The Noriega Family

We are so fortunate to live close enough to Hector's family that we can have our own Christmas morning and still spend time with the family on Christmas.  We love going down for Christmas afternoon.  We ate another big feast.  Sienna ate four platefuls of food.  That girl is impressive sometimes.  Grandma Marge was visiting; it was very nice to have her there and Phillip and Tim came down too.  We all enjoyed our meal and them we had fun watching the kids open more presents. 

I made my mom's jello and I had to take a picture because it was so beautiful.  While I was making it Natalia would keep wanting to take to peek in the fridge at it.  She would say, " it is so pretty mommy."

Sienna and Eli had fun playing hide and seek in the closet.

Finally it was time to open presents again.  Natalia was so excited about everything.  Sienna and Eli were distracted by everything. 

I think Sienna's favorite gift was this hat.  She loved it and wore it every waking minute.  She would have slept in it had I let her. 

She still has a thing with shoes too.  Here she is trying on Eli's new shoes.

Natalia was so excited about all that she got.  Krystale got her some really fun stuff.  She is excited about all the art stuff she got.  She also got a new doll and a play horse to go with it.  It is so fun watching her play pretend.  I just love her imagination. 

We had fun with the family and spent the next couple of days there with his family.  We played games and watched movies and played with the kids.  They were so worn out by the time we left.  We came back to our house two days after Christmas and Natalia took a three and half hour nap.  I think she needed to catch up on some sleep.  We had another wonderful Christmas.  It is hard to believe that it is all over.  I love doing Christmas with my kids; they make everything so much more fun.

Christmas morning was so much fun.  I heard Natalia wake up about 6:15.  I then heard her tell Sienna that they could not get out of bed yet because if Santa came and they were out of bed he would take the gifts to someone elses house.  I had to laugh and it was a full half hour before Natalia finally came into our room to ask if it was okay to get out of bed.  She was so excited.  I love how excited she gets about the simplest things.  She got to go through her stocking as soon as we got down stairs and she was so excited that she got her own chap stick. 

Sienna would be super cute one moment and then grumpy the next.  She acted like I was a terrible mother every time I would try to get her to open a present.  After stockings we ate breakfast...this helped Sienna be a little happier.

Hector and I always have fun getting gifts for each other. 

After breakfast the girls started opening gifts.  Natalia has been wanting some small Lego's.  I picked up a bunch for really cheap at a garage sale so I got out a few of them for her this year.  Both girls just wanted to start building.  We let them play for awhile before we opened more. 

I got Natalia some new socks and both girls thought it was great fun to try them on.  Again, I love that the simple things can make my kids to happy. 

 

I got Hector some new clothes and Natalia thought it was fun to try them on. 

Every book that Natalia opened she had to then look at every single page before she would move on to the next gift.  I love that Natalia is so fascinated with books.  I hope that this passion never ceases. 

A friend from Hector's work gave us some presents and Natalia could not wait to open the present in the Mickey Mouse paper.  She talked about it so much and on Christmas morning she kept asking to open the Mickey Mouse paper present.  It was in the back so she had to wait awhile. 

Sienna had to take a little break, but she was happier when she came back to gift opening. 

And she was so happy to be reunited with her candy cane that she picked out for Hector.  I think Sienna just wanted to eat candy all morning. 

Our morning was fantastic.  The girls had fun and we loved watching them.  The enthusiasm of Natalia was great and Sienna had moments that she just cracked us up.  I love that we get to create fun traditions with our kids.  After our morning of gift opening, which took about three hours, we got ready to head down to Hector's parents' house for more Christmas fun.

After naps, our Christmas Eve party started.  We were so lucky to have Krystale come and spend some time with us on Christmas Eve this year.  We try to make Christmas Eve special.  We also like to share our fun with people who might not have anything else to do on Christmas Eve.  We had the Chois spend time with us again this year.  Harim and her mom came for Christmas Eve dinner and party.  I have been their visiting teacher for a few years and we all just love them so much.  It was so nice to have them spend some time with us.  We started our party with the guessing game.  Everyone got a present and they had to guess what was inside.  They were pretty easy to guess this year.  As the kids get bigger, I will make it more challenging.  After the first game we had a delicious dinner.  I did not take any pictures, but it was soooo good.  I tried a couple new recipes and they were tasty.  After dinner we played more games. 

We played pin the star on the tree.  Natalia remembered doing a game similar to this last year and requested that we do it again.  We all had so much fun.  Sienna thought it was so much fun to wear the scarf on her head.  She would not take it off so we had to get another one for everyone else to use. 

