Christmas

A few shots of the girls enjoying their gifts on Christmas day.

Emilia has learned to carry bags on her arm.  She was pretty happy to have this one.

 Emilia trying out a gallop.

 Mr. Potatohead.

 

 Steve and Vicki stopped by for a while.

 

Christmas Eve

We had Christmas Eve at Cecilia and Celso's house with them and their family, having a great dinner and catching up with everyone.  After dinner everyone enjoyed opening presents.

 

 

 Celso surrounded by his daughter Natalia and his nieces and nephew.

 

Christmas Program

Julia participated in her first Christmas program this year.  The 3 year olds were dressed as Christmas trees for the performance.

 

Picking the Oranges

When we got home from Dallas, we found that someone had helped themselves to some of the oranges from the orange tree in the side yard, so we figured it was time to pick the rest of them.

Julia picked the ones she could reach herself.

 

 Then she helped Daddy with the rest of them.

Hotel Dallas

Neil had a conference in Dallas the week after Thanksgiving in a nice convention hotel, so we told Julia we were taking her and Emilia to "Hotel Dallas".

The girls enjoyed the room.

 We even let them use the comfy chair as a trampoline.

They had a big courtyard area all decorated for Christmas.

 And they had a big ice sculpture display of the the Madagascar movie characters.

Renaissance Fest

We went to the state Renaissance Festival with friends from church in November.

Emilia enjoyed getting to ride around a little higher up.

 They also had more modern entertainment at the festival, and Julia was drawn to the bungee jumping.  I don't know if she really understood the harness she had to get into.  It made it hard to walk and she almost didn't make it up the stairs.

 Once she got on it though, she had a pretty good time.

 She was disappointed when it was time to get off and almost didn't get out of of the bungee enclosure.

Party at the Preschool

Julia's preschool had a fall festival.  Julia had a lot of fun.

She got to ride a pony . . .

. . . Play on toys . . .

. . . and make friends.

Cupcakes

It doesn't take much to make Julia so happy that she's giddy and silly, but cupcakes definitely do the trick.

 

Cooking

The girls are starting to want to be like Mom and cook in the kitchen.