Christmas 2017 is a wrap:). And a great one, it was! Truly, I must have said to Justin how great not only the actual day was, but also the preparation leading up to it. While we certainly are not minimalists, we really see the benefit of valuing experiences over stuff and we realize how more stuff creates more stress, decisions, and nagging. While we did not go minimal, we really did scale back significantly from years past. The girl’s big gift from Justin and me (and to each other) was a trip to Charleston, SC. In fact, I am writing this in the car on our 10-hour car trip to Charleston!
We stuck to our annual tradition and made reservations at PF Changs for dinner. We took pictures in front of the tree before church….
Individuals of the girls…
Doubling up…
We did all three but none of those pictures were worthy of posting!! Same with the ones with Karolin! The girls had just fallen over one another and there were a few tears!
Ones with Janaina…
Ones with Mommy…
Ones with Daddy…
A family shot…
A family bonus shot…
And finally just the ladies…
While I had the best of intentions to start pictures earlier this year so as not to be rushing through them, we still ended up rushing through the last ones. We started earlier but an eye glass change and a few dabs that may have knocked someone in the face, and a fall or two here and there, caused us to be as rushed to get the final pictures as previous years. Nonetheless, Justin still took many pictures and I was very happy with the results.
Christmas Eve service was nice. I like how the service is different each year. This year we even did a candlelight Silent Night rendition. It has been years since I have been to a service that sang Silent Night. I always loved that song when I went to Church with Justin pre-kids for Christmas. While I honestly thought it was glaring missing from prior year’s Christmas Eve program, having over 1000-lit candles, many of which were held by little kids was slightly nerve-wracking.
Dinner at PF Changs was good. Service was a little slower than normal but it was delicious as always. I was worried I hadn’t ordered enough food, but I definitely over ordered! Yet, we still managed to eat almost all it…just because it was thereL. Jana, Karolin, Avery, Emerson, Harper, Justin and I all had a good time at dinner.
Upon getting home the girls, put the final touches on their notes to Santa.
They had previously written their wish list to Santa.
Speaking of Santa, he actually was already gone by the time we got to the mall for our dinner reservation (unlike last year). Fortunately, we had not planned on getting our pictures taken though this year before dinner since the girls had their picture with Santa a few weeks earlier at Stacy’s holiday open house.
When we got home, the girls took a few more pictures in front of the tree in their new Mickey Mouse Christmas Hannah Jammies.
Then it was off to bed so Santa could make his way down the chimney.
Emerson was the first to wake yesterday and that was close to 8:00. She patiently waited for Avery and Harper to wake up a few minutes later. Karolin and Ludmila were also downstairs in the kitchen. (Jana left about 5:00 a.m. to go on vacation for the week). It was really neat to see the girls go give hugs to Karolin and Ludmila before they even checked out what Santa brought.
Santa was really good to the girls…bringing them almost everything that was on their lists!! Here are Avery, Emerson, and Harper’s lists respectively.
While they loved everything, Harper’s favorite was probably the toot gun (Despicable Me fart gun): Emerson probably her Barbie car and phone; and Avery’s was probably her mermaid shimmer and shine, mermaid Barbie and hatchimals. Emerson especially is hard to please so hearing her constant shrieks, laugh, and excitement was amazingly beautiful.
After Santa’s gifts that he left in the living room for the girls, we went to see what Santa put in our stockings!
Then it was breakfast time! I did most the preparation of breakfast the evening before so that I could enjoy the morning as much as possible while still eating breakfast at a relatively decent time. Breakfast smelled delicious and was equally amazing! Homemade blueberry scones, thick Applewood smoked bacon, fried eggs with chives and avocado, and a beautiful fruit platter.
After breakfast, we opened up the rest of the gifts.Again we went minimal, but I promise now one felt deprived in the least. Our family gift to the girls was a trip to Charleston, SC. We gave them a coupon which included some of the things we would be doing. Imagine their surprise, when their totally anything but spontaneous parents told them we were leaving the next day! Ha!
