Christmas Time

Christmas has been great this year.

We got a little bit of snow the week before so it was nice to have some snow on the ground. I think Christmas is so much better when there is snow! The girls have been on their best behavior for Santa and his elves. We have been hiding 3 little elves around the house so the girls think they are checking to see if they are being naughty or nice.

We took them to see Santa and had them all in their cute matching shirts but we ended up having to have a family photo because the second Stella Grace thought we were leaving her with the bearded old man, she lost it! It is a miracle that the photo turned out as well as it did.



Christmas Eve was nice. My aunt Tricia and brother Andrew came out for dinner on Christmas eve and my other brother Aaron and his wife Caitlin and her brother Connor came over later in the evening and my brother in law showed up later in the evening too. We were all able to hang out for a bit and set up everything from Santa :) and it was fun.

Christmas morning was bordering on chaos, total chaos. The girls had a bunch of presents to open and were very happy with what Santa brought for them. Santa brought Sophia a Belle doll from Beauty and the Beast, the movie to accompany it, and 2 of Belle's dresses for her to wear. Santa brought Annabelle 2 dolls, Woody (from Toy Story) and Muno (from a TV show she loves, Yo Gabba Gabba), the Muno doll is a big hit and she carries him with her everywhere now. Last, but not least, Santa brought Stella Grace a baby stroller and her own baby doll (appropriately called Baby Stella) so now she can keep up with her big sister and their strollers and dolls. Along with Santa's gifts they received many more from friends and family. Annabelle did not even want to finish opening hers and she about 5 gifts left that night so was able to have 2 Christmas' sort of.

We had some great meals, great mimosa's and/or bloody mary's, spent time together and watched Beauty and the Beast :) what more can you ask for ...




The Wyatt Family at the Tree Lot


Zack chopping down the huge tree in the freezing cold!


Making Cookies to decorate and leave for Santa


"Painting" Santa's cookies





Annabelle & Stella Grace


Their new talking doll house


Sophia in her Belle Dress

Everyone on Christmas watching Beauty and the Beast w/ Sophia


Stella Grace and her new stroller


Zack and the girls


Sophia on my dad's desk "tracking" Santa on google

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great Thanksgiving! We drove down to Charlotte to visit our friends Kyle & Jennie from college and stayed with them and visited with their family. It was great to see our friends and their families.

We were also able to travel to Hendersonville, NC while we were there and see MeMa (Zack's Grandmother) and we spent a great afternoon with her at her house. The girls really enjoyed playing with her. She has an AMAZING collection of old teaddy bears and Peter Rabbit stuffed animals and books so the girls really had fun playing with all of that.

We took the girls to an awesome kids play "museum" on day and they had a blast! It was a bit overwhelming because of the size of the place and all the different things they had for the kids to play with but it was a fun day!

It was a great Thanksgiving!


This is 2 of the 3 dining tables, there were about 20 people at Thanksgiving dinner. That is Zack at the table with 2 of our friends from college and another friend from Charlotte.



Jennie's sister has a new little puppy that Sophia was a big fan of.



Zack at the table with Sophia & Annabelle



Stella Grace playing with Kyle & Jennie's daughter Addison. They are about 6 months apart in age.




Zack and his best friend Allen enjoying some Thanksgiving Football




These are some photos from the Discovery Place for Kids museum for kids that we went to. This is from the kid grocery store. Annabelle went in, headed directly for the bananas, and cleaned them out.



Captains Sophia & Annabelle controlling the submarine



TSA agents Sophia & Annabelle loading luggage in the pretend airport



Stella Grace at the water table



Our friends cousin had a small family birthday get together for their 7 year old son and his sister is 5 and Sophia loves to play her, her name is Skylar. These are the photos from them eating cupcakes.

Sweethearts

Updates

It is 6:43 am and we have now been in the car for almost exactly 2 hours on our way to North Carolina and thanks to the wonders of technology I am able to sit in the car, listen to NPR, and blog while I drink my coffee. Not too bad huh?
I put a few pictures up from the past couple of weeks. Sophia had her Thanksgiving Feast at school and they dress up like mini indians.
One of Sophia's friend had a birthday party yesterday and it was at a moon bounce place and they had a GREAT time! Annabelle was in love with the slide and just kept doing it over and over.
Last, I took a photo of the girls sleeping in the back seat :-) ahhhh ..... It only took them 2 hours to go back to sleep but as of right now we have a quite car!
Have a happy thanksgiving!!!

Halloween

Halloween was less of a success this year.

Annabelle wasn't feeling her best so she stayed in to stay out of the chilly air but Sophia and Stella Grace made it out :) Sophia as Cinderella and Stella Grace as Daisy Duck.

We made it one street over and that's when things began to slowly unravel. The first house on the next street has fog machines, graves, skeletons, and a guy on the front porch that made Sophia a little nervous but she went up with her Aunt Tricia anyway. The next few houses were fine until a pack of boys ran up behind us and Sophia came face to face with a boy in a Scream mask - that freaked her out a bit more. Again, the next few houses were fine. Then we made it to the end of the street where a group of houses all sit out together with a fire pit and give out candy and one of guys in houses came with a chain saw to scare the boys not realizing that we were near ... so that put an end to our trick-or-treating. Sophia just wanted to head home after that. The good thing is that we didn't have a crazy amount of candy that I would have to eat! :)

So ... enjoy the photos.

Princess Minnie and Daisy




Stella Grace kept trying to sneak into Sophia's candy bucket and take some for herself.


We gave them giant glow sticks before we went outside and this is them swinging them around the kitchen.

Sophia's Preschool Halloween Parade

Sophia's preschool had their Halloween parade before Halloween and she got to be the line leader in her class so that meant she got to start the parade :-)

There were some pretty cute costumes!

Photos I have taken throughout October ...

Playing at the fountains in Reston ... while they are down


Running from the fountains as they come up :)




Sophia feeling the 80's comeback




My dad having a photo shoot with Sophia before school


Her nails after I painted them


Annabelle's first manicure


HAIL TO THE REDSKINS!!!

Sophia's School Picture

She took a great school picture this year and she is even showing off her temporary tattoos! HA!

Fall Photo

Our colorful bunch