Christmas 2009 / New Years 2010

I was really hoping that this year with the girls being a year older and understanding the whole "Santa" experience more that I would be able to tell everyone about how great our Christmas was this year.

The holidays started off great, we had the girls mini Christmas concert at their dance studio which was so cute. They had been practising for a few weeks and during those weeks the parents were not allowed to watch. It was suppose to be a surprise for us all. It was really sweet to see all these little girls dancing around for us while we took pictures and videotaped them to all the famous Christmas songs.

We also spent a day over the holidays at Auntie Nikki's house with all the girls cousin's. They always have such a great time together. The plan was to take all the kids skating and then head over to an indoor play ground. The play ground was a huge hit, whle the skating was not. One foot on the ice and both of them had a complete melt down. We'll have to give it a try again soon.

Olivia with her cousin Tori, aren't they adorable!!!!!!

Avery and cousin Sierra, so sweet!!

I just love spending time with all my family and I love watching all the kids play and be silly together. They are all growing up so fast. Yes that's a hampster in Avery's hand. She has been trying to convince me to get one. She has even mastered the puppy dog eyes at me.

Christmas Eve was even a blast with them. They were so excited about Santa coming that they were bouncing off the walls all day and night.

Around 7p.m both girls asked to go to bed which was a little strange seeing as it wasn't even close to being their bedtime. We thought that maybe they were just really excited and thought that the sooner they got to bed the sooner Santa would be here.

Around 6a.m came Avery into our bed saying that she wasn't feeling too good. Soon after Olivia joined her but did not want to go back to sleep. So Olivia and I headed downstairs and to my surprise she had no desire to open any presents that Santa had left. She preferred to lay on the couch and just look at them. After about an hour, I went to get Avery up to see if she was ready to get into her presents. She got up and was excited but once we got downstairs everything changed.

That was when all hell broke loose in the house! Both girls began vomiting and this continued on and off for about four hours.

These are the only good pictures I managed to get of them. All the rest, they have pretty sad faces.

Our little Bella was very tired by the end of opening presents. She played with every bow and piece of paper she could get her little paws on.

Things turned around by the next day. The girls both had runny noses but the vomiting and fevers were gone.

We kept up our tradition of taking the girls to Riverside park this year on New Years Eve. This year was much more exciting than last year. Not only did we ride the Merry Go Round, but Avery for the first time ever did it all by herself! Usually anytime we take the girls to a fair she always wants one of us to hold her. This year, I guess she decided she was ready to do it on her own, and she did. It was exciting for me because normally to get a picture of her one of us has to duck out of the way so it looks as if she's doing it by herself. BUt, this time she really is!!

We also stayed at the park a little late this year. Since they were feeling so much better we decided we would play in the playground and stay to see the fireworks.

New Years Day we headed over to Baka & Dida's house for dinner. We had missed Christmas dinner with them since the girls were sick. Here are the girls with their cousin Nicholas enjoying their favorite thing in the world, ice cream!!