And we took some more pictures of the girls – our younger girls and our older girls:)
The next few hours of the afternoon were low key. Justin and I went for a 40-minute walk while the girls played and cuddled with Karolin and Mila. When we got back, Justin turned the movie Elf on for the girls so that Justin and I had time to pack for our trip. My mom came over in the late afternoon and brought more presents….mostly gift cards which is great because it involves the girls in the decision making process and helps them to understand the value of a dollar. My dad was sick so we Facetimed him while we opened the presents from Russell and Mary. Dinner was a regular dinner….which was still amazing but nice because the focus was on preparing for the trip today and not preparing dinner all day long. Even scaling it down, I bought too much…so I decided the russet potatoes and sweet potatoes weren’t necessary since Mila and my parents weren’t eating with us. I think I overcooked the pork slightly but it was still delicious and looked beautiful! As we ate dinner, Avery asked if we could bow our heads and sing Happy Birthday Jesus, so we did:).
It really was just a great day. Justin and I feel so blessed. He gave me a beautiful card and the words he wrote symbolize our commitment to each other and reaching our common life goals. We were blessed to have our two former au pairs chose to come celebrate Christmas with our family. Our girls were full of joy and excitement with the gifts Santa brought them. Seeing the twinkle in their eyes as they prepared for Nevis’s arrival every morning the last few weeks and Santa and his reindeers arrival Christmas Eve is purely magical.
On the seventh night, one of the other gifts the girls received from my mom was a coupon for a day out with grandma. Each of the girls wrote on the coupon what they want to do with grandma. They were all three thrilled about this gift as they all love their one-on-one time. Justin and I loved this gift idea as well as we value experiences significantly more than things, especially random things. I absolutely love how Avery and Emerson are sounding out their words. Emerson’s says “Spend the day and sleep over on the weekend. Eat ice cream with movies “Sing”. Read a book to you. Go to the mall.” Emerson believes hers requires two days with grandma.
Some of Avery’s are especially awesome. Avery’s says “We will have a fun day. A sleep over. Go to Dairy Queen. Go out to dinner and out to lunch. Watch a movie with ice cream. Go to Washington DC. Go to the toy store. Great Falls. Go to Ledos. Go to Grandma Adele’s. Go to the mall”. Avery believes she needs about 6 weeks for her special time!
Harper wrote the word grandma and I’m so impressed with how well she is doing with her letters. Harper wants Grandma to pick her up from school, followed by ice cream, the movie SING, the mall, and then a sleepover! 
Seriously, I LOVE these! On the last night of Hanukkah, I thought we would try for a few more pictures. It was still pulling teeth, but the outcome was slightly better!
My parents stopped bye for the last night. For the eighth night, my dad deviated from doubling the money from the seventh night. He gave them each a $100 bill and wanted to see their reaction. Not surprisingly, their reaction was probably a let down. I don’t think they truly understand the concept of a dollar or the value of money….thus another reason that I LOVED the money each night from grandma and grandpa. Each night we turned it into a little math lesson! Not only that, but I can remember one Hanukkah gift I got from my parents as a kid (and I’m pretty sure I received one every night) but I have such vivid memories of opening up the Hanukkah money that doubled each night from Adele and Sol. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, they actually folded the money up tightly in loose leaf paper.
Nevis came to visit us again Monday morning, the morning after we put our Christmas tree up. He marked his territory by plopping himself on the tree as he has done for his arrival the past 4 years. He has gone back to the North Pole and returned each morning for the past two nights now. Avery and Harper made themselves crowns to wear Sunday afternoon and Harper had an idea to make Nevis his own crown. We left it on the coffee table and Tuesday morning when Nevis showed up in the kitchen cabinet, Nevis was wearing his crown….it was magical. In the mornings, the girls are no longer pre-occupied with wanting to sleep more, wanting to delay getting dressed, or anything other than wanting to see where Nevis went. Hearing the pitter patter of feet running down the stairs and around the house with their anticipation of Nevis’s silly antics and the deep gasps and belly laughs of where Nevis has planted himself for the day bring pure joy to my heart. Harper, Avery, AND even Emerson believe in the magic of Christmas.
