Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning

Here are my beautiful daughters on Christmas Eve. Here is Julia "smiling". If you've looked at my blog before, you've seen this smile before. She's so cute.

Unfortunately, I can't get Lydia to sit still unless I give her a snack...so here she is, munching on a pretzel.

The next two pictures are proof that Dave and I did attend the Christmas Eve celebration with our girls. After the church service, we enjoyed homemade hot chocolate and sugar cookies.

Dave snapped this one of me watching Lydia. I love to put on my Santa hat before opening presents. I'm such a nerd.

This pic is of pretty Julia enjoying her Christmas Eve treat.


Lydia is so comical! We got her naked before eating. We were following her around, picking up cookie crumbs and hot chocolate dribbles. She even had hers in a sippie cup. I think that's icing on her arm...who knows.

After the girls were finished with their snack, we let them open the cute little pajamas they have on in the picture below. Then they got to open one more gift...a nativity scene. They really enjoyed playing with it.

Here they are discovering all the goodies.

Here is the nativity all set up. We also talked about the whole story and Daddy read a book about it to them. It was fun.

Here is Julia pulling the gifts out of her stocking on Christmas morning.

Here is Lydia, getting ready to tear into her first Santa present. I love how she's squating. She's a cutie!

Merry Christmas again to all of our family and friends. We had a great time together, just the four of us, however, we missed getting to see you all this Christmas, and we will miss you all again on New Year's. Love and miss you all. -The Stewart's

Thank you Granny Ruth and Papa Don!

The girls opened a doll house from Granny Ruth and Papa Don today, and they love it!

Thank you Granny Ruth and Papa Don! We love you, MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Thank you Grandma Christie and Grandpa Dan!

The girls always love getting beautiful dresses to wear and all the other little goodies that come with them! Julia wanted to wear hers today, but I talked her out of it. :) Such cute clothes! Julia was saying "Merry Christmas!"

Here is Lydia with her beautiful dresses

She loves her stuffed animal and her book the most.

Christie got books for the girls that have their pictures in them. We all think they are the cutest thing. Julia looks through her book and says, "Look, I am a rabbit...look, I am a doggy..."

Thanks Grandma Christie and Grandpa Dan! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Festivities

These pictures start today and go backward. Ooops. This picture is of the girls in their sweet little Christmas dresses. They looked so cute.

The tree is filling up with presents (and girls)! Yeseterday we went to Candy Cane Lane at Houston's First. There was a lot of fun things to do, including petting animals. Some of these animals were in the Christmas Concert that Dave and I attended last week. During the show, Celebration, they actually paraded in a camel, a donkey, a baby elephant, and at the beginning of the show, Santa came riding in from the sky. I can't wait until Julia and Lydia are old enough to go with us. Below is Julia with a baby goat.

There were pony rides at this Church social as well. They're always a big hit!

Both of the girls enjoyed them.

Below is a pic of the camel. It was beginning to be uninterested in the hay that hundreds of kids were attempting to feed it.

Lydia loves to jump and bounce!! She is so cute jumping and falling, falling and jumping.

Julia loves the huge slides.

This pic is of the girls in their new aprons that Granny Ruth sent. We colored them with fabric markers, but it is hard to see here. We will have lots of fun when baking time comes again.

Here are some pics from our most recent baking escapade. Julia really enjoyed it. Poor Lydia only got up to see a few times, but she did get to sprinkle a few of the cookies.

I let Julia frost one or two cookies. She is always very generous with her frosting.

Here is a beginning pic.

Here is Julia and I stamping cookies. I was too lazy to change out of my Sunday dress clothes, but a little flour will wash out just fine.

I'm sure that, due to our current situation, this Christmas will be one of the most memorable ones for me. I hope that we all four look back on this Christmas as a year that we got to spend a lot of time together and talk a lot about the birth of Christ. Maybe next year we will get to go to some Christmas parties and travel to see relatives, but this year, we are focusing on each other and Christ. I am choosing to be thankful instead of whiny, and learning a lot in the process. Merry Christmas!

