Christmas 2015

Christmas seems to be a six week event with our family!  We always kick off the holiday season by attending the Festival of Trees.  This kids  love picking out a favorite tree, eating gingerbread cookies (lots of icing please!), and riding the train.  Although that last one has sadly become a tradition for only Ethan - Olivia has declared  herself to be too old for the train!

We decided to pick our own tree from Bomke's Tree Farm this year.  Despite the mud, we had a wonderful time and this will become a new tradition for us!

Ethan decorating the tree with his new ornament - Bacon!

The selfie stick comes in handy for a family picture in front of the decorated tree.

And of course we decorated the Star Wars tree.

Another tradition resumed - a girls trip to see the Nutcracker.  We missed this last year due to our vacation to NYC.

We made a gingerbread village this year.

Fun at the annual Baima Christmas party.

Putting together a Christmas puzzle during dinner.  It didn't help that the puzzle was missing 5 pieces!

The kids dressed in their Christmas outfits before the church Christmas program.

Another picture compliments of the selfie stick!

Both kids had speaking and singing solos during the church Christmas program.

Another new tradition - Luminaria night at the Dana Thomas House!  Beautiful!

Cookie making.

And cookie decorating!  We do not always do traditional Christmas cookies - this year we made some cookies in the shape of a T-Rex, and took artistic liberty with decorating.  An upside down tree became a bunch of grapes, a bell became Darth Vader's helmet, a snowflake became a ninja star, and the winner was an upside down snowman that became a "lady who lunches".

Christmas Eve.  Although Olivia no longer believes in Santa, she did agree to write a letter to him and help with the cookies and milk job.  The sad thing this year was that there was no visit to Santa - Olivia has outgrown it and Ethan did not want to sit on his lap.  After 11 years of Santa visits, this was very sad for me.

Christmas morning!  And, yes, we have matching Star Wars Christmas PJs.  This was simply to be silly.  The kids knew that they had matching PJs, but they did  not know that Joe and I also had the PJs until they woke up the next morning!  The laughter woke up the household.

The aftermath of present opening.

Olivia very proudly showing off her Ugg boots.

Ethan with a Rudolph sucker and, yes, a Fart Piano (I thought it seemed like a good idea at the time!).

Grandpa teaching Olivia how to make the traditional fettucini alfredo.

Olivia and cousin Michael being bow twins.

And Ethan with cousin Nathan being Ugg boot twins.  Olivia was not happy with this!

The cousins on a Christmas day hike.  It was 60* outside!

We had Christmas #2 with Joe's family two days after Christmas.  Olivia is very happy with her Beats headphones.

And Ethan loves his new stuffed animal sloth named Steve.

We spent the day with Joe's family going to the Fox Theater to see Wicked.  It was wonderful!

Joe's mom was able to get us perfect box seats for the performance.  It is so much fun to sit in these seats!

The kids think that the desserts are the best part of box seats - a huge hot fudge sundae and mile high cotton candy with chocolates underneath.