The girls loved putting up the tree with Mama and Daddy. They noticed little things that changed about the tree as the season progressed. They were very specific about how their stockings were hung and which one each person should have. We don’t have specific stockings at this point.

They have jammies that they call their “Christmas jammies”. They have been waiting for a whole year to wear them and they were so excited to wear them Christmas Eve. They were good to get Mama and Daddy before they peaked in their stockings.

Our Christmas Dinner – we waited for the girls to have a nap first. Dinner was great and left us with a weeks worth of leftovers.

Julia got a diaper bag full of baby things. She was delighted to stop opening gifts and feed her babies for a while.

Emily was VERY pleased with the Cinderella nightgown that Santa brought her. She asked all day if she could put her nightgown on.

Julia received a cash register toy and her reaction was awesome. She would play with it and discover something and get excited. Then she would play more and then discover something new and get excited again. Christmas is so much fun to watch.

Julia got a Rapunzel nightgown from Santa. She was pleased.

The pictures are a little busy, but this is the girls’ new bunk bed. It is their big Christmas gift from their parents. They got it a few days early because it wasn’t going to be possible for us to get it put together and remain a surprise for Christmas. They were thrilled with it.

Emily is sleeping on the top of the bunk bed. She has graduated to a twin bed. We got her the canopy for the top to help her feel comfortable sleeping so high. Blue is her favorite color so she thinks it is perfect. She has been sleeping really well in it. The first night was a long one because of the excitement of the new bed. But every other night she has slept the whole night with no fear or incidents. She had been in the habit of coming out to the couch to sleep part way through the night and that has stopped. Nap time has gone well too.

Julia is sleeping in the floor space below the bed. We opted to keep her on her toddler mattress. The smaller mattress give her extra space to have some storage cubbies and play space. When she grows longer we will get her a bigger mattress, but until then she can play in her own special area. Julia has been thrilled with her new space too. She struggles with the ladder to climb up to the top, but we are going to get some handles to give her some help. Since the new bed has come she has requested to nap in her own bed instead of the pack ‘n play. The girls have successfully taken naps together since then. They are highly motivated to go to sleep so that no one has to move to the pack ‘n play.

We chose this bunk bed because it was lower to the ground making it’s presence in the room less overwhelming. Because the girls are younger it makes the transition easier too. The new bed has allowed the play table to be put in their room which they have really liked. Sometime in the near future they will both get new bedspreads that their Mama is making for them.

This year the girls participated for the first time in our church nativity program. They got to pick what supporting part they were going to play. They seemed indecisive about their choice until Mama told them what their best friends would be. That clinched it – ANGELS! The girls only went to the practice on the day of the nativity because all they needed to do was stand there and look angelic. Grammy gave each girl their “angel hair”. The curls seemed to make them extra angelic. We had been practicing the songs at home and neither girl was interested in singing them. Emily at one point told us she wasn’t going to sing at the program. When the time came though they were both singing with the songs. I guess they picked up more than they were letting on.

The program was sweet, and we’re glad the girls got to participate and did well. There was no jumping off the stage, crying, or impromptu talking. For part of the time they sweetly held hands with each other and their friends.

Little Angelic one!

Our Sweet Angels!

We went to see Santa as a surprise activity after church one Sunday. It was a sunny and warm day. We had to stand in line for about 30 minutes to see Santa at a local nursery. They had reindeer to see and the girls enjoyed wandering among the trees too. Santa was visiting in his sleigh. We asked Julia if she wanted to sit with Santa and she said “no”. She was willing to sit next to him if she sat with Mama though. Both girls took turns talking to Santa. Emily went first and was willing to talk his hear off. Julia told Santa several things she was interested in too.

They enjoyed themselves a lot. We do need to make a repeat visit to see him because Emily wanted to refine what she wants.

The Tappan family and Edwards family have a holiday tradition of watching the Nutcracker ballet together during the holiday season. This year we went to the daytime school presentation of the Nutcracker. It turned out that the presentation fell on Maeve’s birthday so it was part of her celebration. Ashley picked back row seats so our active kids wouldn’t disturb any others.

Both of our girls made it through the performance watching with interest. During the intermission the Sugar Plum Fairy came out to tell the kids about the story. She, also with the help of the the Nutcracker prince, demonstrated a pantomime. The pantomime told the story of the Nutcracker’s fight with the King Rat and Clara’s assistance. The girls enjoyed doing it with them. We have repeatedly acted out the pantomime (with words too). The favorite part is the “rat face”. When we decorated the Christmas tree and the girls found our nutcracker character set of nutcracker ornaments. The girls were so excited. We have heard Julia say “King Rat” a lot lately.

It is so much fun to have great memories from holiday activities!

This is our version of the rat face.

Where is the best place to take a nap? How about right next to the Christmas tree. Emily decided to finish out her nap by the tree.

