Christmas, New Years Norah's Birthday and Visitors

Abe's friend Rob decided last minute to drive from England and spend Christmas with us. It was a very low key and relaxing week. The girls were so excited for Christmas to come and they are at the perfect ages to feel the magic of Christmas! The Sunday before Christmas, Adeline approached our friends daughter who was in town for the Holidays. Adeline loves her and was excited to see her. Katy had asked Adeline if she was excited for Christmas. Adeline told her "yes", but then said, "Can I tell you a secret? I found all my Christmas presents in the basement!" Katy prompted Adeline to tell her what she had seen and what she was getting for Christmas and then later told Abe and I. Stressful! Luckily most of the things Adeline saw were little and were intended for their stockings. I ended up individually wrapping them all and saying they were from us. I still wonder though if she had seen some of the bigger stuff that were in boxes.... That sneaky little thing!

Christmas Eve we went to our friends house (the Peterson's) and had a yummy steak dinner. All the food was so delicious and it was good company. Of course I forgot to take pictures!

Christmas Eve, the girls opened up their traditional jammies. It was extremely hard to find cute pajamas for Meika. Poor little thing ended up with Leopard PJs. those were the cutest ones I could find. It was either that or minnie mouse. Yikes.







The girls left out cookies and milk. Adeline also left a present out for Santa.



Seriously, such a sweet girl



Santa came!



I was a really big slacker and hardly took any pictures on Christmas. Whoops.











On Christmas night, we had a couple families over for a casual dinner and hang out. It was a fun time, but of course this is the only picture I took?



It was really nice to spend Christmas with good friends. Being in the military, we rely a lot on our "military family" and "church family". I am always homesick during the Holidays, but it makes it so much better when we are spending it with good friends!

After Rob left, our good friends the Huber's came and stayed with us from England. My girls had been practically counting down the days for them to come! It was nice being able to celebrate New Years, Norah's birthday and just hang out with them.

At about midnight, the night before Norah's birthday, I decided I wanted to transform the Christmas tree into a birthday tree. Derek, Abe and Brooke were good sports helping me blow up the tiny balloons and decorate the tree. Norah was really excited about it when she woke up.



We started Norah's birthday off with our traditional birthday pancakes. She requested purple pancakes this year!







That evening, we did birthday cake and presents. Norah had originally requested a star birthday cake. I thought I had a star cut out, but turns out that I didn't she was a good sport. She agreed on a heart cake instead.







The birthday crew of kids. Sadly, this is the ONLY picture I took that has all the kids in it!









Before bedtime, we met up with two more families and did some fireworks and sparklers. Norah is pretty lucky to get fireworks on her birthday!



New Years Eve for the adults was kind of a bust. We watched a really dumb movie, fell asleep and then woke up saying, "Happy New Year" and hit the sack. Sorry Brooke and Derek that we are so lame. We need to make more of an effort to make it fun!

Unfortunately, Norah's birthday was kind of an afterthought. I felt pretty bad about it. We decided kind of last minute to go to Aquana (a small indoor water park) to celebrate. We hustled up two other families that are good friends and met at the water park. Norah had a blast and in her eyes had a fun "birthday party". That's all the matters!! I'm glad that she had fun. Maybe next year she can have an actual birthday party where we invite all her friends and it will be organized!

Sadly, once again, this is the ONLY picture I took swimming. We did take a ton of video though that I am planning on compiling and making a cute birthday video. Stay tuned :)




While the Hubers were visiting, we also went to Koln and Aachen. I love seeing those cities again and again. We also went on a couple of walks and the kids enjoyed just being together and playing. It makes me sad that we may not see them again before we leave for the States. Hopefully I am wrong!!



Chloe is also missing the Hubers. She got lots of extra attention from Blake!