Pre Christmas Fun!

Along with the two birthdays in December, we had plenty of other Christmas festivities and other holiday fun to keep the month very busy!

On December 3rd Rich took Joseph and Ella to Home Depot to get our Christmas tree and stumbled upon the Home Depot workshop to make a gingerbread craft so they participated in that prior to getting the tree.  

Later that day, the RB community park had a winter festival that we went to for a few hours to check it out.  

Julia's first experience with snow and she loved it! 

They had a snow hill and all three kids wanted to give it a try-a little extra push from Daddy and they were ready to go! 

Julia was not a fan, Ella seemed indifferent about it but Joseph loved it and continued to go down over and over. 

He loved it and went down at least 5 times! 

We met up with our neighbors and the kids had a blast having a snowball fight (amongst the grass!) with the dads. 

Excited to get Daddy with a snowball!! 

Julia didn't have any interest at all in seeing Santa (actually started tearing up and wanted Rich to hold her) so we decided not to force the family picture but did get individual photos of Ella and Joseph.  Joseph's eyes were closed in his so didn't include it but he was definitely excited to talk to Santa and let him know what his list consisted of. 

We were definitely getting into the Christmas spirit as evident by Joseph pretending to be Santa with our couch being the sleigh.

The next day, our church had photos with Santa after mass.  Joseph and Ella got individual pictures during their faith formation class and then we all stayed after donuts and coffee for a family photo. Julia was not excited about seeing him but she was ok with it as long as Daddy was holding her!   

Ella insisted on wearing the pink headband that day so she has a little pop of color with Santa.  Her teacher told us that she basically ran right up to Santa and was so excited.  

Joseph's smile says it all!  Pretty excited, too!  

After church we went home to decorate the tree!! 

After a quick run to Target to pick up additional lights, we were in business! Joseph and Ella were great helpers this year as Charlotte just watched and Julia really didn't have any interest in it so she just played around everyone. 

Getting there!  

Taking a break from the decorating

Love this time of the year!! 

Enjoying the Christmas festivities!

And, then she decided to decorate her own hair!

It was the perfect tree!  A little heavy on the decorations on the bottom front but we wouldn't want it any other way! 

Happy girl just hanging out on December 6th! 

As mentioned in Joseph's birthday post, originally we were supposed to have all of the family over for the Army Navy game and to celebrate Joseph's birthday but since he ended up with strep throat we had to cancel the plans so we just had a relaxing day with our family watching the game and hanging out.  Charlotte must have been their good luck charm since Army finally won after a thirteen year losing streak!!  Go Army! 

On December 15th at the library story time, they had a rabbi from a local synagogue as a guest reader and after the books they decorated dreidel sugar cookies! 

We continue to spend lots of time in the cul de sac with neighbors! 

Nani came over on December 16th to play with the girls for a bit. 

Christmas break began for two weeks for Joseph and Ella on December 17th.  We had a great break together not only celebrating Christmas and New Years, of course, but enjoyed the down time of hanging at home without having to always rush around from drop offs and  pick ups and spending time with family and friends. 

Lots of cul de sac time with friends!  We've got quite a great little crew in our neighborhood and Joseph just loves all of the boy time.  We have gotten into a great little routine of every Friday afternoon getting a big group together and play and love that it is such a nice way to end the week!  

Ella is getting really confident and strong on the balance bike.  She has the goal of learning to ride her two wheel bike when she is 4 so hopefully this helps her get on her way.

Lots of craziness at home over the two week break!  

Joseph and Ella's yearly well checks which both went great and we are so thankful for healthy kiddos.

A little light saber war while face timing cousins, Michael and John.  Gotta love technology and the ability to battle across the country! 

This peanut is just so laid back and always enjoys the constant entertainment at home.  

Of course we had to do some Christmas cookie baking.  We made kiss cookies, peanut butter cup cookies and sugar cookies.  So much fun but such a mess! 

We went to Christmas Card Lane on the night of the 20th but I totally failed to get any pictures but we love this tradition of ours and were able to enjoy some of our cookies while checking out the lights.  

The Zicklers arrived into San Diego on the 21st so we loved having so much time to spend with them!!

Just hanging out...

Enjoyed the down time during the day just playing and spending time together. 

And the more chaotic moments...

Some days I feel like time is going by so fast and Joseph and Ella, especially, seem to be growing up so quickly so I am so thankful for this time with these little ones.  December is such a special month and we had a lot of fun!  

Ella is 4!!

Ella is 4!!!  Happy birthday to our imaginative, sweet, helpful, sometimes dramatic Ella bean!!  She is such a big girl these days-the toddler days are long gone as she has gracefully transitioned into a preschooler and has matured and learned so much in this past year.   She has really stepped into the big sister role since Charlotte has been born and is such a great help.  She often will unload the dishwasher bottom rack without being asked, or get Charlotte a toy when she's fussing or even put away her clothes once I'm done folding.  Her room...however...now that's a different story.  There are some days where I feel like I am walking into a dark deep abyss upon entering her room.  She is definitely a packrat and most days likes to have everything strewn about.  She can play for a long time in her bedroom keeping herself entertained.  She is known to sleep with piles of stuff/junk surrounding herself on her bed.  For example last night when I went to check on her I removed her piggy bank, a stack of books, her jewelry box, a baby carseat carrier and two picture frames from around her! I'm thankful for a variety of baskets in her bedroom to just dump things in to hide the mess for now-some day I'll become more organized in her room but for now it works.

