The Heinlights: Christmas 2016

Christmas seemed to just fly by this year! We started off the season with the lighted parade downtown. It was our first time going and it was a lot of work, but I'm glad we went. Viv was a little toot most of the evening but we survived!

We broke out all the holiday movies and the 'old' Rudolf movie soon became a fan favorite. Viv asked to watch it every night before bed.

Heartland did Santa pet pictures again...so I loaded everyone up and we headed to the clinic. It was pretty busy! Wrigley did great. I was anxious to see how Viv would react to 'Santa'....she saw him and immediately said 'Daddy'! I guess we blew that cover!

It took him awhile but Rowan finally broke out in tears...he wasn't quite sure about Santa.

We did brunch with Santa at CRCC again. We had a winter wonderland to get us in the mood as it snowed the whole day.

Picking out her 'Build-a-Bear'.

She was very excited to see Santa at Brunch...she willingly sat in his lap. She told him a bunch of stuff...but she hasn't quite grasped that she can ask for presents for Christmas. Rowan was 'ok' with this Santa.

After brunch we went home and baked Christmas cookies.

And then we headed to the hill for some sledding. It was the perfect winter day. Both kids seemed to like the snow and Viv insisted she pull her own sled up the hill. She really liked sledding too.

We picked up an extra kid in our family photo...Claire snuck in!.. But we'll take her!

Viv put on a little dance routine before Christmas dance break. She did really well! I was very surprised.

We had our first Christmas with GG Hein.

Meeting the newest cousin...Elliana...born on December 12. Viv was very interested in her but thankfully not as rough as she is with her brother!

Modeling his new bib.

Elliana's and Rowan's first Christmas.

The Montessori kids sang at Echo Hill one Sunday. Viv didn't sing a note and mostly just stood up front and gyrated around. The first couple of songs she turned around and wouldn't face the audience. She apparently needed her own 'handler' since Miss Wendy had to sit next to her. But by the end she started doing her 'heel steps' from dance. I was secretly cheering!

Then we had the Mangold side Christmas. I hosted at our house since Viv had her Christmas program that morning.

Incidentally, Gma Jean turned 96 this year...we also celebrated with cake for her.

(Rowan was napping for this picture)

In addition to all of the other Christmas traditions we tried to teach Viv this year...we introduced 'Elf on the Shelf'. We kept it very simple and didn't even get him out until Dec 21....meet 'Jingle'. Jingle didn't get into very much mischief...he just traveled around the house a bit every day. Viv did like him a lot and did get up and look for him every day. She's been very into watching the 'Elf on the Shelf' movie. Next year should be more fun. We also did an advent sticker calendar with her and made sure to read the nativity story to her every night. She played with her Little People Nativity set and can name all the important characters. She also would talk about Christmas as Jesus' birthday...so she's starting to understand the true meaning of the season.

We hosted Christmas Eve again at our house with my classic soup and salad night. I introduced beef stew this year in addition to the wild rice soup. The kids were really cute before church.

St. Marks had the animals again this year...Viv had absolutely no fear of the camel!

Christmas morning finally came! Mom and Dad stayed overnight with us so they could be present for the kids opening their gifts....I had forgotten how many packages I had purchased!! Geesh! Santa was very good to us indeed! We wore our matching Christmas jammies and Viv loved it! We were reindeer this year and each pj pair (except for Rowan's) came with a Rudolf nose! Wrigley wasn't so excited about this costume!