Christmas Eve 2013

Christmas Eve we all slept in and had a nice cozy morning inside. We started getting stir-crazy around 11am so we packed up and went on a hike up near a ranch in Estrella Mountain.

 As you can see, Averi was positively thrilled to see that there were tons of horses there!

 That girl loves animals more than any other 4 year old I know...I wonder who she got that from? :)

(The larger dog is Bella, who we watched over the break)

 She was enthralled with these two beautiful Percheron horses. They were huge...especially compared to her!

 We ended up seeing all the horses for longer than we actually hiked. The trail was a little rough to be pushing two kids in a stroller. VERY bumpy! But we went a little ways, and then turned around and headed back. Enough to get a feel for the gorgeous desert landscape.

When we got home, Averi continued to complain about her throat hurting. She started complaining about it a day or two before but I kept thinking it would go away. For fear of it being Strep Throat, I decided to take her to the doctor so we could get her on something BEFORE Christmas morning. Sure enough, it was Strep, so we got her on antibiotics asap!

That night we continued the tradition of making cookies for Santa.
Two of the cutest little helpers I could ask for:

 

Then, we read some Christmas stories by the tree and the girls got to open one present. They were jammies of course!

 

Then visions of sugarplums danced in their heads all night as Doug and I slaved away :)