Christmas/New Year's with the Woolley's

We celebrated Christmas with the Woolley's on New Year's Eve.  We opened presents after ice skating and before dinner. We had a wonderful time...and lots of presents to open (the picture of the tree is after we took the presents for the Ely family out to the car to bring back to Ohio).  Here are some pictures from when we were opening gifts.

Uncle Josh (aka the cool cat in his hoodie)

Hannah loved her new umbrella from Aunt D & Uncle Josh. 
It even meows when you push a button on it!

Two of the "hit" presents -- a picture book that I made called "Grandma's Girls" for Sally and a new crock pot for Danila!

Abby (& Gracie) both got bones to open.

Lauren enjoyed opening her presents.

Lauren also enjoyed trying to get at Hannah's new "laptop" from Grandma & Grandpa Woolley

(Lauren LOVES all things electronic!)

After we finished opening presents, we were treated to a wonderful dinner prepared by Danila.  (beef bourguignon to be exact)  Danila also made a delicious chocolate cake with a peppermint ice cream filling.  My job was to decorate the cake (a cool whip frosting with a hint of peppermint in it).  Let me just say that one of my favorite parts of Christmas is all of the peppermint treats -- so I was so excited to try the cake.  Jon was so excited about the dessert that he took a picture of it.  And so, I'm posting a picture of it!  One of the more interesting aspects of dinner was the fact that we let Hannah drink her water from a wine glass...which she enjoyed....at least until she bit the wine glass and it broke in her mouth.  The picture below was taken about 30 seconds before that happened.  I managed to swipe all of the glass out of her mouth and we rebuilt the few pieces in the glass to make sure we'd gotten it all.  Danila told us that she had visions of another urgent care trip, but she was impressed with our cat-like parental reflexes when everything happened!  Fortunately, Hannah was just scared, but didn't even get cut...and we went back to the plastic cups.

After dinner, we got the girls ready for bed and I agreed to let them fall asleep at Josh & Danila's so we could hang out and play games to celebrate the new year.  (I probably more readily agreed to that after going back to the hotel at 8pm last night while Jon played Kinect with everyone else and he left his I-Pad behind to charge when he took me to the hotel, so I ended up just going to bed with the girls because I couldn't even watch TV b/c Hannah wouldn't sleep with the lights on.)  Hannah loved her umbrella so much that she insisted Aunt D hold it while she got her bedtime stories (new books that she got for Christmas) read to her!

 

Ice Skating

We woke up this morning to news that Rachel's family wasn't going to be able to come to Pittsburgh for our Christmas celebration tonight because Grant has pink eye.  On this trip, we actually stayed at a hotel about 5 minutes from Josh & Danila's so we'd have a little more room at bedtime.  It worked out well, since we were able to get up early and take the girls swimming in the pool after an early (fantastic, I might add) breakfast at the hotel while Grandma & Grandpa (and Josh & Danila) got to sleep in.  Danila had planned to take the older kids ice skating while the little ones napped this afternoon since their house is a little on the small side for all 8 adults and 4 kids (and 2 big dogs).  So, Danila and I ended up taking just Hannah.  It had been forever since I ice skated, and it was Hannah's first time!  We went to the rink and got Hannah all suited up and ready to go.

Hannah wanted to hang on to the wall or both of our hands while she was skating, but she was at least adventurous enough to try!

There was a smaller kids' rink (that was pretty choppy, since they couldn't smooth it out with a Zamboni) that had buckets for the kids to use to help them skate.  Hannah thought that was pretty good, but only did one lap around the kids' rink before she told us she was ready to go.

We took Hannah inside for some M&M's and then convinced her to give it one more try.

Danila had learned this fall when she had Hannah for the weekend and took her to the pumpkin patch that Hannah can be like her mom....get a little food in her and she's like a whole new person : )  We got one lap on the big rink of out her after her M&M infusion.  And let me just say that trying to skate while holding her by one hand was pretty hard!  I was actually a little glad that it was only one more lap.  I'm out of shape!  We had a good time, even if our day out was short-lived.  

Thanks for the fun activity, Aunt D!

Lauren Loves the Piano

The piano at Aunt D's house is always a big hit!

