Well, I'm determined to finish the holiday highlights! So, here I go!
Christmas morning was pretty typical. Sydney woke us up around 7 am (we told her she couldn't get up until it was like outside). We got Katelyn up, let Daddy go downstairs to start the video camera, and headed down the steps. Katelyn had no idea what was going on but Sydney was ready for action. She quickly realized that the packages had tags and, since she can recognize names, she could sort the packages for each person. She was most excited to receive her American Girl doll. She's wanted one for quite some time but we insisted that she needed to be 5 years old. Since she was a month short, we told her Santa would probably make an exception for such a responsible girl. Santa delivered Kit, along with a set of matching pj's for Kit and Sydney, and a few other doll items. Since she'd already received the Kit books, she was thoroughly excited about finally have an American Girl doll of her own. Katelyn was clueless! But, she loved playing with the toys once they were out of the boxes. She loved her Bounce and Spin Zebra and her Elmo Vacuum. But she really just loved all the excitement of the day.
We spent Christmas day visiting family. The girls were spoiled by everyone, as always. The wagon from Old Pop was a big hit - it is currently in our dining room, where Katelyn gets in a says "Weeeee" so we'll pull her around the house. Since Sydney had been running a fever for several days, we wrapped up our Christmas visiting early and headed home so everyone could head to bed. And, in spite of Sydney being sick, it was still our best Christmas yet!
After Christmas, there additional visits and fun all through New Year's, which we celebrated at our house with friends. Since we celebrated at around 8 pm, the kids enjoyed the fun without any disruption to their schedules. This was the first time we'd tried this and I absolutely loved it. Before our friends arrived, we got everyone ready for the "late" night by getting our pj's on. We had a fondue dinner - our new year's tradition that we began last year! Then, as the evening wound down, we counted down, set off fireworks, went out on the front steps to blow our horns, and made our grape juice toasts. Then, we cleaned up and had everyone in bed by 9 pm. Ahhh!!! While it was a bit strange not to have the hoopla at midnight, it was nice to not be completely exhausted the next day. And the girls had no idea they didn't ring in the new year at the official time. It was such fun that I think we'll always celebrate it this way!
We took down all our Christmas decorations and packed them away during the weekend after the new year. This is a task I'm usually anxious to do each year, as I'm usually desparate to get the house back to normal. However, I wasn't quite so happy take everything down this year. I guess it just didn't seem like the holidays should have been over so quickly. But, I forced myself to take them all down and put them away. And I am grateful to have the house back in order, even if I'm sad that the holidays are over.
That about wraps it up! My next post will be about Sydney's birthday and I'm learning to add pictures, videos, etc. If you want to see a more creative blog, as well as read some details about Sydney's trip to the Hannah Montana concert, check out my friend Kacey's blog! She was about to get 4 tickets so she took Sydney along with her twins! They had great fun.
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