Ever since we did family pictures two years ago, I knew I wanted to do them again…not necessarily annually, but not too much longer of a time lapse than that. We liked Bridgette and her pictures from two years ago, but they were very expensive and this time around I really wanted pictures of the whole session for a much smaller price. After looking around for honestly six months, I finally found a photographer that I liked and Justin liked. We booked her in June for our October session! Our session was a set fee for 25-30 edited images. She ended up giving us closer to 70 images! I don’t think she was as talented as Bridgette yet I am quite happy with the end results we got in terms of the number of images and the price. I don’t think she really captured Avery or Emerson’s true personality. Emerson is difficult to photograph period; however, Bridgette managed to connect with her and bring out her personality, where as Allison did not. Avery was also wearing a new pair of glasses and the tint was a little lighter than normal which didn’t make for an apple to apples comparison from the last time either…although that had nothing to do with her deep belly laugh personality not really emerging during the session. Anyway, after thinking about this session for what seemed like eternity since we booked it months in advance, I was so happy when we were done in a sense…I had spent more time than I should probably admit deciding on the location, outfits, and spent the day of the pictures afraid to move since I didn’t want my hair that I had gotten done early in the day to get messed up! With all that said, here are the pictures from our session!
JASMINE
ELSA
The princess pact.
Ariel, Jasmine, and Elsa meet a black cat.
And a chick from the 70’s with an afro. 
The girls had a great time trick-or-treating. My sister was traveling for work and was able to trick-or-treat with us this year! We went all the way up Hillington this year and the girls got more candy than in year’s past…so much that my sister and I took turns holding their pumpkins as they became fuller. Elsa even wore her high heels the entire time! Quite the princess! And everyone had so much fun that the fact that the girls forgot to wear their tiaras wasn’t realized by me until the end of the night and wasn’t realized by the girls until several days later.
The Tooth Fairy came to visit Avery! She lost her first tooth!! Her two bottom teeth were loose…one on the verge of falling out with her adult tooth coming in behind it. So when we were out Saturday night and she came running home from the Gladwells (during the ten minutes I had run home with Harper) with Justin because her tooth had just fallen out, I thought for sure it was the looser of the two teeth. Turns out it was not…and it had fallen out when she ran into a pillow…yes, a pillow…a hard one apparently! She was visibly upset at first but as the hour passed by, she was pretty proud of her accomplishment!
Sunday afternoon we had planned on going to a farm with a pumpkin patch, apple orchard, and petting zoo. When the weather was raining in the morning, we almost scratched that idea and went to the local Reston Farmer’s Market. Miraculously, the sun came out and the forecast said it was going to get up to 80 degrees so we decided to stick with our original plan and go to Homestead Farms in Maryland. It was a huge place with a large orchard, a petting zoo (including goats who walked above ground), a lake, a pumpkin patch, a tractor for hayrides, a general store, and a market. It really was a great place. Our experience wasn’t as carefree and appreciated as much as it should have or could have been. Emerson wasn’t impressed from the moment we got out of the car despite the fact that she could barely see the farms offerings from that vantage point and distance. We had to backtrack after being in the farm all the way out to the last row of the parking lot to get a wheelbarrow for our apples and pumpkins. It became hot…very HOT as in 90 degree hot very quickly and that isn’t something that was anticipated in mid-October! Then when we got deep into the orchard, Avery had to go to the bathroom and claimed she couldn’t hold it. Apple picking was over for Avery and me. Meanwhile on the way back to the porter potty (yes, I went in one a total of four times while we were there), the shoes I was wearing gave me the WORST blisters. I could barely walk. Finally, when Justin got back the girls picked out some pumpkins but I truly don’t think any of us were into it. While Justin was waiting in line to pay, I shopped in the market and got all my fresh vegetables for the week (kale, green peppers, poblano peppers, cherry tomatoes, orange tomatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans…oh yeah, and some snacks for the girls). Homestead Farms had the potential to be great, but unfortunately our attitudes took the amazing experience factor down slightly.
The girls experienced a NY hot dog! 
