The Happiest of Holidays

 I can't even believe that Christmas has come and gone.  Even though I started preparing in June (8 months pregnant and no nesting left to be done) and the festivities started in November, it was such a whirlwind!!  Seeing Christmas through the eyes of a three year old allowed me to be a kid again, and cuddling an infant in her Christmas best just added to the holiday wonderment.  We jammed in every activity I could think of, and included the kids in everything we could... cutting down our tree, putting up lights, Christmas parade, advent festival, two visits to Santa and a home visit at the lake, rounds and rounds of Christmas baking (including three generations making the famous Kamla family poppyseed bread) reading every Christmas book imaginable, ornament craft projects, school Christmas parties, the third annual Hanratty ladies trip to the Nutcracker (where Mollie got the chance to actually meet the nutcracker and some mice... "they were nice mommy"), gingerbread house decorating, a driving tour of Christmas lights, lobster shopping for our new Christmas eve dinner tradition, and of course the shock and awe of Christmas morning.  The photos below are a mixture Christmas eve and day and just make me smile.  Our first Christmas as a family of four again made me so grateful for our many blessings and gave me so many memories I'll never forget...

Masterpieces.

Mollie wasn't so excited to pet our little friend.

tracking Santa in India...

The Nutcracker

Cookies for santa.

WOW - Christmas morning...

Hanratty Family Christmas evening...

Surprise...

The concert i refer to below.

I will never forget dressing up my two girls in matching Christmas dresses (I bought them last year just in case... and voila) and pajamas.  I will never forget Mollie walking down the hall singing "I'm going to Bethlehem, I'm going to Bethlehem" to the tune of "hi ho the dairy-o", the excitement in her eyes when she got to watch Frosty, her first movie in the theatre (our big tv upstairs) with popcorn, decorating and setting out cookies for Santa and Rudolph after resisting ever urge to eat them all herself, memorizing the words to every single Christmas song and performing a very long and hilarious concert on her new microphone and our piano caroling while Mollie and Grandma did ballet after Mollie did a piano concert and carols for her audience!  I will never forget singing Silent Night to Kendall when I was rocking her to sleep, sitting her under the tree between the gifts and getting the biggest smile, cuddling her while listening to Christmas music and counting my blessings and the 4am wake up call we got on Christmas morning that kicked off the holiday.  Girls, thank you for a magical Christmas season!!