We also helped Santa fill his bag of gifts by tossing a present into the bag.  Hector was pretty good at it and Sienna was really entertaining.  She just walked up to the bag and dropped it in. 

The Chois had to leave so we gave them their stockings and let the girls open the present from them so that they could watch.  We then eat pie and let the girls play with Krystale a little longer.  They had fun doing some more Christmas crafts.  The whole day was full of fun.

Sienna kept the scarf on all night long.  She is so cute.  Krystale left and we put the girls to bed.  Natalia put out a plate for Santa to have some pie and they set their stockings out.  We told Natalia that Santa would only come if we were all asleep in our beds.  She took this very seriously.  Right after we put her to bed we started getting stuff out of the attic.  We were making all kinds of noise, but she did not take a peak.  We got all the girls stuff ready and then Hector and I watched Elf. 

We had such a nice Christmas Eve.  The girls slept great all night and both Hector and I slept like seven year old kids awaiting Christmas.  I seriously could not sleep.

We continued to have fun Christmas activities each day.  Surprisingly, I did not have time to do everything that I wanted.  Saturday we went shopping and filled Stocking for our Christmas Eve guests.  The girls had fun picking out gifts that would fit into the stockings and I love that they get to learn more about giving.  Sunday we decorated gingerbread houses.  The girls had so much fun!  Natalia is my little crafter.  She takes all her crafts so seriously and after I made the base of the house for her she did the rest all by herself and was very proud of her work.  Sienna helped me and she mostly just ate way to much candy!

Monday we decided to fill the whole day with Christmas Eve fun.  Sienna was in a good mood and she loves to smile and say cheese for the camera.  After breakfast, I started cooking and doing fun activities with the family.  Hector was there to hang with us all day too. 

We colored big pictures and hung them on the wall.  Natalia had so much fun, I think we did this for about two hours.

We had a pajama party all morning.  Well, Sienna is into taking off her clothes these days so the rest of us had a pajama party and Sienna had a diaper party.  Hector and the girls watched a Christmas movie under the tree and I did more yummy cooking.

After the movie we all took naps and then got ready for our Christmas Eve.  Natalia was really excited...she did not sleep at all.

I have not been great about taking pictures since my mom left, but we have been having lots of Christmas fun.  Natalia is so excited to ask what our Christmas activity will be each day...she is also a fan of the chocolate that comes with the activity in the advent calendar.  We put together a package for a missionary serving from out ward who I used to visit teach.  Natalia kept saying, "oh, this will make her so happy."  Natalia loved helping wrap the gifts.  We went to the ward Christmas party and we have done lots of holiday baking and singing.  We put together plates of cookies for our neighbors.  Since we live in townhouses we have lots of neighbors.  This meant that we had over 20 plates of cookies, but it is so fun to go door to door with the girls.  They love it.  Natalia was very assertive this year and would say Merry Christmas each time someone opened the door and then hand them the cookies.  Sienna got right into the action too.  She had to be standing on the doorstep before we knocked or she went into a panic.  She did not want to be left out.  She just awkwardly looked into people's home and then would finally say bye bye.  They were both so excited the whole time and I love watching them.

When it is time for Daddy to come home, the girls race to put their shoes on so they can run to Hector before he gets out of the truck.  Natalia has been doing this for a year now, but Sienna has recently started running to the truck too.  They usually hold hands and run.  Natalia makes sure that Sienna stays on the sidewalk.  It is very cute and I love to watch them from the house. 

Sienna was a little more difficult to get the picture.  For the first half hour of painting she created this lovely mosaic on the newspaper.  Finally she realized that the ornament painting fun and there was no stopping her after that. 

Yes, that is green paint on her nose.  The girls loved making gifts for everyone and it really helps them understand the spirit of giving.  The next morning Natalia wrapped them all up all by herself.  All I did was dispense tape.  She is pleased that she can wrap gifts this year without any help.  She does a really good job too, but I could run out of tape faster than normal.

December has been a great month.  I cannot believe how fast Christmas is approaching.  I have had my shopping done for awhile now, but it always makes me a little sad when Christmas actually gets here.  I love all the pre-Christmas activities.  Sienna has been growing up lately.  She is starting to talk more and more and it is fun being able to communicate with her more.  Her new favorite thing is to say, "mama, I potty!"  She then wants to sit on the potty.  She does not do anything when she sits there, but she sure does love to sit on the potty.  I am not ready to potty train, but I may have to rethink that position after the holidays are over.