The girls got a dollhouse and kitchen this year as their “big” gifts. The dollhouse is a remodeled version of my childhood dollhouse that my Grandparents built and decorated for me. Both girls love their gifts. When they saw the dollhouse for the first time, Julia went running for it and Emily just stopped and stared at it taking it all in. I have loved listening to all of the conversations that have occurred in the dollhouse between it’s inhabitants. There isn’t a piece that hasn’t been inspected, used, and sometimes even repurposed. It has also been an opportunity to learn about sharing.

While we have had kitchen toys and appliances, this new kitchen has been quite a hit. The sink and oven have been a great fascination. It is perfectly sized for Julia and it shows as she has become the master chef. She has been baking lots of cupcakes – she puts on her oven mit, places the tray in the oven, adjusts the temperature, opens the oven, removes the tray (still wearing the oven mit), places candles, and delivers the yummy treats.

I see hours of play hidden in each dollhouse room and in the kitchen appliances. What joy!

The girls and Mama visited Dollywood just before Christmas. It was a cold day, but we were bundled up and seemed to always have one more layer we could put on. Like usual the girls wanted to ride the carousel first. You have to hold tight when you are wearing mittens.

We then continued on to ride the young kid rides. Emily loves to make friends with other kids when we are at parks, and this trip to Dollywood was no different. She and a six-year old became best friends on the first ride. Emily cried when we got to the second ride because her new friend wasn’t riding in the same pig. She moved to join us. But it didn’t matter how good friends they were, nothing could get Emily to ride the bumblebee ride. On the other hand, Julia was thrilled to ride the bumblebee ride. They said good-bye to their new friend as she went on to ride the bigger rides. While Emily was unwilling to ride the flying bumblebee, she requested to try the Ferris wheel. I’m not sure that she would really be able to handle it, it will have to wait for a day with Daddy.

The girls discovered a mural wall that they could color. It was a blast and will be inspiring our own at-home version. Mama isn’t going nuts, but I’m going to give it a try and hope all the walls in our house don’t turn into murals.

We have been visiting Dollywood for months now and have never gone to a show. Between the cold weather, more kid-interesting shows, and a desire to take off some of our layers encouraged us that direction. We saw “Babies in Toyland” and found it to hold the girls interest. An hour was a long time for them, but it was fun.

We hope to go back one more time with Daddy before the year ends for more fun!

We celebrated Christmas with extended family who visited for the holiday. We attempted a family photo and ended up with this awesome photo. I think the fact we got all the adults to look at the camera at the same time and not blink was a success and then adding Caleb’s expressive face to the mix made it over the top. Maybe one day the younger ones will want to look at the camera.

In the photo: Don Lieder, Ann Lieder, Jennifer Reichle, Philip Reichle, Joyce Reichle, Robby Edwards, Rachelle Edwards, Phil Reichle, Caleb, Nataniel, Emily, and Julia.

The girls visited with Santa in Miami this year. Santa was visiting in an ice and snow palace and after talking with him there was a snow room that had snow for kids to play in. Emily was very excited to see and speak with Santa. She showed no shyness with him. There was no line behind us so she had plenty of time to talk. Santa asked Emily what she wanted for Christmas and she told him she wanted toys and a star for the top of the tree. Santa was very kind and sweet with the girls. Julia had a different response to Santa. She cried at the idea of sitting with him. In the end, Mommy had to sit next to Santa and Julia on her lap. The girls were not sure of what to make of the faux snow, but liked to watch Mommy play in the snow and throw it into the air.

Scene 2 – The Message:
Some sweet friends of ours arranged for the girls to receive their own individual messages from Santa. We recorded the girls watching their videos. The messages were quite a hit! Emily continued to talk about what Santa told her through Christmas.

Emily’s Video Message-

Julia’s Video Message-

Scene 3 – Christmas Morning:

Christmas morning we found that Santa had visited the house and left lovely things in our stockings. Among what he left there was a Christmas star, princess coloring book, Backyardigans characters, Ernie doll (a Julia favorite), ponies, musical instruments, and toy kitchen utensils. The girls loved finding their stockings and were excited to empty them out. There were lots of excited proclaimations of discovery and joyful facial expressions.

Mommy is a train person, Grandpa is a train person, Daddy sure likes to build track, and we are starting early to create little train girls. This year the girls started their Thomas the Train collection. There has been a layed out track everyday since Christmas with engines running around it.

Robby was chomping at the bit to build track layouts with all of the track, but we thought it would be best to wait for Emily to get used to the toy with just the starter set. Emily has enjoyed talking to the engines and quickly wanted to name the engines that didn’t come with names. She hasn’t mastered all of the rules of trains, like she thinks they can make turns and double back at switches. It is really cute.

After a few days of the simple layout Robby has started building larger track layouts that take up almost the whole floor. Amazingly the girls play with it for a while before destroying it and when it is destroyed it is always Julia’s work. Julia has been imitating the rest of us by running the engines around the track some too. This is going to be one fun toy for a while!

Christmas is always a fun, busy day, and it is so easy to put the camera down and forget to pick it back up. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t get family photos on Christmas and I never got a photo of Emily looking at my camera. This Christmas I guess Emily was the photographer. These are just two photos of the girls from Christmas day and the joy that they shared that day. It was a good and fun day. May all of our Christmases be so merry!