First Christmas!

Our first Christmas morning with the girls was really fun. Every year we have been telling ourselves that it was probably our last Christmas without kids and now that we finally have them we feel so blessed! Our little angels woke up at 6:30am and we hurried up, got ready and opened presents so that they could go down for a quick nap before heading over to mimi and papa's house. The girls had fun playing with the wrapping paper and their new toys. Santa brought them big-girl carseats, bath toys, bath towels, and lots of little spoons and cups and other practical things (thanks santa!)

James tricked me by wrapping up the uggliest pair of earings ever...they were big gold christmas trees with red glitter spraypainted on them! I didn't even know what to tell him, luckily before I said too much he told me that the real pair was underneath - what a brat! He also got me the amazon kindle - which is an electronic book that lets you download magazines and books to read. I have always loved to read so I am thrilled with the Kindle! I wrapped up nuggets tickets for the day after Christmas with Elway's Steakhouse menu and that was James present. We had a great night out while mimi, papa, great gramma, great papa, bradley, jolene and joseph watched the girls for us - thanks guys!

We packed up and headed over to mimi and papa's house later that morning and had a wonderful brunch with everybody, then opened more presents there. This was the mountain of presents before we opened them...holy cow!!
Papa got the same stomach flu that we had last week and it hit him Christmas morning so he spent the whole morning in bed :( It just wasn't the same without him around, we missed you papa!

Joseph helped us open presents since our hands were tied for a little while with the girls. He had a blast this year - he loves being around great gramma and great papa so much. He calls great papa his best friend and wants him to always hurry up and eat so they can go play - it is adorable!

Of course we forgot our camera when we visited the Sandovals on the 26th, but we had fun seeing Steph, Emily, Tyler, JoAnne and Harold that day. Thanks so much everybody for all of the cute clothes and toys! The girls are going to remain stylish for the next 6 months at least!

Visitors

With Great Gramma and Papa here all week we had a blast!
Nobody ventured too far from the kitchen all week....we had crab legs, clam chowder, ham sandwhiches, quiche, cinnamon rolls, meat pie, funny cake ala mode, chicken parmesan, povatitza and the best green beans ever (seriously Bradley - you rock at making green beans!) I'm not the only one scared to get on the scale today!
Great gramma gave the girls their bath almost every night while she was here - they all had lots of fun and Isabella learned how to put her feet in her mouth as well!


Great Papa found a new friend - Isabella spent most of the week on his lap...Even when she wasn't on his lap she was staring at him from across the room!


Great Gramma picked out their dresses on Sunday - so cute!


We had so much fun with them! Hopefully they come back soon!!

Happy Birthday Jolene

We were so happy to welcome my grandparents into town for Christmas this year. They arrived on the 23rd, which is also Jolene's birthday, so we had a yummy birthday dinner at our house to celebrate. Yummmmmm, crab legs :) Happy Birthday Jolene!

Great Gramma and Great Papa had so much fun playing with the babies and Joseph.


Great Papa has a new best friend according to Joseph!

Great Gramma is a pro at the bathtime/bedtime routine!

We love Holly Pacione!

We were so happy to find a local photographer, Holly Pacione, to come and take pictures of the girls at our house last week. The pictures turned out amazing! As soon as I order the prints I will get the CD and be able to post them, but until then you can see a few of them on her blog which is listed under "my blogs" on the right side of this page. Enjoy!

On the road to recovery

Well, we seem to have survived our first experience with sick kids - and I can't express how much I hope we don't have to go through this again for a long long time! Isabella started the week off with a terrible stomach flu on Monday morning. Unfortunately Jolene happened to be watching her that day so she had to deal with most of the clean-up :( I was home with Isabella on Tuesday as she recovered. Then on Wednesday Sophia fell ill, once again when Jolene was with them! James and my mom went to help her as soon as they could, but being pregnant with two sick babies (and Joseph!) could not have been easy... Both Sophia and Isabella seemed to be feeling better Wednesday evening, and that is when both James and I got sick. Oh what a week! We are all finally on the mend today but we won't soon forget this experience. I am hoping to get out of the house and go to work tomorrow - back to the land of the living :)

Isabella's first haircut

Isabella had her first haircut on Tuesday - she did great, she even smiled at Nichole when she was finished! Her new haircut is so adorable - she looks like a little pixie!











We were kinda caught up in the excitement and forgot to take "after" pictures...so that is my goal today - to take some new haircut pictures and get them posted :)

Just my luck!

I have been trying to take pictures of the girls for our christmas card for 2 weeks now - Ideally they will be near the tree, smiling, and wearing their little I love Santa outfits....wouldn't that be adorable! Well, looks like it may not be in the cards. Everytime I get them dressed, and sitting up happily either the camera's battery is dead or I can't find the camera or the girls won't smile, or somebody got orange carrots all over the white shirt, or somebody tips over, or has their eyes closed, you get the picture. So I think I am just going to throw in the towel and either use and old picture or a non-smiling picture :( Better luck next year!

Oh, and Sophia has another tooth now. Her first tooth is finally all the way through and pretty big! She loves to chomp her teeth and smack her lips now - so cute!

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas