Cantrell Christmas

Yes...it IS February and yes, I am just now posting about Christmas. Now that that's out of the way, here's a recap about Christmas.

I figured the Christmas holiday probably needed it's own post. It seems like there was so much goin on yet we managed to make a lot of time for family and making memories.

At the very beginning of December, Ellie made her return this year. Ellie is our elf that Santa sent Hayden last year.   Her job was to teach Ellie how to listen and be a good girl elf.  This year, Ellie just wanted to come back and visit. She behaved most of the time but still had a little fun, creating chaos a whole lot less than last year (quite possibly because Ethan and I were more busy this year??? ) Hayden enjoyed waking up each morning to see if Ellie had moved though, and did her best to teach Abbie to leave Ellie alone. Abbie just wanted to hold and snuggle with Ellie.

We ended up having a few snow days, too, before our winter break!

Christmas events started with the McReynolds coming over on Christmas Eve to share presents.  Hayden got to help hand out the gifts and Abbie quickly learned about the excitement of opening presents.  The McReynolds are soo good to us and we are sooo thankful that they have adopted us (even if it IS only for our girls, haha) and have treated us like family. Papa Ronnie and Grandma Rhonda are definitely a big part of our lives.

The girls got matching Hello Kitty pajamas

We managed to get Hayden to sleep, still excited about Santa coming. We had made reindeer food and cookies. Set out the magic key for Santa and made sure Ellie was ready to catch a ride with Santa back to the North Pole.   After she fell asleep, we did what I'm am hoping most parents do....we stayed up wrapping presents.  Thankfully most of the gifts were already wrapped but it still seemed to be never ending.  Ethan arranged the girls' gifts and we finally made it to sleep, wondering how early Hayden would wake up. Thankfully, her eagerness for Santa's gifts didn't overcome her desire to sleep. Hopefully we have at least one more year.  Christmas morning Abbie woke us up so we then worked to get Hayden up (she's not a morning person) but once she was up and realized what day it was she was ecstatic.

This was the first year we got to spend all of Christmas Day at home and it truly was wonderful.  The girls got to spend time sharing their new toys and we stayed in our pajamas all day, keeping it as low key as we could.   Hayden's favorite gifts were: Doc McStuffins Clinic, Disney Princess stuffed dolls, a LalaLoopsy doll set.   Abbie seemed to love everything, especially if Hayden had it!  Really though, some of her favorites were a ride on car, a light-up musical phone, and some new plates and forks.

Not quite sure she saw how fun plates could be

Her Disney princesses were a HUGE hit

Hayden and Daddy got girl LEGOs!

The girls got an addition to their pop-up castle

The next day we packed everyone up and headed to the farm. Well the dogs got to stay at the kennel, they're 2nd favorite home.  This was possibly the first year that we were the last of "the girls" to make it to the farm.  It would be an understatement to say all the grand-kids were excited to see each other.  Mom had made lunch and it was good to just hang out with everyone.  Of course we opened presents, the kids were chomping at the bit to get to the presents.   Gabriel and Abbie played and played (kinda together? hah) with Abbie's new big red car with music and shapes and balls.  it really was too small for the both of them but they made it work.  Hayden and Talyn, as usual, were off together playing for the rest of the day.







The kids stayed at the farm while Ethan and I made the trip up to the KC area to visit with the Naylor's. It was great to have a couple of days with no agenda but we were excited to get back to the girls and make our way home again.   Thankfully, we had already cleaned up all the Christmas decor before we left so it was nice to come home to a clean house.  Of course, it didn't take long for the evidence of our Christmas trip to explode all over the house -- the kids needing to reexamine all their new gifts, laundry x4 and dogs that were looking for attention.

So I'd call Christmas 2013 a great success.  A lot of family time and memories.  That's what it's all about, right?