Then we leisurely strolled around the lake coming out by the Boat House and then walking through Central Park Zoo. I thought maybe we would go in, but that was before I realized it wasn’t a free zoo. We then made our way back towards the hotel stopping in Bloomingdales along the way for a bathroom break and then at Serendipity, where I thought the girls would get a kick out of having a massively beautiful milkshake, but apparently I wasn’t the only one with that same idea. It was 4:30 so I thought with the off time we would get in, but the amount of people waiting was so abundant that I didn’t even bother asking what the wait time was. The girls were disappointed, I promised we would find the girls ice cream somewhere else but as you know when you are specifically looking for something is the only time you can’t find it! We arrived at our hotel before we found ice cream so again the promise of ice cream was made for later. We actually wanted to fill the girls up on dessert since the place we had dinner reservations at later in the evening was truly an indulgence for Justin and I with very little on the menu that would be appealing to the girls. Once we arrived back at the hotel, we checked in our room. We were told the happy hour started in 5 minutes so we quickly unpacked so we could partake in the “free” happy hour. We downed a few glasses of wine and nuts before we freshened up and headed to our dinner reservations. Our dinner reservations were at Tolache on W. 50th. It was perfect because we got a chance to walk through Rockefeller Center and by Radio City Music Hall.
Dinner was good but Justin and I certainly didn’t enjoy it as much as we would have had it been just the two of us. The staff didn’t appear to be too keen on the fact that three of the five persons in the reservations were kids. While it certainly wasn’t a kid restaurant, there were a few others who also had kids so the fact that our waiter really didn’t even make an attempt to connect with us, was disappointing. They rushed us out the door…in seriously in less than an hour, we were done with dinner. The food itself was great and Emerson loved the flank steak, rice and beans.
We then walked to Madison Avenue Park on 23rd and the girls had fun playing on the playground.
After the girls played for a few, we headed to South Seaport. The girls each bought themselves a fidget spinner (the latest craze) from a street vendor (I negotiated 3 for $10) with their own money and they were ECSTATIC! Seriously, they were so excited to have their own fidget spinners. Honestly, I thought they would ask for something else since they still had birthday money remaining, but they were quite content with their purchase. Justin and I then grabbed an adult beverage (or two) at an outdoor bar while the girls played with their fidget spinners. We were sitting at a big picnic table in a cool location; weather was beautiful, and it was chill and awesome. Honestly, it was amazing. I’m sure the fact that I was buzzed after one beer had something to do with it, but it is moments like this with my family that I feel so content and happy. While we were hanging out there I got blessed by a Hasidic Jew. Emerson had previously called me out on it when I earlier said no thank you to a Hasidic Jew on the Brooklyn Bridge asking me if I was Jewish. (I thought he was trying to sell me something). Anyway, Emerson and I talked about it afterwards and she asked me if I would say I was Jewish the next time. Well the next time came when Justin was grabbing us beers. My Hebrew was so horrendous….I’m sure the Hasidic Jew boy with peach fuzz was internally laughing hysterically. By the way, the Hasidic Jew families with young kids are the cutest families ever. Anyway, after our drinks, we were going to scratch Battery Park but when the free bus was literally at our feet and the ride was less than 10 minutes away, we hopped on. Where we hopped off, we could see The Statue of Liberty from afar. We took a picture of it on the phone so Avery could see it. We honestly stayed there for less than 10 minutes but at least the girls could say they saw The Statue of Liberty. Justin had fun taking pictures of the girls. 
Justin and I equally enjoyed our bacon, egg, and cheese on a whole wheat everything and a cup of steaming hot coffee. We stopped at Buttercream Bakery on the way home for some dessert as I hadn’t yet indulged in any NY dessert. We got cupcakes to go…two for me….a pumpkin that I ate with the rest of my coffee when we got back to the hotel and a chocolate buttercream. Both were absolutely delicious. Russell picked us up at the hotel again, which was awesome, and then after a quick bathroom break at Russell and Mary’s house, we were back on the road. We made great time and even made it back in time for Avery and Emerson’s ballet class.