My Phone

My phone was broken last week after Lydia threw it in the toilet at the library. Yuck! Dave took it to a phone place to have it fixed and it was going to cost $85. However, they said that it was un-fixable, so we decided we were going to need to use our back-up phone that Xiaolan has been using. Sorry Xiaolan! (I didn't even remember we had this back-up option and tried to weasel an iphone out of the deal. That conversation only lasted 2 seconds. It was as if Dave knew I'd be whining for one.) But...Daniel was over tonight and told me to just try plugging it in to my charger and....it worked! My phone turned on and it is working! Ha! I'll take $85 to fix people's phone's anyday! Those people don't know what they are doing, and I'm glad they don't. I would have had to pay a lot of money for nothin'. So, if you or your loved one ever ruins your phone, try plugging it in...it may just work! Call me!

Christmas Lights

We got to go to a community tonight called Prestonwood and see a ton of Chrstmas lights. Evidently, Prestonwood is known for their lights. The girls loved it and so did we. I decided to let Julia sit on my lap when she couldn't see this cute little nativity scene. Then, I felt bad for Lydia and let her sit on my lap too. We enjoyed it, but the girls were quickly escorted to the back when we saw cops directing traffic. Seriously, everything is a big deal in Houston. There are traffic cops everywhere. Hopefully they are as good at keeping all of us civilians safe as they are at directing traffic! Merry Christmas!

Christmas Decorations

Well, we got out a few Christmas decorations out of our mound of boxes for our house yesterday, and then we ran by walgreens because I noticed they had some trees on sale. I am so happy with the small little tree we got!!! It's 4.5 feet tall and it was half off. We haven't finished decorating it yet because I don't know where our Christmas ornaments are, but here is my $12.50 find!! Praise the Lord!

Julia's Birthday

On Julia's birthday, we hung around home almost all day and had a lot of fun. The girls woke up to a room full of balloons. There was some on the floor and some in the air. We had a great time playing with them. Lydia was whining for cake.

Julia and I baked her birthday cake together. She loves to bake.

On Julia's Birthday, it actually snowed in Houston! You can't see it in this picture, but I was having camera issues when I took it.
Then, after all the fun we'd already had, we went to Chuck E. Cheeses to celebrate. It was crazy having just the four of us there, I am glad we decided to wait for another year to have a party there with a lot of kids running around. That would have been mayhem.

Julia got this little Dora outfit from Granny Ruth for her birthday. We put it on right after she opened it.

This is the stick horse that Dave and I got her.

Here is Julia in her little princess outfit again.



The girls had a lot of fun on all the rides.

Julia enjoyed the pizza, and it is way better than the cardboard stuff they used to sell when I was a kid. Before we ordered our pizza, a nice lady in front of us gave us a coupon for our meal. How nice, huh? It was way cheaper than it could have been, and we were very thankful.

Here's Lydia on the horse before we left.

Julia wants to say thank you for all her birthday gifts. She has been enjoying all of them!

Julia's Family Birthday Party

My Baby is 3!!! While we were in Bartlesville, we had a small family get-together for Julia's 3rd Birthday. There was cake, ice cream, and family...enough to brighten Julia's day. Ruth was attempting to read to the girls.

Lydia celebrating her older sister.
Dave posing as Groucho Marx

Mimi and Aunt Aubrey celebrating.

Julia got to blow out candles twice. Once here and once on her actually birthday.

This is Julia and her cousin Mattisyn. Julia loves and looks up to this sweet little red head.

Julia and her present from Aunt Aubrey and Uncle Andy. This was a combined Christmas/birthday present, and she loves it. Even she knew what it was before it was unwrapped. (Pictures of her riding it on earlier posts.)

Uncle Andy and Julia with her new bike.
We miss all of the family and friends we got to see while in Bartlesville!!

*Here is a picture of the girls turkey shirts with out them in them. Someday I'll know how to stitch the edges of these little home-made shirts.

Hopefully I'll get the chance to make some Christmas trees for Christmas too!! Love to all!

Germs

Dave has bronchitis, and I haven't been feeling particularly whippy, but we're all getting better. Anyway, I was sharing this information with Julia as the Stewart girls drove to the library today. I told the girls that Daddy had germs that his body was fighting off and that he needed to rest. Julia and I discussed a bit further and then she said, "Oh Jesus, please don't let my daddy have germs in his bottom". It was really sweet and pretty hilarious. I have been trying to explain to her that body and bottom are not the same thing....