Christmas Day

We enjoyed a relaxed and low-key Christmas Day with Dave's parents and later, John, Lauren, Madison and Olivia joined us for dinner.   

Alyse waves hello on Christmas morning.

What's this in my stocking?

Sure enough, Tessa's favorite thing in her stocking was the chocolate.  And she even claims it was her favorite Christmas gift!

Dominos!

Christmas morning hugs (or maybe tackles...)

Calder could not have been more excited about this T-Rex from Uncle John and Aunt Lauren.  It was definitely his favorite gift!

Techie girls.

Posing by the Christmas tree.  Moments earlier she had been munching on her shoes -- see the evidence?

Christmas cuties!

Sweet Olivia!

Alyse getting to know cousin Madison.

Alyse plays with her Christmas loot before bedtime.

Christmas Eve

We had a busy, fun-filled Christmas weekend in Pittsburgh! The weekend started off on Friday with a 70th birthday celebration for Dave's mom (no pictures, unfortunately!). On Saturday (Christmas Eve), Dave and I had tickets to the Steeler game. When we walked in, we were handed a scratch-off ticket with the chance to win a prize. I scratched mine off and saw that we had won 2 pre-game field passes! Since it was only 30 minutes before the game, we rushed over to the prize tent and they immediately escorted us down to the field where we got to hang out until kickoff. What a great experience!

On the field!

Polamalu before he let his hair down.

Brett Kiesel.  Dave was cursing the fact that he didn't wear his Kiesel jersey, because he ended up handing his warmup gloves to a guy standing right near us who was wearing his jersey!

We got to stand in the Terrible Towel lineup as the players ran onto the field.  Do you recognize that guy waving the Terrible Towel about 20 feet from us?  It's Buzz Aldrin!

Back at Dave's parent's house, Alyse made friends with Aunt Maria.

Before bed, the kids posed for a Christmas Eve photo by the tree.

And then they were treated to a few Christmas Eve presents!

Santa and Mrs. Claus

We had an amazing visit with Santa and Mrs. Claus this year. I really wasn't sure what to expect out of Tessa or Alyse, but they all did fantastic. Santa was awesome and spent a significant amount of time talking to both Calder and Tessa. It was by far the best Santa visit ever!

Tessa observed that Mrs. Claus was sparkly and Santa was soft.

Happy kids

Santa was telling jokes about dinosaurs!

Sooo excited about the little elf that he got.

Tessa hopped down to try out the little rocking horse.  It was sooo cute.  Seriously...right out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

After their turn was over and we were walking away, Tessa realized she never actually got to sit in Santa's lap.  So she ran back and jumped in his lap for one quick hug.

All Over the Floor

Tessa yelled to me from the bathroom the other day "Mommy! There's pee all over the floor!" You can imagine what was going through my head as I high-tailed it over there. Fortunately, she was wrong about the "pee" part...but she wasn't wrong about the "all over the floor" part!

Cousins!

We were really happy to be able to spend several weeks with my brother and his family in November and December (as well as my mom for 2 weeks).  Here are some of the highlights.

Tessa and Jaiden get reacquainted

Bike Parade

Picnic lunch on a warm November day!

Jumping in leaves!

Tessa excitedly reported that she and Sandhya had the same shirt and the same hair (curls).

Twins Rohan and Jaya!

Does that taste good?

Alyse is excited to see Jaya crawl!

Tell me how you did that!?

Two peas in a pod.  These two picked up right where they left off and played so well together. 

All seven cousins!

Alyse gets to know Aunt Vandana

Bedtime snuggles with Jaya

Jaiden, Rohan, Tessa and Jaya

Calder and Sandhya enjoyed playing games together!

Making Christmas tree desserts.

Hugs from Sandhya!

The three babes

Teething anyone?

Alyse finally started warming up to my mom after almost 2 weeks!  (She is going through a huge "mommy" phase right now.

Ready and excited for sleepover #1!  They are wearing their fuzzy "sleepover socks" that my mom got for them.

Hmm...only half of the duo looks ready to sleep.

They were so excited about the sleeping bags...but they did not last long.  They had both climbed into bed within 5 minutes of me leaving them.  (But it took a bit longer than 5 minutes for them to fall asleep!)  Calder fell asleep with Sandhya's socks on his hands! 

Sandhya's pretty cake!

The birthday girls.  My cousin Jennifer came down for a weekend.  Their birthdays are one day apart.

They had a lot of fun with Jennifer!