Christmas 2012

 Christmas Eve-Eve. All ready for church in the adorable dresses from Grandma and Grandpa (not Doug, he's in a suit!).

 On Christmas Eve we went to the Daynes and celebrated by eating dinner and decorating sugar cookies for Santa. There was also a puppet show of Little Red Riding Hood, but it was a little hard to follow given that the director (and most of the participants) was under 6 years old :) So cute anyways though! The kids loved decorating the cookies but I think they enjoyed eating them more than decorating them. Averi would lick the knife every other time she stuck it into the frosting. Needless to say, she got a tummy ache on Christmas (and unfortunately also got a fever which luckily didn't turn in to anything). Too much fun, I guess.

We finished off our time at their house with a dance party to our favorite Christmas songs. Those kids have got some mad moves! 

The finished cookies

 Christmas morning!

Averi woke up long before Kadence so we debated whether to start the festivities without her. We decided to let Averi ride her new bike (which she was ecstatic about!) and see the presents that Santa didn't wrap. We started to open stockings but then I started feeling bad that Kadence was sleeping through the fun (not that she would have cared). So finally I got her out of bed against her will and brought her downstairs. We had a bit of a rough start with her and we were starting to regret waking her up! She had been battling a bad diaper rash for a few days likely due to a change in diet (and too many sweet potatoes). It was so bad that it would actually bleed in spots... poor little baby. Anyways, during the day I would often just let her crawl around in the buff so it could air out. So Christmas morning she woke up with a messy diaper so I changed her, and while she was without diaper (in a matter of seconds) she peed on the carpet. Ugh! After I got it cleaned up, I figured "well she already peed and pooped so I'm sure she will be fine without a diaper for a few minutes". Nope! She pooped on the carpet too, so we had a lot of frantic cleaning to do before we actually got to look in our stockings. This picture was taken after all that:

  

 Kadence enjoyed opening presents for about 15 minutes and then turned grumpy so we set her up in her high chair with some snacks. She enjoyed eating blueberry muffins and crackers while watching the rest of us open presents. So easy (yet so hard) to please! She is also sporting her new "I heart cupcakes" shirt given to her by Cousin Rix.

 

 Averi opening a present from Kaly

 Kadence's Stash...most of it

 (most of) Averi's stash. She also got a Beta fish that she named "Blue" and another outfit that she just couldn't wait to wear!

 Christmas evening we had dinner with our friends the Andrews and their two boys. The food was amazing and we had a great time. Unfortunately Averi wasn't feeling well (this is when she got the fever) and just vegged on the couch the whole time.

We are so grateful for the good friends that we have made here. We missed seeing our families over the holidays but we really did have a very merry Christmas!!