food in the front yard, set out cookies for Santa, said our goodbye's to Sparkles (our elf) and then read the night before Christmas before bed.  Surprisingly enough, the girls went right down to bed with no complaints.

Hugs, kisses and "goodbyes" to our elf, Sparkles

And a cute video to go with it...I hope Maddy never says "Sparkles" right. :)

Christmas morning we spent the morning at our house having breakfast and opening presents together.  The girls woke early so we made good use of the early hours.  They were excited to play with their new toys.

The first one up (at 6:07 am, I might add).

Merry Christmas from the Roberts girls!

The baby she asked Santa for!

Playing on their new tablets...they were a hit!

 We took off late Christmas morning to head up to Nana and Papa's.  After a nap for Maddy, the kids opened presents there.  We had a huge and delicious Christmas dinner, followed by one last visit from Santa.  As in year's past, we saved opening adult presents until after the kiddos went to bed.  We find it's much less chaotic and more relaxing.

Opening new bikes

The gift she had been waiting for...her American Girl doll, Kate.  Santa brought it to the last house!

 

Maddy was a little nervous and slowly crawled to Santa.  She did not want to get on his lap and just stayed on the ground on her knees.

Emery was the least impressed of the bunch.

 

 Saturday was spent playing and celebrating Christmas with the Zurcher family.  Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures!  Sunday morning, we took off to head home to drop off all of our presents and luggage and then went straight to the late service at our church (so I could work in the toddlers again).  All of our Christmas decorations came down on Sunday night.  It's always sad to see the twinkle lights go, but after over a month of having everything up I was ready to get back to normal.  We are looking forward to celebrating Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa Brauchler this week over New Year's.

 

Thanks to our family for all of the gifts and wonderful food!

Avery's Preschool Christmas Program {2015}

I feel as though this Christmas activity deserves a post of it's own.  This is one of my favorite nights of the year...the preschool Christmas program.  I will be so sad when these are all over!  This year, Avery was our only one in the program, but she was joined by cousins Elli and Connor.  They all did great and were so cute up on stage.  Avery continues to ask when she can do it again.  I think she loves the spotlight and attention. :)

 

 

 

 



Christmas Activities {2015}...

We have had a fun (and unseasonably warm) 2015 Christmas season.  The girls are excited and full immersed in the spirit of Christmas.  Kensley is especially excited and tells us daily how much she loves Christmas.  I wanted to highlight some of our annual traditions and what we've been up to since Thanksgiving (in no particular order).  Warning: this is lengthy.
 

As mentioned previously, my mom, sister and I braved the crowds and shopped on Black Friday.  This kind of kicks off the Christmas season for me.  I got my shopping done super early so the past few weeks have been pretty relaxing. :)

Our Elf on a Shelf, Sparkles, came back again this year the week after Thanksgiving.  The girls are all obsessed with it and have lots of questions: "How does he fly around?"  "Why does he have that tag on his back (oops...forgot to cut that off)?"  "Is Sparkles a girl or a boy?  Well it has short hair like a boy, but Nana has short hair and she is a girl."  It's been an adventure and Jeremy has pretty much taken over the nightly moving and hiding of Sparkles.  I fear Kensley may cry when it leaves for the season as she's just "going to miss Sparkles so much".

We were able to visit with Santa at Reynolds Farm equipment again this year and he did not disappoint.  The Lindvalls joined us and the cousins had a great time all together.

More so than any year before, we have taken drives out at night to look at Christmas lights.  The girls request to do this often and always have to have Hot Chocolate on our drives.

We made a trip to Christmas at the Zoo several weeks ago when the temperature was 70 degrees.  Most of Indianapolis joined us as well and it was absolutely packed!  It was a quick trip as the crowds kind of overtook us, but fun to walk around without jackets in the middle of December!

Something new we had the opportunity to do this year, was attend the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra's Yuletide Celebration.  Jeremy and I have been before and it was just as good as I remembered.  It was in place of his work's Christmas party and it was so fun to be able to go as a family.  The girls loved it and did so well sitting through the 2 hour show.  After we took them to Buca di Beppo's for an early dinner and had fun walking around seeing Christmas lights on the circle.  I am hoping this may be a new tradition of ours.

This year we also made and decorated our Christmas sugar cookies.  It's always a big undertaking (especially with three little girls underfoot), but they all love to help (and eat!) so it's a fun activity.  This year we also decorated a gingerbread house.  Jeremy's work had a contest so they purchased all the supplies for us so all we had to do was put it together.  The girls loved doing this, but we are sad to say we didn't win. :)

While Kensley has been away at school, the little girls and I have gone to Jolly Days at the Children's Museum, visited a nursing home with my MOPS group to sing Christmas Carols, made trips to Conner Prairie and Chick-fil-A and have had lots of playdates with friends and cousins.  I was able to volunteer at Kensley's class party this year and it was fun to see her in her element. 

We are looking forward to a fun Christmas week with lots of time spent with family.

2015 Family Pictures...

We had our family pictures taken in mid-October and, I have to say, this seemed to be the easiest and most enjoyable session yet.  The girls were cooperative, happy and actually gave genuine smiles.  We love that the pictures captured the girls perfectly.  Here are some of our favorites.