Merry Madison Christmas

The theme of our wonderful Madison Christmas was "Winter" (or was it The Nutcracker?!). Mollie loved "winter". And her favorite winter highlight to share was "I ate a snowball". We are so thankful for Grandma and Grandpa for hosting us and for the nonstop fun activities, from sledding, to running on the ice, to skiing, to bowling ( who knew they made shoes that small?!), to a generous Christmas gift opening marathon... and for the wonderful downtime entertainment, especially reading the Nutcracker over and over in bed with Mollie. Thanks for a wonderful Christmas, we love you!

And Mollie, thanks for being up for any adventure in the snow, and for the endless entertainment of dancing to the Nutcracker (I will load a video) as the scary mouse and/or the beautiful ballerina over and over and over. We never stopped smiling!

Here are some highlights, starting, of course, with sledding...

In her "beautiful dress", Mollie actually played "the Nutcracker", and sang it too :)

Gifts!!!!!

Zapped after opening gifts

Back to sledding

and eating snowballs

Ring around the Rosie (we all fall down is more fun in the snow!)

And the cute shoes!

Good night xo

Merry Christmas from the Hanrattys!

A White Christmas Eve!

It's a beautiful white Christmas Even in Wisconsin, and you really couldn't beat the way we spent it! The day I have been waiting for since I had a little kiddo came a couple of years early when we took Mollie skiing on her third Christmas. It was a balmy 32 and the snow was falling in big chunks. It was perfect and seeing her huge smile was better than we could have imagined. Brave, pretty girl, you made our Christmas!

Key phrases we heard from her...

"my turn" - she didn't want any help

"that way" - she was quickly over the rope towe and only wanted to take the chair lift

"I want my helmet back" - when she refused to be done skiing.

Mollie, thanks for taking off your nutcracker dress and swapping it for the hefty ski boots!!

Christmas at Nana and Papa's

There was no shortage of excitement with three eager little ones and the great room turned into a kiddie wonderland with slides, basketball hoops, a picnic table full of toys. The kids took turns rotating through everyone's toys before we did some unwrapping of gifts.

And of course big smiles came when the nutcracker music was paired with actual nutcrackers! Here is the perfect capture of Mollie yesterday... Christmas dress, pj pants, slippers, a tutu and a huge smile!

Our two little ballerinas before they went to sleep under the tree with the nutcrackers.
We capped off the perfect day with a wonderful feast. The feature rolls were prepared by the girls, and although scary in appearance, they did not disappoint :)
Nana and Papa, thank you for hosting such a wonderful Christmas celebration and for all of the fun goodies. The kids clearly loved every moment and the post-opening playing with the toys proved to be almost as fun as the opening!

The Nutcracker, Hanratty Style

This is terrible camera work, but you can get the gist (jumping, running and laughing).

Madeline and Mollie capped off a wonderful Christmas celebration at Nana and Papa's (pics to come) with these moves:

Santa came AND...

Mollie woke up, let the excitement begin!!!!!

After quickly checking out the scene, she took off with the grocery cart she had been so patiently waiting for immediately, but she didn't go far because she noticed there were more gifts to analyze...Oh, there are new goodies IN the grocery carts
And then after going through each item, she was off again
After a couple of laps, she actually gave some attention to some of Santa's other treats

And then it was stocking time!

After she had dug to the very bottom and realized it was empty, time for the presents. She figured out her system for maximum speed very quickly and devoured the wrapped presents.
Her new fancy juicy kitty cat umbrella was a big hit! Notice the little cat ears on top.
And then of course she helped Mommy and Daddy with their presents.

We found her a couple of minutes after we wrapped it all up, celebrating IN her cart.

And a quick moment of down time before off to Nana and Papa's for celebration #2!

Thanks Santa for a magical morning! We have one happy two year old!