Visit with Jaidyn

After Christmas in West Virginia, we went home for a few days so I could work (since a 6-month maternity leave didn't leave me with any vacation time) and then just before New Year's we headed to Pittsburgh to see Susan and her family, to have lunch with my college roommate Sonika (before her life seriously changes, since she's due to have twins early next year!) and then celebrate Christmas with Jon's side of the family.  We had so much fun playing with the girls (Hannah really enjoyed getting the Hungry Hippo game from Great Aunt Patty and a bubble game from the Kowalls) that I didn't take any pictures until just before it was time to go -- because as Susan dashed out the door for work in the morning she told me to be sure to get pictures of the girls together!  So, here are my shots:

Hannah & Jaidyn

Jaidyn

Getting these 3 to look at the camera was a challenge!

A real challenge

But this one turned out quite well.

Jaidyn (2 1/2), Lauren (1), Hannah (almost 4)

Hannah's Stitches

Hannah's stitches are coming out tomorrow morning and she wanted to make sure I got a picture of them, since she wasn't going to get to show them off to her relatives in Pennsylvania.  So, here you go!

Well, you can't really see them at this angle, but the picture is cute!

(yes, that is food on her face)

 

5 little stitches on her chin

Hungry Hippo!

This kid loves her quesadillas!

We made it home from WV, but with nothing in the fridge, we did a pit-stop on the way home to grab something to eat.  After she ate 3 small ones from Chipolte one night a few weeks ago, we decided to get her the big one tonight...can you say "growth spurt?!"

Christmas 2011

The kids had a hard time waiting to get into the presents (and they were up before 7am)....because they had to wait for Uncle Daniel to get up.  Mom took pictures of them attacking him in bed...poor guy!

Daniel played Santa for our early morning gift opening

Daniel & Liam

Lauren was checking everything out from the safety of the couch

Hannah's new guitar from Santa

"It's just what I wanted!!!"

(which was the same thing she said when she opened the box of bandaids in her stocking...)

Hannah's other favorite gift -- a giant pile of Berenstain Bear books!

(Mind you, we probably already have 20-25 from when I was a kid...but she LOVES this series.)

Hannah with her pillow pet from the Cassidy's -- she loved it too!

Liam listening to his recordable storybook

Uncle Daniel proves himself as the cool uncle once again -- he got the big kids bikes and helmets for Christmas/their birthdays.  He had them in the basement and they had to follow a string that was wrapped in a box to get to them.  The best part was that the weather was so nice that they got to ride them in the driveway all afternoon.

Hannah with her new bike!

Peyton was loving her new doll stroller

Lauren was content to get some new silverware and a doll

Grandpap Folger helped blow up Lauren's Rody horse from Santa.

Apparently, Santa didn't realize how hard it was to blow up (considering the limited directions and weird valve).

After church the kids got to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus

These two have so much fun together.  I love that they are such good friends.

Tuckered out after a long day!

Miss Peyton (in a rare moment away from Mommy)

Family Photo after church this morning

Reality when trying to get a shot of the grandparents with all four grandkids.

Christmas Eve Pictures

 

Once we got the kids ready for Christmas Eve church services, we had to take some pictures, since they were looking so cute.  But, taking pictures of four kids under the age of four is quite a challenge.  You'll notice that I managed to get a lot of pictures of Lauren...she was hamming it up for the camera.  Hannah, on the other hand, let me snap 2 by herself and then she was done.  At least she was willing to be in pictures with her cousins.  Enjoy!

 Hannah & Liam

(not quite 4 years old)

 
                    Lauren & Peyton
              (L = 1 year; P = 18 months)
 

 Peyton was not happy with all of the picture-taking

 Hannah & Lauren

 Hannah

 Cutie-Pie Lauren

 

 I managed to get some good smiles out of this little one!

 

 

Stories with Grandma before heading off to church.

At church, the kids were pretty good.  Fortunately, the service had a good pace and the kids weren't out too much past their normal bedtimes.  Hannah really liked the candles during Silent Night and even held her own for a short amount of time.  Thank goodness Merritt was there with her family to help contain our little kids in the pew!

When we got home, we got the kids ready for bed.  Hannah and Liam loved setting out cookies and milk for Santa...

Once Daniel & Jon got home from the Steelers game, we got a quick

 "Sibling Shot"