Christmas Morning Take One

Since we're heading out to CA tomorrow (12/16) to spend Christmas and New Years in San Francisco with our families, we decided to do our own little Christmas here in NJ with the girls so that we could open presents that were too big to travel.

Ella was so excited to make and leave out cookies for Santa the night before and then ran right up to bed. But then she started whimpering in her room and said that she was afraid Santa was going to come in to her room. I had to laugh because my friend, Karen, told me that when she was little she flipped out when she thought Santa came into her room and I think her exact words were, "I don't want a fat man in a red suit to come into my room. Keep him out!".

Cookies for Santa (and carrots for the reindeer)

Ella checking to see if Santa had eaten his cookies

Opening presents

Papa and Abuela bought Sofia a Fisher-Price Smart Bounce and Spin Pony. Sofia LOVES it. She just periodically mounts it throughout the day, gives it a couple bounces and then continues doing what she was doing. Ella loves it too and luckily for her I called Fisher-Price to find out the weight limit, and Ella is well under it...although I'm thinking their combined weight is NOT under it.

We got Ella the Fisher-Price Loving Family Twin Time Dollhouse. She was in heaven and played for hours in her room.

I think what impressed me the most about the day was how well the girls shared with each other and how Ella was truly excited for Sofia and the gifts she received.

Lucky girls get to celebrate not only Christmas AND Hanukkah but this year they get 2 Christmases and Hanukkah!

Christmas Party for the Adults!

This past Friday was Ricardo's work Christmas Party. We almost didn't go because Sofia has been sick, but we decided to go last minute and I'm glad we did as Sofia was down for the night by 6:30pm and pretty much slept through.

With the hubby

Some of the gang-Lisa, Mario, and Gregory

With Karen

Future Politician

End of the night with Karen and Nicole

It was really a great evening!

Saturday morning we did our family NJ Christmas since we will be in CA for Christmas. It was such a fun morning. I'll post pictures in the next post because I'm having a hard time getting my pictures to format correctly.

Blogger Issues...again

Is anyone one else who blogs on blogspot having issues with their pictures?

I've been trying to load up some pictures from this weekend and while I can get them to load, when I try to place them in my post (vs. just at the top of the post where they show up when loaded) I lose them...anyone else having this problem?

I can't tell if it's just because I'm using an older laptop of Ricardo's or if it's a blogger issue.

BTW, my laptop bit the dust and will now spend the next 2-3 weeks at Dell getting a new hard drive and being re-imaged. Thank goodness it was still under warranty.

School Happenings

One of the things that I love about Ella's school is that they email out pictures on a weekly basis. It's really fun to catch a glimpse into the day to day happenings and to see what she's up to when I'm not around. Here are some of the recent pictures of Ella at school:

They do a lot of cooking (which happens to be one of Ella's favorite things to do)

Playing with water with Hannah
Petting a rabbit with Nature Mark (she's also pet a toad and a turtle on different visits)
Shabbat Girl
building-always building

These past couple of weeks the kids learned all about trains and then painted their own train cars and even made their own tickets to get on the train. Yesterday they all went on a train ride around the school.

Getting ready to board the train
Does everybody have their tickets?

Choo choo!
A fun ride for all

So much fun!

Home for the Holidays

Saturday night was our town's Annual "Home For The Holidays" parade.

It was a really nice night for the parade-about 35 degrees and no wind. Last year it was in the low 20's but it was super windy so with the windchill it was in the teens! Since Sofia was just a newborn we opted to skip it, which made us sad, because Ella loved it so much the year before, so we were really happy that the weather was decent this year. We're extra lucky because today has been freezing, with very high winds and a low tonight of 16 degrees (2 degrees with the windchill).

We met Ramin, Diana, Natalie, and Jeremy at The Iron Horse before the parade for dinner and then walked outside to enjoy the parade right in front of the restaurant. Both girls just loved it and Ella was so excited to see Santa-even though he didn't throw out candy this year... you know the economy is bad when even Santa is cutting back!

This is a horrible picture but I was trying to show how packed it was. We were towards the end of the parade and there was just a sea of people all the way down Westwood Ave. It was really cool!

Westwood Parade is the big time now-We've got floats!
An attempt at a picture with Ella. She was way too in to the parade to look at a camera!

Poor Sofia and Jeremy looked like Ralphie from "A Christmas Story"
Ralphie and Daddy

We tried to get a picture of Ella and Natalie but we couldn't get them to look at the camera at the same time. Diana might have a decent picture on her camera, but I got nothing!

Ella enjoying the parade
Doesn't Sofia look miserable here?
Then she saw Santa!

It was really a great time and something I really love about our town. Now we just have to wait to find out what night Santa come down our street on top of the fire truck. I think my favorite part is the loudspeaker announcing "Santi Clauus is coming, Santi Clauus is coming!"

This morning we decided to make sugar cookies for our wonderful neighbors and mailman. Holy cow! Sugar cookies are so time consuming and even though you put in a ton of effort, they still come out looking horrible. But, like our gingerbread house, it was fun, and Ella had a blast making them and bringing them to our neighbors houses and our neighbors enjoyed receiving them. :)

Rolling the dough
Making the cut outs

Coloring the frosting

Decorating her cookie
The finished product

I know I keep saying this, but it's been so fun celebrating holidays with Ella this year. She's so in to them.

I had to laugh tonight though while reading Ella her Hanukkah books tonight....so this is America.

Another Birthday Party....Carli's 4th

Saturday was a very busy and fun day for us-specifically Ella.

The morning started off with gymnastics at 10 am. Ella loves gymnastics! It's so fun to watch her too. Yesterday she actually held on to the lower parallel bar and brought her feet up on the bar as well. Cool.

In the afternoon, she had a birthday party for her friend, and classmate, Carli. Carli also takes gymnastics but at a different studio up in Orangeburg, NY. She had her birthday there and wow, what a great gymnastics studio and a cool place for a birthday.

It's surprising to me that even at 3, Ella is already self conscious and aware of when she's "different" than other kids. When I told her Carli's party was at a gymnastics studio, Ella insisted on wearing one of her leotards. When we got there, only Carli and one other girl was wearing a leotard-the other 25 kids were not. Ella looked around and then ran off the floor and insisted that I put her sweats on. I asked if the bottoms were enough but she insisted on the top as well and she wanted it zipped to the very top. I was hoping I could shelter her from those feelings for just a little bit longer...

We had the whole place to ourselves!
Can you guess where Ella spent the majority of her time? Yes, the giant bouncy slide.
With Hannah (I cropped you out Lori!)

Having a great time.
Gymnastics

And my favorite, Ella's unassisted SOMMERSAULT. How dare you call it a log roll!

In the evening, we went out to dinner and to Westwood's "Home For The Holidays" parade with Diana, Ramin, Natalie, and Jeremy but that will be the next post.