The Grand America

Every year, we go have breakfast at the Grand America Hotel with my Dad's side of the family after Christmas. It is always fun to see my aunts, uncles, cousins and Granna. This year after the breakfast, we went to see the decorated windows they had around the hotel. The theme was "ABCs of Christmas". They had a little card you could fill out with what all the ABCs were from the windows, and then turn it in at the sweet shop for a treat. They also had some amazing gingerbread buildings on display.

Looking at the gingerbread windmill with Aunt Kate

This was my favorite gingerbread house. It is Santa's Toy Shop.

Santa's Sleigh was very detailed

from the back, they had a view into the workshop

This one was a Russian, nutcracker theme

Nora, Will and Evie looking at another gingerbread creation

Evie and cousins in front of another one of the windows

A little sock monkey window - I love sock monkeys!

Taking a little break with Grandpop

N for Nutcracker, F for Fireplace, Y for Yule Log

Evie looking at the Z, Q and V window

A close-up of the treats garland

The sweet shop at the end

The decorated Christmas trees in the lobby were beautiful

A bonus picture: This is what Sam has been doing with most of his free time lately. He is very determined to learn how to crawl.

A Toothy Family

Nora's been thinking a lot about teeth lately. Carrie showed Nora a picture of her niece, who had lost some teeth, and Nora was a little worried about that, so she got an explanation of how baby teeth eventually fall out and big teeth come in. In one of the story books Nora got for Christmas, the main character has lost a tooth, and we pointed that out to her. Sam has also been having his very first tooth grow in, and Nora's been interested in that.

Nora drew this picture of our family, and as you can see, we all have teeth. Sam is the one in the top right with just one tiny little tooth.

Then she wrote this on the back by herself

All Dolled Up

I got myself this book a couple of months ago, and thought it would be fun to make some matching clothes for the girls and their new dolls for a Christmas present. This is how they turned out:

Getting pictures with both girls and the dolls was a challenge. Hehe.

Christmas Eve and Christmas!

We celebrated Christmas this year with Mike's family. Mike's Dad has been in the hospital, so it has been kind of a strange juxtaposition of feelings with worrying about him, and enjoying spending time with the rest of the family. Carrie and Kurt flew out, and it was great to spend some time with them.

For Christmas Eve dinner, we had clam chowder

The kids got into their Christmas pajamas, and we set out some cookies for Santa

The next morning, Nora checked right away to see if Santa had eaten the cookies

The kids in their pajamas in front of the Christmas tree

Little Sam smiling at the presents

We started out with the kids seeing what was in their stockings. Nora was genuinely shocked to see that Evie did not have coal in her stocking. Every time for the past few weeks when Evie would do something bad, Nora would say, "Uh oh. Evie is on the naughty list".

Mmm, apple juice

I love Sam's face in this picture - it is pretty appropriate considering there was diaper cream in that present!

Woah!

No coal here!

Toothpaste - only this exciting on Christmas morning

After the kids finished their stockings, we had some cinnamon rolls for breakfast

After breakfast we went back downstairs to open presents. Nora and Evie took turns helping Sam open his presents.

In true baby fashion, Sam was more interested in the wrapping than in the actual present! Hehe.

Opening a joint present

Evie loves books!

Evie's turn helping Sam open a present

Carrie

Evie supervising Jon opening his present

Nora's showing her new sweatshirt

Helping Sam look at his book

Kurt

For their big present, the girls each got a special doll

Evie the "helper"

Jon likes Animaniacs

Mike

Mike got me a great surprise for Christmas - a new camera! My old one was in pretty rough shape. It's been getting lots of use already!

Sam liked hanging out with Carrie - and doing his Cabbage Patch face

Sam helping Grandma open a present

Later on, the girls were pretty worn out by all the excitement, and settled down to watch one of their new movies

Merry Christmas!