Christmas 2011

Oh gosh, I'm so far behind on journaling that it's a little overwhelming to jump back into it, but here we go. This was Ari's first Christmas and it was great to celebrate it in a new home where we could gather with our big family and have lots of space (something that our old house was lacking) to store new clothes and toys. Prepare for picture overload!

Ari very much enjoyed her first Christmas and caught on very quickly when it came to ripping off the wrapping paper.

For the Christensen family party, this year we decided to do it the Friday before Christmas which I thought worked out great. Now that we have a bigger house we were able to host the party at our house and give my Great Aunt Bonnie a break from being the hostess. We had 24 adults and 9 kids packed in here. It was a lot of fun this year especially seeing everyone's ugly sweaters that they broke out for the party.

 My Great Uncle Wayne (who always wins every type of costume contest) and my cousin Alesha going head to head in a trivia game.

Even Ari and Amira had ugly sweaters on for the party. But it's hard for any sweater to be really ugly when it's on cute little girls.

Christmas Eve we did the usual party over at my grandmas and of course the girls got spoiled by the grandparents and aunts.

Some of the favorites were Ari's Weebles and Amira's Wonder Pets Fly Boat.

In this picture I'm cracking up at the pants that my Mom bought for Ari or maybe it was Amira. My Mom knows me better than anyone so I couldn't believe she bought these pants. I think they will stay "play" pants to be worn at Grandma's that can get dirty and we won't care. Too funny, I think we will probably laugh about these pants for some time!

The girls in their Christmas PJ's!

Christmas Day we woke up and did presents from Santa. The girls got a vintage kitchen that is super cute and we heard that the Elves spent about 4 hours putting it together.

When the Amira saw the kitchen she said, "Wow, look at that. Wow." Ari just wanted to eat the plastic play food!

Amira got a big sucker in her stocking and held on to it the whole morning while opening presents. Ari was bright eyed and bushy tailed while opening up presents.

 
Capone of course was happy with the treats he received and being able to tear up the boxes.

After we were all cleaned up here we headed over to Ryan's moms and then to my dad's. By this time I think the girls were a little overwhelmed with how many presents there were to unwrap. At my dad's the other grandkids were waiting to unwrap their gifts so we had to help the girls unwrap quickly so the other kids could have a turn.

 Ari taking a break from all the excitement to get a bottle and some snuggle time in with Papa.

 This is the only family picture I took Christmas day. Note to self take more pictures next year.

Once the day was over we were glad to come home for some relaxation before we had to figure out where to put all of these toys. Luckily the grandparents took a handful of toys home to their houses for the girls to play with when they visit.

We are very thankful for all of the love that our family gives us and our girls. Christmas was amazing this year but I was very glad to take our Christmas tree down. Getting after a 2 1/2 yr old, 11 month old, and a bulldog every day for touching the tree was getting pretty old. I'm really surprised the tree survived those three.