Christmas Crafts

What started off as a fun Christmas Eve craft project building a cool Cinderella carriage while Santa's elves were busy preparing for the big day turned into a 5 hour ordeal.  While Holly had a lot lot lot of fun and stayed totally engaged participating for at least the first two hours pour Tanta Kat was tormented by confusing instructions, backwards facing pieces and a puzzle of sorts where the pieces all fell apart as soon as they got put together.  If we end up salvaging and keeping the project Daddy will have to shop for some type of spray on adhesive glue that would dry and keep the whole thing together and maybe the paint would help too.  Regardless it was suoer fun having Kat spend the day today, lasagna for dinner and Christmas anticipation.  Looking forward to Santa coming tonight!

Playmate play date

Now that Lyra is three weeks old and awake a little more then usual we decided to try out her playmat.  Holly said Lyra was an under the sea mermaid :-) we didn't have all the regular dangly toys so holly decided to improvise with tree ornaments - Lyra liked that as she enjoys looking at the tree and liked the jingle bells.  Holly also said she was on a special play date with Lyra.

Lyra actually really enjoyed her tummy time, something Holly hated as a baby.  Lyra was content to lay on her belly and do pre crawling leg movements while her big duster gave her kisses and cuddles.  They had fun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB_ZN6Ppo9s

Decorating the Tree

We had so much fun decorating the tree

But first out of the box was Holly's Nutcracker. 

She had just come home from seeing the show and was in the Chtistmas Spirit

Dancing around like she was Clara 

But after going through the box we started with the lights

Holly helped by further digging through the box finding a bell necklace 

We decided to go with blue and white lights so here is stage 1

Then we started with the beads

Instead of tinsel we use these multi colored necklaces

Holly loves them.  At first they look messy

But by the end of it they are very pretty and colorful 

The ornaments were so fun this year.  We have so many that we had to pick and choose.

The year holly was three we got a ton of non breakable foam and plastic ones 

But this year we skipped all of those for the more special delicate ones 

Holly was so careful in her placement and decoration.

But I had to remind her each time to place the hoop strings deep on the branch so they wouldn't fall.

Sadly she did drop her Cinderella but the grannies glued her back together.

Holly enjoyed picking out which ones to use 

Handing them off to Daddy, Granny, or Nana if she decided they needed to go up high

She was super involved and basically did the whole tree

Mommy watched with Baby Lyra

And provided done direction and pointed out gaps.

There are lots of princesses on our tree 

Soon it was time for the star, we have had this star since college

Holly wanted to place it on her own 

She tried 

Then she got on her chair and tried 

Then she had daddy support her and tried

But alas she could not reach

She was very determined 

But alas she needed another strategy

So she climbed down and thought about a new approach 

Asking her trusty nutcracker for advice she had an idea 

She would climb up on daddies shoulders

But alas she was still not tall enough

She kept telling daddy to get closer 

And closer

Daddy joked that he would eat the tree as a snack

Chomp chomp

But in the end it was a three person operation 

With grannies helping arms she was able to reach just far enough 

Then up onto the top the star went

Sucess!

I love how the blue glows and reflects on the ceiling

Then it was time to enjoy the fruits of all her labor

And together with Baby sister Lyra, Holly sat and enjoyed the tree 

My two girls did a great job posing 

Holly is so sweet and loves her little sister so much

She likes to hold her, give her kisses and hugs and lots of cuddles.

Decorating this year was super fast

Having four helpers makes a big difference 

I'm sure putting it all away on our own will be less fun

Holly was already asking when Santa was coming.

This might be the earliest in December that we have ever gotten our tree up!

I think baby Lyra like the lights

I know her Big sister did!