Noon Year's Eve at the Zoo

We went to the zoo for a countdown to noon on New Year's Eve.  There was an apple juice toast at noon and there were hats and noise makers.  We also got to play at the playground (this is the girls favorite part of the zoo).  Lilli did not like the slide at first, but after Mrs. Stephanie went down with her she started to enjoy it.  There was also a magic/ventriloquist show that they caught part of.  All of the kids did amazingly well despite being up so late last night.  It was the same group from the sleepover plus Christina & Easton, Mary & Elijah, and a couple of the other kids friends from school.

Pre New Year's Eve Sleepover

Pre New Year's Eve sleepover at the Ernest house.  Girls and boys from church had a blast eating, playing, seeing fireworks, and not sleeping at the sleepover.  My girls were thrilled.  They stayed up past midnight and still managed to wake up at 7am.  I don't know how they do it.  Participants were:  Amy, JJ, & Kayla, Stephanie & Kylie, Mallory, us, Crystal, Hannah, Ethan, Caleb, Abigail, & Crystal's cousin Taylor,  and April, Maisy, & Lainey (but they didn't stay the night).

Christmas Day

The girls were spoiled rotten yet again.  They each received a Plasmacar (pictures and videos included).  Siena got her Marvel Superhero Lego game, a princess castle decal to decorate their room and a princess night light, a game for the Innotab, an art set, light saber M&M dispensers, The Chronicles of Narnia book (which Daddy has been promising to read to them) and lots of candy.  Gramma & Grampa came to spend the day with us.

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve we made cookies for Santa.  The girls posed with the cookies and milk for Santa.  Tyrone left the girls a note next to the plate of cookies and milk.

Grandparent Christmas gifts

These were the homemade gifts to the grandparents and great grandma.

Tyrone the Elf on the Shelf

Tyrone our Elf on the Shelf returned again this year.  He started off by crashing the toy airplane into the Christmas tree to put the star on top.  He drew moustaches on our family picture, played dentist with a doll (Lilli was very upset by this and knocked him over when she tried to get the doll back.  We were worried that he may lose his magic from that, but he didn't), he toilet papered the crystal glasses, hung out in different places around the house, made stockings for the chickens, made an apple swan, hung panties from the stockings (Siena's favorite, she reminded us of when he did it before), he took a nap in the Kleenex box, took a shower, played the piano, went camping, ate candy from the gingerbread houses, he was Spider-Man and wore the Barack Obama chia head (I couldn't pull those pictures off of my phone), traveled to Gramma and Grampa's house a couple times, and left a very sweet note to the girls.  Lilli was so excited to wake up each morning and see what Tyrone had done.  Although he didn't help too much with behavior this year, it was so much fun to see their reaction each morning.