Christmas 2011

 Christmas season began for us the Sunday after Thanksgiving when we put up our Christmas decorations and went and picked out our tree.  Olivia was really excited about picking out the Christmas tree!  She remembered this from last year and also remembered that it snowed the day after Christmas and she kept saying how excited she was for Christmas because then it would snow.  Little does she know, we'll probably never get snow for Christmas again here!

 She was really into helping with stringing the lights and putting up the ornaments.

Although the tree became bottom heavy for ornaments so I had to keep moving ornaments up higher which then left her more room to place more ornaments lower and we kept repeating the process.

 Our tree pretty much looks the same every year, with the addition of a few new ornaments, but I love it. The ornaments all tell a story.  I always make sure to get Olivia ornament(s) for Christmas each year to add to the story and then she will have them to take with her for her own tree one year.

 I was excited to have a good place to display the nativity set this year.  In the past I've had to put a TV tray up just to be able to have it out and not on the ground.  I was happy that Olivia knew who the characters were and she was excited to point them all out.

This will be the last year we only have 3 stocking hanging over the fire place :)

 The weekend before Christmas we had our annual Christmas party.  I think the kids are starting to take over the party and we may have to consider having an adult party next year!

 The girls had a lot of fun playing dress up and in Olivia's room.

Actually, it seemed like ALL the kids had a good time playing with EVERYTHING.

 Which definitely makes an all adult party sound even more appealing!

We usually do an ornament exchange/game but this year I decided to switch it to a white elephant gift exchange to switch things up a bit.

 We definitely had a lot more fun with the white elephant gift exchange!

 This is what some of the kids were up to during the exchange.

 

 I somehow managed to get hardly any pictures of the guests.  Each year it seems the pictures get less and less...

 My last day of work for the year was December 22nd so we were able to get into full Christmas mode the Friday before Christmas Eve.  We started off by baking and decorating Christmas cookies.  I also scored some tickets to the Moscow Ballet's Nutcracker from work for that night so my mom, me and my mother in law took Olivia to see that.  She was really into the ballet and would ask questions about what types of dance/moves they were doing now.

 But, back to the cookies.  This year Olivia insisted on no help at all when decorating the cookies.  I was allowed to decorate my own cookies with her, but I couldn't help with hers; spreading icing, sprinkles, etc.

She actually did a great job decorating them and spreading the icing.

She was certainly generous with the sprinkles!

 Especially on the last cookie when she decided all the rest of the sprinkles needed to be used up.

Christmas started early on Christmas Eve for Olivia.  Her Grandpa and Darlene came over and I made breakfast for us all.  We made sure to eat before they brought in Olivia's present which was a dollhouse they made themselves!  Everything about the house is incredible and Olivia is in LOVE!

She sat and played with the house for hours without getting up.

 

 That afternoon we headed to my parents where Olivia was spoiled yet again (as well as mommy, daddy and aunt Connie).

  

After Olivia finished unwrapping her presents, she was taken on a picture scavenger hunt...

Which led to this....

She loves her jeep and is happy to have a jeep just like papa but she definitely needs to work on her steering!

And I surprised my dad with his very own hand painted corn hole boards that I started way later than I had planned and was worried I wouldn't finish in time!  Since he is an ASU graduate, I had to do one with Sparky and the other with Cocky!  I think I will retire from painting cornhole boards for awhile, especially since I have a nursery I haven't even started on yet!

We made it back home that night in time to put out reindeer dust Olivia made in daycare to light the way for the reindeer and we put out chocolate milk and cookies for Santa before heading upstairs to read a few Christmas stories before bed.

When I went to get Olivia Christmas morning and excitedly told her it was Christmas, I certainly got a different response than I was expecting.  She excitedly asked "IS IT SNOWING!!!"  Luckily she was still just excited when I said it wasn't but Santa had come.

Christmas afternoon, we headed to North Augusta to celebrate Christmas with Jared's side of the family.  As if we all weren't spoiled enough, we got spoiled even more.  And Olivia got the 1 present she wanted most of all, a Dora guitar.

She was excited!

She announced to us all "everybody take a seat" and put on a show for us all!

2011 was definitely a busy Christmas, but there certainly is nothing better than getting to experience Christmas with an almost 3 year old.  Now that Christmas is over, it's time to get ready to celebrate Olivia turning 3!!