She continues to receive speech services through Westwood Elementary and although we have noticed improvements we are looking into adding supplemental services through a private provider at the new year.  She continues to drop the ending sounds of words and her /k/, /g/ and /d/ are often hard to understand.  She enjoys going to speech and it doesn't seem to be holding her back at preschool.  She is really enjoying preschool and it is evident that she is so proud of the work that she completes there and has fun. She has a really special relationship with all of her siblings and honestly is kind of the common denominator in the family right now as her and Joseph can play really well together for a long time and then she can play really well with Julia together but then she also kind of bridges the gap with Joseph and Julia.  She can be a little bossy towards Julia at times but really for the majority of times she plays so well with both of them.  She does have a pretty good "stink eye" and has mastered the crossing of her arms and stomping off if she isn't happy.  We have learned that even if you raise your voice the slightest she normally bursts into tears and nothing processes with her-we try our hardest not to raise our voices  with anyone in our family but know that with her, that technique definitely does not work.    She loves being outside and is determined to ride her bike without training wheels "when she's 4" so has been working hard at the balance bike to get her going.  Rich and I often laugh at her facial expressions or how she will talk to herself while using hand gestures-she has become very animated whether talking to us or while playing imaginative play.    She definitely has a sweet heart and she brings so much joy to our family. 

Happy 4th birthday baby girl (which we still call her!)  

This was early on her real birthday-like her brother, she requested to open up one gift in the morning and chose a gift from Aunt Gina, Uncle Brian, Michael and John and was so excited to receive a Frozen microphone and stuffed bunny.  She has slept with the bunny ever since opening it!

Ella's birthday celebration lasted an entire week!  On December 16th she celebrated her special day at preschool by bringing in her treat of choice which she decided upon pink sprinkled donut holes and strawberries.  She also had to bring in three of her favorite things to share with her class so she brought a picture of her family, her baby doll and bunny.  She basically skipped the entire way to school because she was so excited.  

We gave her the option of a birthday party with friends or a special day somewhere and she chose the special day.  After going to Legoland for Joseph's birthday she wanted to go back to Legoland for her birthday but we were able to convince her that Sea World would be a lot of fun and something different so on Sunday, December 18th we headed to Sea World.  We surprised her with Sydney and Cole showing up and spending the day with us which was perfect and so much fun!!  

Charlotte was there, too!!  

 The dads and the kids on the ride!

Ugh...the teacups.  So  much fun for them, not so much fun for me.  I went on this one while Rich sat out with Charlotte which I regretted as soon as we started spinning.  Thankfully, I made it through it and was able to walk (barely) after it stopped but it did take a few minutes to recover.  I told them "Never again!!"

I was much happier in the airplane ride!

Such a fun way to celebrate her 4th birthday!

Love these three and their little sister who was asleep in the stroller, too!

On her actual birthday she was lucky enough to have Lindsay, baby Finn and Nani come over for a few hours to hang out since they had just flown in the night before.  That night we celebrated with just our family and had pizza, mac and cheese, broccoli and cupcakes which is what she requested.  At some point this past year she deemed this dress her "party dress" and wore it to as many birthday parties as she could, so it would only make sense that she had to go upstairs and put this on before we celebrated her birthday at home!  

She had some help from Joseph opening up her gifts!

On the following day we had all of the family over for another birthday celebration.  The kids played an outdoor scavenger hunt where they had to find snowballs and if they found a snowball with a blue dot on the bottom they won a prize...the girls won Frozen necklaces and the boys won a pack of Pokemon cards.

We just ordered Costco pizza and loved having everyone over!

She was a speed unwrapper and I don't really think processed what she received until the next day when she was really able to play with them and she totally loved them all!

After dinner we played a game where each kid chose a grown up as a partner to make them into Olaf out of toilet paper.  It was hilarious and so much fun!!!  Ella chose Aunt Hollie and everyone was in hysterics during the game!

I mean, seriously, how cute and hilarious is this?!?  Joseph and Poppa got a little creative!!

Happy birthday sweet Ella!  May all of your dreams come true this year.  We love you so much!  

Winter performances

Both Joseph and Ella's classes put on winter performances this holiday season which were both such a joy to watch!

Joseph's class, along with the four other kindergarten classes, performed on December 13th at 1:00 p.m. in the multipurprose room at his school.  The rumor circulating around the school about parents lining up to get seats over an hour prior to the show beginning was confirmed to be true as I showed up at 12:30 to reserve seats and the line was already wrapped around the front of the building!!  High demands for these kindergarten shows!!  Joseph was fortunate enough to have a huge audience there to cheer him on-Nani, Aunt Laura, Syd, Cole, Aunt Hollie and of course his sisters and Daddy and I were all there to support him and he did awesome!!  The students were given the choice if they wanted a speaking line and Mrs. Clark told me that he was so enthusiastic during practices that she gave him extra lines so he needed up with three different lines and he did great on all of them!  He had them memorized within a day and loved practicing at school and was so excited for the actual performance.  The show was called, "A Bear-y Holiday" and included different holiday songs and dance movements.  Joseph was a polar bear and just did such a great job!  

 Ella's performance was on Wednesday, December 14th and was an all school performance that was held in the newly renovated gym at the Westwood Club.  Her class sang three holiday songs and she was awesome!! She was SO extremely excited for her performance!  We got there early (not as early as Joseph's performance) but early enough to score front row seats and her face just lit up when she saw us there.  Nani was able to come to her show, as well, which made it even more special.  She stood next to her bff, Sophia, and did a great job concentrating and singing so everyone could hear!  After the performacne there was a potluck for the entire school so we stayed to enjoy the food and company of her classmates.

We enjoyed both performances and they definitely put us in the holiday spirit!  

Julia loved watching her older brother and sister and I'm sure is looking forward to the day when she gets to perform, too!!