Christmas Day

Christmas this year was filled with joy and anticipation and was everything we could have asked for.  After a fun evening spent with my mom's side of the family at my cousin's house on Christmas Eve, we put Ella to bed and played Santa's helpers getting ready for the next morning.  Ella was so excited to see Santa had visited when she woke up and came downstairs Christmas morning.  She had asked Santa for a pink baby doll (a baby wearing pink) and a princess doll.  Santa delivered and she was one happy little girl!

Christmas Eve with Ella's second cousins, Tanner and Sophia:

 Our family room Christmas morning:

 Seeing her new princess castle that Santa brought...

 After breakfast as a family (Trader Joe's chocolate croissants - my newest obsession), we headed up to my parent's house for more presents with my family, a delicious dinner, and our traditional white elephant gift exchange with my dad's side of the family who joined us in the afternoon.

 Ella loved petting Uncle David and Uncle Tom's beards :).

Our families know Ella well, as she received seven new baby and princess dolls over three days! 

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year...

I LOVE this time of year, and seeing it all through Ella's eyes as she's starting to understand it all is just that much better.  We've packed a lot into the month of December and I haven't had a chance to post it all.  So this post is longer than I intended with pictures, but I wanted to remember some of the fun things we've done with Ella this year, some traditions we've kept, and some of the new ones we've started. 

 The bottom branches of our Christmas tree all look similar to the one below...4 or 5 ornaments piled onto one branch, thanks to Ella's decorating skills.  I love it :).

 Ready for a night out of dinner, Christmas shopping, and Snowflake Lane with mom and dad...

Snowflake Lane in Bellevue:

 A trip to Molbaks with Grandma and Grandpa. Love Molbaks at Christmas!

Making Ella's first gingerbread house...

Cody and I got to go on a fabulous Christmas date night - dinner at Daniel's followed by seeing Elf at the 5th Avenue - LOVED it...

 ...while Ella got to spend the evening with Grandma and Grandpa.

One of my favorite memories this Christmas season is when we put Ella down for bed, then went in a little later and got her up to surprise her with a night out having hot chocolate and looking at Christmas lights in jammies! Ready for Christmas light gazing...

A stop at Starbucks for hot chocolate...
 
 We found this great house in Issaquah that coordinates their lights to music that you can hear on a radio station.

Ella joined me for my class party at school.  She was in heaven with all the attention from my 1st graders and was hamming it up every time somebody took a picture with a big "cheeeeeese!"

We made a chilly trip to the Cougar Mountain Zoo with Alison and Nathan for their annual Reindeer Festival.  The kids got to see all of Santa's reindeer and feed them apples...

Helping mommy make sugar cookies.  Ella definitely ate more frosting than made it on her cookies...

 We went to WildLights at the Woodland Park Zoo with the Magnussons.  It was the first year the zoo put it on and it was a bit underwhelming.  Still fun to enjoy a festive night out with friends though!

 We went into Seattle with my whole family for dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory (a tradition my family grew up doing), a ride on the carousel, and a viewing of the incredible gingerbread houses at the Sheraton hotel...

Love the picture below :). I'm not sure who enjoyed the carousel ride more: Auntie Emily, Grandpa, or Ella?

 Our worn out girl by the end of the night...