A Merry Christmas

Christmas Eve: 

Hannah's usual perch when anyone is in the kitchen-- and Sarah was in the kitchen a lot on Christmas Eve! Here she is making pasta dough for the homemade ravioli. yum!!

here she is rolling out the dough

Liesel dressed in head to toe red for Christmas Eve and Here is Felicity looking all hipster with her top button snapped, touching each tomato. I need to add that every single tomato simmered for over 6hrs, so all Felicity germs were most def dead by dinner. 

our Italian feast this year included: Tuscan white bean and sausage soup, Italian salad, homemade ravioli and parmesan encrusted pork chops. Each of us had our own bottle of Sanpelligrino and for desert we had a hot chocolate pudding with italian cookies dipped in it. 

me and the group

Leslie and the group

Kids table. They filled up on their own veggie try, breadsticks and juice. 

Felicity's first Christmas.

Christmas Eve was a great day filled with people we love. We did a little program, dressed up for the Nativity and shared our thoughts about Christ. After the kids went to bed, Brian really wanted to watch The Return of the Jedi, which we did. I would have preferred something more Christmasy, but I couldn't kill his enthusiasm. We wrapped presents, stuffed stockings and then went to bed. I wish I had taken photos of Christmas morning. Brian and I were up before the kids at about 6:10am. He was excited and couldn't sleep. They were up though, within a few minutes and we were all ready at the top of the stairs at 6:30ish. It was a beautiful white Christmas morning. It had snowed all night and felt magical. The kids loved it and spent forever on their stockings going through each and every thing so excited. It was great opening presents. Allison had given us Christmas pancake molds and so we made some festive pancakes. Brian and I went to workout at the gym together mid-day and I was sore for the next five days. The kids played with their gifts and we played with them. We hiked up Negro bill Canyon in the snow and had a snowball fight. All of us against Brian and he creamed us. We watched Muppets Christmas Carol and had a wonderfully relaxing Christmas Day. 

Hannah's Duplo house-- I have been amazed at how every time you build with these, it's totally different. It's amazing!! The girls both love this thing. Hannah now does this Asian peace sign in every photo; "Aunt lindsey taught me dis!" she says. :)

The girls pounded their Christmas candy all day. This is Liesel working on the outhouse part of her Lego rescue base. 

Felicity is starting to crawl-- especially when she's motivated by a discarded ring pop within her reach. I walked into my room and found her eagerly sucking on this ring pop.