Christmas, Carol Stream, Christmas, Christmas and Snow

Santa was extra nice to the Szolusha household this year. Christmas morning we woke up and opened our stockings. We enjoyed some yummy french toast and lattes before starting the main affair. 

Axel, as last year, had to read and play with each present before opening the next. He was able to open all of his gifts in two hours this year.

Phoenix was not interested at all, but had fun playing with our old toys while mommy and Axel opened her presents. Daddy did manage to put her new helmet on, which fit perfectly.

Here Axel helped me open my special gift. Daddy got mommy new diamond earrings!!! They are absolutely gorgeous and exactly what I wanted. I had been wearing ones that Grandma Sonia and Grandpa Bruce got me 17 years ago until one finally fell out when I was taking off my helmet at work (or so I think). The posts wore after that many years since I wore the earrings almost every day for 17 years! I was sad to see one get lost, but super excited that the replacement earrings that daddy purchased me were more my size for every day earrings now. I haven't taken them off but to clean them!

Santa brought Axel the 100 piece magnatiles. He absolutely loves them. I can't believe at how creative he is. Some of the creations he builds are remarkable. I will have to start getting photos of them.

Santa brought Louis a new harness and lots of yummy bones. Now that Louis is an old man, 11 years old, this is him excited! (just kidding)

My Aunt Susan got the kids these really cool cards that are ornaments that you put together. Axel enjoyed doing both his and Pheeny's.

After the opening of gifts the kids played while we did laundry and packed for our trip to Chicago land.

Grandma and Grandpa picked us up at the airport. It was pretty late so I put Phoenix down to sleep, but Axel was too excited to go to bed right away. First stop was a mini snow ball fight in the front yard.

 Then Axel had to check out Grandma's Christmas tree. Finally after checking everything out I was able to get him to sleep.

 In the morning Santa delivered gifts apparently and we had Christmas again! Pheeny was again more interested in the paper and doing her own thing, but Axel had a field day opening all of the new gifts.

 The big hit of the day was Grandma and Grandpa's gift, a leap pad.

 After breakfast and gifts we headed out into the snow. As you can see it was really warm out! I think it got into the mid 40's and the snow started to melt. Good thing is we were able to make snow angels, have another snow ball fight and build a snow man.

 Our snow man has a funny hat on him, but wasn't bad for our first snow man. We found out that daddy is an absolute expert at forming snow man balls.

 After our snow man was finished it was time for sledding. Axel had a blast! He even went over small jumps and flew in the air. Axel absolutely loved the snow. I was so glad he was able to enjoy it. We actually lucked out with warm weather so he was able to play outside for a couple of hours without getting too cold.

On Saturday we headed to Grandma and Grandpa's villa for yet another Christmas. This time it was with all of Grandma Sonia's family. We had so much fun visiting everyone. I need to get the picture of the entire family together!

On Sunday we were able to get back in time to watch the Bears lose! Everyone had fun cheering for the bears. Here is the cutest picture of Axel in his new jersey with Grandma and Grandpa.

On Monday we visited my best friend from college. Her house is like a toy store so the kids had a blast. She has three kids of her own so much fun was had by both the adults and the kids.

We lucked out and got an early flight home on Tuesday since our early Wednesday morning flight was cancelled. We rolled into our driveway a quarter to midnight. We were happy to start the new year at home!
We hope you all enjoyed your holidays! God Bless!

Santa visit and Christmas celebration #1

We went to visit Santa on Thursday morning. Here is Axel looking super cute. Phoenix did get on Santa's lap, but wasn't too happy about it.We happened to go during her nap time which showed. I wasn't able to get a picture with both kids on my camera. Luckily, the photographer was able to capture one shot of the two kiddos. Unfortunately, our scanner is broken so I am not able to share it.

 Outside of the mall Axel loved the huge Christmas tree!

 On Thursday night Keith lovingly made ginger bread dough. I rolled them out and baked them Friday morning and then Keith and Axel decorated them on Friday night. I would estimate it was about a 6 hour project.

 With all of the excitement Axel has not been sleeping well and missing a few hours of sleep at night. I caught him napping again. He was playing and singing Christmas carols on his keyboard and then he was silent. I was yelling his name to ask him a question about Christmas presents because I was wrapping daddy's presents in the other room. After calling him 3 times I went to investigate and this is what I found. All of his naps turn in to 2 hour naps! It is unbelievable since he really hasn't napped all year. This was the second long nap and today was the third! On Friday Axel had his school Christmas party. The kids enjoyed a book exchange and sang the parents three Christmas carols. It was absolutely priceless!

 Yesterday we headed to Grandma Susan's to celebrate Christmas early. Here Axel and Uncle Ryan are playing operation.

 Grandpa and Grandma Burgess were able to join us as well. I was so glad that they were able to come because I was bummed that we wouldn't be able to make their Christmas events this year and we only managed to see them at their Anniversary party. They are still such a young great couple and I loved catching up with the.

 Phoenix and the kids had a blast opening their gifts.

 My cousin James, his wife Denise and their two kids were there. It was fun to see the kids trying to play together.

 Phoenix got her first baby doll that comes with a bottle. It cries and snores! Phoenix actually pretended to feed the baby! It was precious.

 But then Phoenix enjoyed chewing on the bottle.

 Auntie and Braylin were matching. I am not sure if that was intentional, but Braylin is becoming more and more a cutie every time I see her. Her eyes are by far her most stunning trait.

