Christmas 2012

I love that we were able to slow down and stay in our pajamas until the afternoon spending good quality time together as a family on Christmas day.  The festivities started around 7:30am which was just fine with me.

Ready to open presents

Evelyn is our total girly girl and she is now in heaven with all her dolls and Barbies

 

Rachel and her cowgirl Sophia

 Elizabeth didn't give us any guidance on presents this year so we followed her "whatever".  Eric needs something that's not pink or girlish in the house, right?

 The aftermath of present opening

 The girls best gun poses before total warfare in the house--yes she got two Nerf guns

 Mother Nature even blessed us with a gift of a White Christmas snowing about two inches Christmas Eve night, such a beautiful sight to wake up to.

 We are so grateful for family, friends, and of course our Savior Jesus Christ who makes all things possible.

 Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from our family to yours.

Love, 

Eric, Alicia, Elizabeth, Rachel, & Evelyn Carlsen

Christmas Eve Celebrations

After birthday gifts and cheesecake we did our annual family Christmas piano recital and live nativity.

Our performers--Uncle Brent

 Rachel & me doing a duet

 Cousin Mike

 Elizabeth

 Our angel Rachel

 The angel with Mary & Joseph

 Such a loving mother

 The angel visiting shepherd Evelyn

Birthday Celebrations with Christmas Cheer

We love our Christmas Eve baby who is no longer a baby.  Can you believe Elizabeth's NINE now?  Eric and I had a fun try trying to finish her birthday present of painting her room on her birthday.  Needless to say, we finished it today and here is the before and after.

Goodbye purple

 Hello Pink

Elizabeth doesn't mind having Christmas Eve as her birthday because she has all day to celebrate her birthday and then two days of presents. 

Eating breakfast in bed with her "guest" Rachel

 

Eric made a delectable eggnog cheesecake for the evening celebration which was preceded by the traditional spaghetti & meatball dinner.

Presents

 

Just a few reasons why we love our Elizabeth

--Elizabeth is our little talker and the dinner table would definitely be boring without her
--She cares deeply about the rainforests and how we're slashing & burning them
--She is very theatrical and performed in her first play this month doing very well
--She is carefree and happy
--She loves to read and has been devouring books lately
--She is a great older sister and plays well with both Rachel and Evelyn
--She still thinks we're cool as parents giving us jumpy hugs and sitting on our laps; we'll take that as long as possible

 

Stop growing up our little girl but if you must stay sweet, caring, and happy!

Sunday Best

Today was the Christmas program at church and the girls were dressed in their Christmas Sunday best thanks to Grandma.

I was able to take part in the program in the choir and accompany two songs.  My favorite was this four hand piano with organ (we didn't have the flute) for Angels We Have Heard on High.  One word for it--majestic--so all my piano friends check it out.

Classroom Parties

There's something to be said being the youngest with older sisters in school--double the holiday parties to go to!  Plus there aren't many younger siblings in the classroom, and probably none as cute as Evelyn anyway, so they all just loved her.  Rachel's party was first with gingerbread men puppets and cookies.

 Elizabeth's class made gingerbread houses from graham crackers that I had helped hot glue together earlier in the week.  Elizabeth really loved having her sister there.

  This girl is such a ham sometimes and I am so grateful she has such a wonderful, loving, and fun teacher.

 

We are now officially off school for five weeks, hopefully they don't get too long and that we all come out alive and sane from the experience.

Last Minute Crafting

Forget about the stress free time I talked about in my last post, I've been going full steam almost all week.  Today I finally got around to some projects for Elizabeth's room that we're re-doing for her birthday and some Christmas hairbows--yes mom I did make matching ones for the girls' dresses.  From top to bottom are some styrofoam/fabric balls to hang from the ceiling, sunburst mirror made from paint sticks, Christmas hairbows, and a "clip" board to hang Elizabeth's drawings from. 

Hopefully I'll start & finish painting Elizabeth's room on her actual birthday (Monday!) and get everything all pretty with more pictures to follow.  Nothing like a little procrastination and deadlines to get things done!

Tis the Season for Christmas Parties

I was a party girl this weekend, what can I say?  Let me tell you as a self-diagnosed social introvert with a cold on top of everything, this past weekend wiped me out but was fun at the same time.

First up was an Ugly Christmas sweater party we were invited too.  Missed the memo on Christmas sweater when shopping at the thrift store but I made some bowties to add holiday cheer.  Another outfit for the adult dressup pile that seems to be growing.

Next up was the party I was in charge of--the ward Christmas party.  It seems I didn't botch up last year's enough to get it re-assigned to someone else but we (or rather just me since I didn't want to do another dinner) thought we'd change things up a little.  We had a "Snow Day" breakfast where families wore pajamas and sat on blankets since our ward doesn't fit in the tables and chairs in our stake center building.  For food we had breakfast burritos and pancakes, hot chocolate (with lids!), and fruit.  We had a short program filled with lots of talent with a few changes to the 12 Days of Christmas program found here.  We maybe had about 250 people show up and they said they had fun but I'm sure glad it's over and am not in charge next year.  Thankfully I had some wonderfully talented women help me with publicity, decorations, and food as it definitely wouldn't have happened without them.

 Isn't that backdrop pretty cool?  No, I didn't do it.

 The 3 Wise Men

Rachel had a solo on the xylophone, her first time playing the xylophone.  So surprised and happy that she picked it up without official music.

 

Taking pictures in the cutouts, Elizabeth was probably running around the church at this point since I was still busy cleaning up.

 

 And the last party of the weekend after a much needed nap in the afternoon was Eric's work party.  We got to ride one of these sweet things downtown.

It took us to a fancy restaurant in Larimer Square.  Eric and I agree that we just don't really like most fancy food.  A great steak (not found at the restaurant we went to) yes but not fancy olives, cheeses, etc. no. The redeeming quality was the work party needed some help to get over the minimum required for the room so we ordered a bunch of desserts and maybe a few drinks.  Actually, they didn't even have a good array of non-alcoholic drinks for us few non-drinkers.  Can you believe this fancy restaurant didn't have a blender to make us a margarita or daiquiri?  We were sitting in a room with wine bottles as wall decorations, maybe I should try that at home.   This is an almond cream soda that was pretty good.

 

And now I'm back to spending time with the girls at home and loving the non-stressful Christmas atmosphere and scenes like this.