Merry Christmas!

This year we continued with some old traditions, and started some new ones. 

Old traditions: 

- Jesse Tree Advent (an ornament and a story every day in December going through Jesus' lineage), 

- an evening drive to look at Christmas lights (with popcorn in the van!) 

- baked french toast on Christmas morning

- a Christmas morning jog

- Christmas Eve service at JRCC

- birthday party for Jesus

- picking a gift for Jesus from the gift guide

New traditions:

- family movie night. we projected Winnie the Pooh Christmas on our wall. The girls LOVED it.

- Stanley Park Christmas train

Grandma Jo-Ann bought an extra Christmas dress last year and so we were able to re-use the matching Christmas dresses.

Grandma She-She, Auntie Morgan, and Uncle Jesse came for brunch and gave some nice gifts to our girls.

It snowed a few days before Christmas and we got out and built a snowman in our backyard. I'd love for this to be a tradition, but you can never be sure it will snow around here.

The girls made crosses out of their tinker toys.

Karis gets a turn at putting the ornament on the Jesse Tree.

A picture of our family movie night. So fun.

All ready for Christmas Eve.

The big girls wanted me to flat-iron their hair, "just like Momma's". They looked so pretty, all in their Christmas best. They even put on perfume.

Grandpa Rob came over for Christmas Eve.

We took a ride on the Stanley Park train with Uncle. It was a Charlie Brown Christmas theme!

On Christmas morning the girls were so excited to open their gifts. Ella and Juju ran out to get Karis her gift in her crib. 

Ella and Juju got their own Bibles. They are very excited about them. We got them the NIRV version, written for new readers. Ella does quite well reading hers and Juliette enjoys all of the pictures.

Post-jog French toast tastes good!

Before our guests came, Ella wrote her own message on one of our chalkboards. The letters are a little mixed up, but the idea is so sweet ("Merry Christmas Ella"). She tried to make it look like the chalkboard in our kitchen and even drew snowflakes.

We celebrated Jesus' birthday with our friends Roger, Helen, and Nathalia.

From sun, to snow, to sick!

The day after we came home from Hawaii, we woke up to snow on the ground! The girls were so excited to pull the red sled out and make some tracks.

Ella loved pulling her little sisters on the sled.

The next morning we woke up to sickness! The flu and a sinus infection went through our house and we were housebound for about a week.

During that time, we spent a lot of time taking naps, building lego, and reading books. 

We also decorated some gingerbread houses from preschool.

Ella and Karis decorated one house while Juju and I rested on the couch. A true sign that Juju was really sick - I don't know many healthy kids who don't want to decorate a gingerbread house.

The girls built this lego giraffe with Dadda one afternoon. I thought it was so creative that it deserved it's picture in front of our tree :)

When she started to feel a little better, Juju was excited to have her turn at decorating her gingerbread house!

This week we are feeling much better and are very thankful for our health!

Things they say...

Usually if I take the girls to do errands we go in the morning after I drop Spencer off at work.

The other day after Spencer got home from work, I took the girls with me to do some late-afternoon errands. It was as though Ella discovered a whole new world.

It was dark when we were leaving Target and Ella said: "I can't believe people go to Target this late."

When we drove by Home Depot, Ella noticed that it was open too and she exclaimed: "is Home Depot open at night too?! Do people go there after little girls go to bed?"

As we were pulling into our driveway, Ella noticed our neighbor's car leaving and she asked "where do you think she is going: Target or Home Depot?" Clearly these were the only two options.

Kids' Christmas Program

The girls were in the kids' Christmas program at church on Sunday. We were proud of them. It was hard to get a good angle of Juju, but she did so well up there! Juju sang "Jingle Jingle Happy Bells" with the 2&3 year olds. Ella sang "Friendly Beasts" with the 4&5 year olds. All the kids put on a great show!

Hawaii

Last week our family met Grandpa Clark, Grandma Jo-Ann, Uncle Matt and Auntie Jaynie in Hawaii. We stayed in Ko Olina on the island of Oahu. The girls LOVED playing at the beach and being in the sun. Thanks for a nice vacation, Grandpa Clark!

New bathing suits and sunglasses - thank-you Grandma!

Karis didn't love being in the sand the first day at the beach, but by the end of the trip we couldn't slow her down. She was walking into the ocean/pool and purposely dunking herself under the water.

The girls loved trying out the boogie boards.

Matching Hawaiian dresses courtesy of Auntie Jaynie. 

We headed into Waikiki for the day.

Way too many cute beach pictures to choose from.

Karis wanted in on the boogie boarding as well!

Our 3 wahines.

Since our condo was next to the disney resort, we had to go and meet Minnie and Goofy. Ella was absolutely thrilled about this.

Here's some footage of our trip. The girls loved practicing their Christmas songs on their ukeleles and they also loved "surfboarding".