Our Fiesta of Five: Christmas 2013

I always look forward to the holidays, it is probably my very favorite time of the year followed closely by the summer. But this year, it was our first as a complete family of 5 and I was even more excited for them! With Thanksgiving being so late we were able to decorate the house right after and I like doing that anyways, but this time Alex was on board too!

As I said in the Halloween post, we really get the most out of the holidays now that we have kids. We spend all month celebrating in different ways. We drove around our neighborhood in our PJ's seeing the lights while drinking hot chocolate. We listen to Christmas music non-stop, watch Christmas movies and read Christmas books before bed.

This year is the first year we thought Avery was old enough to get the concept of the Elf on the Shelf. So Leah the Elf arrived at our house on Dec 1st and we all had a lot of fun with her. She asked us to donate toys to make room for the ones Santa would bring them if they were good, then she wound up in some funny places over the month...

Annual Newport Beach Boat Parade Party at Grandma Pat and Grandpa Al's on Lido Island

Seeing the Christmas Lights!

We played in the snow at Legoland with daddy

Grady's first Christmas and visit with Santa!

Avery's preschool had a Holiday Performance and all the 3 year olds sang Christmas songs together. It was adorable!!

Avery is boy crazy already! But at least she has excellent taste ;)

We had many holiday-themed play dates as well as a big Christmas party in which we rented a community room, had games and crafts, everyone brought food and Santa came to bring all the kids toys. It was awesome! Our playgroup leader Sara, really out did herself this year!

Christmas Eve was spent at Oma's with my family and the girls were spoiled. It was great getting our kids together with their cousin Penny and my cousins 3 kids, Anthony, Hailey and Steven.

At home on Christmas Eve we put cookies and milk out for Santa and carrots out for the reindeer then sent the kids to bed and Santa's "elves" went to work!

In the morning, we had to wake the girls (for once!) as we couldn't wait for them to see what Santa had brought them.

Avery got a bike (Harper testing it out)

Harper got a scooter thing (Avery testing it out)

As requested from Santa, Avery also got a "long purple dress"

After breaking in the new toys and having some breakfast, we got dressed and packed the kids in the car to head to Yaya and Papa's house for some more goodies and presents.

Then we headed on to Lido to have Christmas dinner with The Klingensmiths.