Christmas 2010

We spent this past Christmas at home in Vegas. Kirk had 3 of the 5 days off work both the week of Christmas and New Years. We loved having him around so much. He was so patient with me and the girls and a huge help with cleaning and cooking. We mostly just relaxed and spent time together as a family as you can see in this picture of the girls "taking a nap" on dad.

We went to Bass Pro Shop on the 23rd and wrote letters Santa.You can tell from the letters that the girls took the task of writing Santa very seriously

 Christmas Eve we went to the strip to see the Beligio gardens. To say it was crowded is an enormous understatement. The gardens were amazing and it was fun to see the water show "dance" to Christmas music (Kirsten kept saying "water dance" through the show).

 The girls were super excited to be on the strip and not the least bit overwhelmed by all the people. Kirsten picked out her own fancy dress for Christmas Eve. Pretty cute.

 Our cute family Christmas Eve 2010 in the Beligio lobby.

 We walked over to the new Cosmopolitan. It was pretty amazing. In this picture the girls(and Ariel) are lounging next to the outdoor pool overlooking the strip about 4 stories up.

 The third floor had a game area with a pool table and board games. If it wasn't so crowded we would have spent a good amount of time there. The hotel had a very modern vintage feel. Like these chairs, for example. They even had the perfect place for Ariel to sit.

 We came home and made our Christmas Eve dinner. Ham, twice baked potatoes, rolls, green salad, and sparkling cider. I'm just gonna say Kirk and I can cook a very yummy yummy meal!

 The girls loved that we ate by candlelight. It was totally fun.

 After dinner we decorated our gingerbread village. The girls were very precise when it came to putting the candy on the house.

 

 Sampling the decorations was definitely encouraged.

 We were pretty proud of our results.

 Then we bathed the girls and headed back downstairs to read the nativity story (from a kid friendly book) and for them to open their new pjs. They got their very first night gowns and were thrilled to have disney princess's on them. We then spent the next 45 minutes dancing around the house to Christmas music. It was a ton of fun. Audrey's was a couple sizes too big so she kept tripping on it all night long and would burst into giggles every time. It was so adorable. By the end of the night she went back to her hop along crawl she mastered so well.

  The girls each opened a book too.

 

 Santa came!The girls must have been very good!

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I have the cutest video of the girls walking into the room but I can't get it to upload, bummer.
Audrey got a little people doll house. And a vacuum (she is terrified of our vacuum so Santa thought maybe if he brought her one she wouldn't be so scared). She looked at the dollhouse then spent the next hour pushing around the vacuum!

Kirsten loved the little people princess castle Santa brought her and carried her princess around with her the entire next day.

 Santa also brought Kirsten this beautiful dress. She loves to twirl in it.

 Audrey was very grateful Santa thought to leave a lollipop in her stocking.

The car was defintely the biggest hit. The girls had a blast driving in it all day. It isn't quite big enough for both girls to ride together but that didn't stop them from doing it anyway. Someone was always hanging halfway out of the car because they couldn't stand the thoughts of only letting one girl use it at a time.

 

I got Kirk and iphone for Christmas. I wanted to surprise him but it didn't quite work out that way and we got phones a week or so before Christmas. Iphones are by far the coolest most fun things we have ever owned. We practically don't even need our computers anymore. Kirk also bought me a painting I love and a back pack to carry the kiddos in when we go hiking. 

 

 After a day full of video chatting and leftovers we rented some movies and watched them on our big screen, the projector. The girls thought a movie night was a pretty cool thing and spent most of the movie standing next to the screen pointing at it.

Merry Christmas!