December 2018

Well, we made it! Through another round of birthdays and through the holiday season. We love December around here! We love Christmas and celebrating the birth of our babies. It is a magical time! We spend the month doing tons of Christmas crafts, wrapping gifts, watching movies in front of the fire.

Eden and Everly got to have a ton of birthday celebrations this month! They got to go to American Girl Bistro to celebrate at the beginning of the month. They also got to have a birthday party at Top Play, a birthday celebration with brownies at their school and a birthday celebration at home complete with an individual cake: chocolate on chocolate for Eden and vanilla with pink icing for Everly.

 Their birthday party was "Candyland" themed. My friend, Robin made the cake! 

We also got to celebrate my mom's birthday while my aunt was in town. So much fun having her here for her birthday this year! 

We had so much Christmas fun before Christmas even arrived this year! Our elf, Jennie, has been having way too much fun around our house...

We have made countless gingerbread houses! 

Made infinite cookies and treats

We got to see Santa twice! The first time at Breakfast with Santa at Ellasen's school. 

The second time was at our neighborhood clubhouse. So much fun!

We always go look at the holiday lights at the botanical gardens in Atlanta at Christmas time. They were beautiful this year as always. The kids favorite is the miniature train display. 

The twins had a Christmas pagent at their school. They did such a good job! They sang "Jingle Bells" in Spanish and "Silent Night" in sign language. They sang a song while playing bells! 

Tim, Ellasen, my mom and I all went to the Nutcracker at the Fox Theater in Atlanta. It was a very different production than the classic traditional one I am used to, but Ellasen was entranced! And it was fun to get all dressed up! 

Tim and I have had a good month too! We went out to dinner with great friends to a South African restaurant. We tried ostrich! 

Tim flew to Vegas to give a talk to all the doctors of the MLB. He said it went really well! He also got to go to a Falcons game and basically sit on the field. 

I went to a neighborhood ladies Christmas exchange that was really fun too! 

Our Christmas celebrations was magical! We did all of our family traditions on Christmas Eve. We put out cookies and milk for Santa, put out reindeer food on the lawn, Ellasen read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and we went to bed early! 

Santa came overnight and spoiled our girls like crazy!

Ellasen got a ballet bar.

 Everly got a giant monkey.

 Eden got an Elsa castle

All the girls got a musical instrument and a girls' trip to Disney with mom! 

These girls couldn't wait to see what Santa brought! 

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After seeing what Santa brought we opened some family gifts. The girls loved picking out gifts for each other and all of them said they were so excited to see their family members open the gifts they carefully picked out!

After gifts it was time to get cooking! The food was amazing if I do say so myself! We had prime rib and everyone's favorite sides with a homemade chocolate chip salted caramel cheesecake for dessert.

After our amazing Christmas it was time to say goodbye to Grandma and hello to Michigan! We hopped on a plane with Nana to head north to celebrate my grandma and grandpa's 75th wedding anniversary! They were married Christmas Eve 75 years ago so we threw a huge bash to celebrate their liftime of love! The party was amazing and there was an incredible turnout. We were so glad to be there and I think they were overjoyed to see everyone there to toast their incredible journey!

My grandparents never had a wedding cake! We thought we would finally give them one! 

After the party, there was a pool party and sleepover with all the cousins and tons of time together with family. I'll post the second half of the photos from our trip in January since we were there into the new year.

 We also celebrated Christmas with my dad on this trip. He went to our favorite Italian market at ordered a bunch of our favorites. We exchanged gifts and played Charades with the kids. We had a great time!

Tim and I celebrated New Year's Eve with my brother and his girlfriend, Erin while my mom and aunt watched the kiddos. We had an amazing night drinking and dancing and saying goodbye to 2018 and hello to 2019! We are looking forward to an amazing year! We can't wait to see what 2019 has in store for us!

Here are a few more random pictures from this month...