 Before Grandma Goldstein left she managed to get a picture of all of her great grand-babies (minus one). I think I was suppose to be in this picture, but was too busy taking a picture to be in it :) My Aunt Susan and Uncle David also attended. It was really nice to visit with everyone. I hope this becomes a tradition because we haven't all been together in some time.

 Axel and Phoenix were playing "chicken" and then when I decided to kiss daddy Axel tried to kiss Phoenix. Apparently Pheeny wasn't down with this!

 Both kids "cracked" about the same time. Phoenix was because of exhaustion and Axel's was due to boredom. I think when the other kids get older he will have more fun. It is tough being the oldest kid by a couple of years at this age.

 All in all we had a wonderful visit and first Christmas celebration. We are excited for our upcoming celebrations as well!

I may or may not post soon. If I don't watch out for a mega post on our next Christmas celebrations and visit with Grandma Sonia and Grandpa Bruce. The Szolushas wish you a Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year!

Getting into the Christmas spirit!

Axel and I love Christmas. I like to decorate the day or weekend after Thanksgiving. This year was no different. Axel and I had a blast decorating the house together again. The only difference about this year versus last year is he doesn't think we have enough decorations and he wasn't as easy to work with. He has his own ideas of how things should go, but all in all we still make a good team :)

With the travels to Florida last weekend, this four day weekend for us was the start of our holiday festivities. On Friday after school, Axel and I build his gingerbread village. We always get it half off after Christmas and every year we struggle with icing that is a bit too dry. Axel is always a good sport though. This year was the first year that Axel did most of the decorating by himself. He was even able to do the frosting and break the ginger bread pieces. He was really proud of himself. 

 Phoenix really wanted to be in the action as well. She is a sneaky little girl and grabbed one of the pieces of gingerbread and was sucking on it. I knew something was up because she suddenly got quite!

 Still decorating...............

 For some reason when my children are tired they get up exceptionally early and struggle to go to bed. I am sure it is typical for most children, but it always amazes me. Luckily, Axel and I had talked about being tired and cranky and he decided after spending some time in his room for "not being nice" that he needed a nap. He proceeded to put himself to sleep in the pinball room. At first I thought he was pretending with his loud snore.

 An hour later I hear him coughing so I went in to check on him. I then say him flip over onto his stomach. He then continued to sleep for another hour! I couldn't believe he napped so long. I was really excited because he needed to catch up on sleep and we were headed to a Christmas party that evening. It also allowed me to make 25 tortillas for him and 24 pigs in a blanket for the party :)

 Keith came home from his ride Saturday with this awesome pine cone. It is not a fluke. It is from a family of pine cones that are called "widow makers". I can't remember the real name of it but someone has a tree full of them up on the top of Bohlman road, one of our local climbs. He worked really hard to bring it down the 2400 feet and was excited to show me and the kids. We are going to make it a center piece by sprucing it up.

 Yesterday evening we headed to Eileen's house for her annual Christmas party. I decided to dress everyone up a bit more than usual. We had planned on going right on time in order to be one of the first guest there and to take a family photo.  I have wanted to take a family photo all year. I purchased a nice 11 x 14 inch frame in May, during my maternity leave. I talked with our neighbor about doing a photo swap where we each take a family picture for the other family. Unfortunately, timing never worked out and here we are at the end of the year.

 I was really excited to get a couple of pretty good photos. Not exactly what I had in mind, but at least we have something that I can put into the scrap books!

This photo was taken with our friend's iPhone. Cuter picture, not as good quality. Hopefully, with the holidays coming up we can get a cute photo that is good quality that I can blow up to an 11 x 14 and stick up on the wall!

 Phoenix amazes me and fits right in with the other kids. I have said it before, but I mean it. She really doesn't want to be a little baby. She wants to be big and do big kid stuff. She did a great job of it last night.

 She even managed to stay up until almost 8pm. It was a rough night because of it, but she was completely charming and slap happy at the party. The meltdown didn't come until 12am and 4am, but a little back rubbing and a bottle managed to get her back to sleep! She has been eating a lot more solids, but with her limited variety I believe she is still quite hungry. She appears to be growing because she is getting heavier to hold. Occasionally we get lucky and she will only get up once a night, but most of the time she is still getting up twice a night over the 12 hours she sleeps. I am still hopeful she will be sleeping through the night soon. Axel still gets up 1-2 times per night as well. Both kids get allergy testing tomorrow, along with Keith so we hope to get more answers as to where each child is at in their battle with food. Hopefully as Axel gets older he will get better about taking care of himself at night and letting mommy and daddy sleep.

 Today Keith and I got to go for a ride together. This is about 6-7 miles from our house deep in Steven's Canyon. Here and at the bottom of Highway 9 are magical places that trap in the cold and our consistently 20+ degrees colder than the rest of the area. We thought this was a beautiful sight so we stopped to take a picture in the freezing cold. We climbed out of the freezing cold into 60+ degree weather. It is amazing the different micro climates we have in the bay area. Today's ride was the longest ride I have done in 1.5 years! I rode 3.5 hours! We only rode 37 miles during that time, but we covered 5300 feet of climbing. I was excited that I am at the point that I actually wanted to ride that long. Normally I am stressed about all of the things that I need to do at home and the time I miss with the kids. It was a nice change of pace.

We have more Christmas fun and another nice ride planned for next weekend. We also hope to meet Santa this week as well!