Christmas in Review

I think we are going to recover from Christmas! :) The toys still have to find homes and older ones need to find new homes, but all in all I'm calling it a success! So what were the O'Connor's up to this holiday season? Here's a run down...

Christmas Eve:

We started with church at 4pm with my parents and Joann. We saw many friends and the girls were excellent! They were all looking forward to the end when the lights are turned off (leaving only the white Xmas lights) and Silent Night is sung.

After mass we were off to Rick's Aunt Carole's house to spend the evening with his family. If I counted correctly we had 30 people there- 9 of them kids!It's crazy and loud and fun and entertaining and- well- i could go on and on! After dinner the kids got to open presents, then the adults did the white elephant exchange and then we had a round of Christmas carols.

Then it was time to get these girls home to prep for Santa's visit~
New jammies from Grammy and Grandpa~ cookies and chocolate milk for Santa (which i was given a lot of grief over not having shape/gingerbread cookies- sigh).

We have our Magic Santa key to let Santa in our house since we don't have a chimney.

We hung our stockings (Maddie adds, "with care")
Then time for 3 tired little girls to head to bed- Maddie tells me- I'm going to have visions of sugarplums in my head mommy. (AWWWW!)

Christmas Day:

Santa visited and left lots of goodies- the girls greeting the morning a tad sleepy- but soon woke up and got into it.
Leapsters for everyone (handheld video games- perfect for car rides!)

After opening Santa presents and stockings we invite everyone over to our house for breakfast. It's become a tradition over these last few years and has been a great way for us to stay at home and relax a bit. Rick and I have the food prep down and Susie always brings a quiche from Marie Calendars.

This year we had my parents, Rick's mom and Aunt Susie and Joann over. We opened more gifts and had a great breakfast (which included mimosas for the adults!)

Emily and Joann

After breakfast everyone headed out and the girls got some time to enjoy their new treasures.

Christmas afternoon we go down to my parents house (2 blocks away) for dinner and presents from them. My sister and brother-in-law join us too!

The weather this year was not so good- we had rain and very high winds (the power teased us a few times) so we were happy to have a short distance to go.



Mom made an awesome lasagna for dinner complete with Christmas Crackers that Emily helped pass out:Phyllis and Jim came over with more presents and the girls were amazing through it all! Talk about present overload! LOL
The girls with Aunt Sara and Uncle Rich

We are so grateful for all our family and friends and their generosity this Christmas! We still have a couple more gift exchanges in store (including with Aunt Chelle and Uncle Mike when they return from their holiday travels!) but Christmas is for sure slowing down. They are a couple jammed packed days- but we wouldn't have it any other way!

We hope you had just as special a day and wish you all the best for 2009!

Love,

Rick, Christina, Emily, Ashely and Madeline

XOXOXO

Our Christmas Card picture

This was my favorite of all the group shots with us together like this- my favorite is still the one on the blog header- but that one doesn't scream Christmas card at me- I like that we are all together in this one and close.

I'm working on sorting through the over 200 pictures we took the last few days as well as digging out of wrapping paper and toys. The girls are in heaven and we are so grateful for everyone's generosity! I promise I will post more pictures soon!

Merry Christmas!

We are still digging out of the wrapping paper and toy tornado that hit our house this morning- its wonderful! Details and pictures to follow soon (we still have more celebrating to do!)- just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!

Another Dance for You!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

FFF- Visits with Santa~ HO HO HO!

We've had several encounters with Santa so far this season. I've posted pictures of most of them already but when Sarah chose Santa pictures for this weeks Favorite Foto Friday I decided to put the highlights together in one post.

Our first Santa encounter was Thanksgiving weekend in our neighborhood with our Police Dept. Santa...

Then we braved the wind and cold to see the Roger's gardens Santa in Newport with my parents, Sister and Brother In Law...And this week Santa visited the girls' classroom to deliver presents from their teacher who is out of town (her mom was their substitute teacher). I love having the girls at school with me because I get to catch moments like this... this is what I saw as I entered the classroom- talk about perfect timing! Ashley receiving her present...Emily receiving her present...Madeline receiving her present...My three girls and Santa! They then got to have doughnuts and milk as a reward for 100% PTA participation. Good times!I am now officially on vacation! 3 weeks of just being a mommy and enjoying my girls and the holidays! Our computer is up and running again though I've lost all my bookmarked websites/blogs and email contacts~ so if you haven't heard from me- its because I can't write to you! LOL

Please stop by Sarah's site to see more Santa pictures! The big guy will be here before we know it!!! Have a great weekend!

Jingle Bell Rock- Pre-K style!

The girls had their Winter Program at school today (well- my class did too). I must admit that this is an event I have been looking forward to since last year's program when i watched the pre-k perform and realized it would be my trio up there this year. The song choice this year was "Jingle Bell Rock". They have been practicing since Thanksgiving and every time it comes on the radio or the blog I get mini-performances (it's song #2 for those of you that don't stick around long) :)

Rick and Titi Joann were able to make the show this morning too and we were all so excited. Our first real school performance! I know its the first of MANY to follow- it was exciting, sad, funny and a whole bunch of emotions all rolled into one!Ashley gives a thumbs up! She's ready to go!

Ashley is on the end next to the boy playing the green guitar, madeline is dead center and Emily has a black guitar on the far end...

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

If you scroll down to the bottom of the page you can pause the music to watch the video.

We are still having rain and cold (for us!) temperatures. Rainy days are fun- but not rainy day schedule at school (ask any teacher- not students!)

Tree Trimming!

We have a new Christmas tree this year! our tree last year ended up in the trash (we had a good 8 year run with it) so we had to get a new one. Good 'ole Target came to the rescue once again! Rick and I set up the tree Friday night after the girls went to bed. They were so surprised when they came out in the morning to see it (I yelled "Surprise" because I was so excited too!) We got dressed and Rick brought in the container of ornaments and we started.... They were very gentle with the ornaments and this year spread them out a bit more (last year maddie hung all her ornaments on the same branch) and even pointed out bare branches to me.

Our new tree isn't as wide as our other so it was trial and error to see how many ornaments we could get on. We started with the important ones and then went from there. The girls loved hearing the stories behind all our ornaments, many have our names on them and they got to hang all their ornaments.

Maddie is getting to be so tall she could reach pretty high up on the tree!

Emily loved the Pooh and Tigger ornamanets... this one was a jack in the box Tigger.

Rick and I got to hang a few too...

I think the date on this one is 1983 (?) with my name on it...

This kept them busy for quite some time!

Towards the end Daddy helped with the high branches

Ashley got to put our Santa on top of the tree and I was informed by all 3 that a santa wasn't right- we are supposed to have a STAR on top- guess I'll hit an after Christmas sale and see what I can find for next year- i really like Santa- but I think he can be used elsewhere :)

So our tree is decorated, we've gone to see Santa, tomorrow is the Winter Program at school- yep: It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas!