Christmas at Home

Christmas Eve-Eve & Christmas Eve

On Xmas Eve Eve we made cookies for Santa! We chose non-traditional frosting colors of pink, blue and purple. Harper picked the colors (of course!). And she added sprinkles on top.

Late on xmas eve-eve Harper ended up sick, so she was up all night vomiting. We were worried she would not feel well for the holidays. But once she woke up on xmas eve, she seemed good. By mid morning, she was playing, laughing and seemed her normal self. So we were relieved. Below, because the weather was so nice, we wanted to get her outside to take in some fresh air to help in her recovery. She loves swinging. We could swing for hours - and all the while we sing songs while swinging.

Xmas eve night at the Van Maanens....with her cousins Max and Mollie.

I got such a kick out of this - Max (her 12 year old cousin) was playing Polly Pockets with her. He's so kind and patient with her!

Mommy and Harper playing a "duet".

Amy and I attempting a real duet. I'm extremely rusty on the piano. That's one thing I wish I still had the skills for - need several months of practice!

Putting cookies out for Santa. Since we do not have a chimney, Harper thought we should put the cookies in the kitchen since Santa would be coming through our front door.

After she went to bed, Santa's elves (Mommy and Daddy) got busy putting her dollhouse together! It was a fun project that went relatively smoothly!

Christmas Day

Harper with her new dollhouse. She loved it! She thought it was funny her Elf on the Shelf was hanging out in the house!

Helping Daddy shake out the presents in his stocking.

Playing with her new Pet Shops.

Max, Mollie and Harper with G'ma. This is Harper's "fake smile". Aunt Amy taught her how to fake smile. It gets her to look at the camera and half-way smile! 

Noah's funny gift from Amy. For those who do not konw, Chris's Go-Go was a real bar in Cambridge many years ago - with "dancers". A store in Des Moines recreated their t-shirts and are now selling them. Russ also got one. Noah and Russ joked they would dress the same and go out some night to the bar in Cambridge, which is in the old Chris's Go-Go location.

At long last, our little girl has discovered princesses...and loves them. Here, she's dressed in her new Ariel dress up clothes. She wore this the day after xmas too for quite some time!

Playing in the box the dress up clothes came in.

Playing with one of Max's new toys.

Christmas with the Wendts/Gyolais

We spent the weekend before xmas in Manchester for Noah's family's xmas. Harper LOVED playing with her cousins (Bryn, Myka and Shea). As we were leaving, she was in a groove playing with them and said "I don't want to go home!". Someone loves her cousins very much!

Noah and his brother Seth took the girls outside on an "adventure". They ended the adventure by singing xmas carols at the front door. It was quite cute!

Myka, Harper and Shea having quiet time before bed and watching a movie. 

All the girls being silly and wearing dress up hats!

Recent Harper Fun

Have been a little behind on the blogging with everything that has happened over the last several weeks. But wanted to get caught up and share some photos. Enjoy.

Where's Harper?

A couple weeks ago she painted a picture for Mollie. This time, she wanted to paint a picture for Max. We get a kick out of how she sticks her tongue out as she's concentrating!

She has a renewed interest in bath time now - thanks to some bath tub crayons! And she's always wanting us to draw Hansel and Gretel...whom she learned of through a Curious George episode. So below is their house with a xmas tree.

Harper had a singing xmas program at daycare. She did great! They sang 4-5 songs, and throughout all the songs she jingled her jingle bells while singing. It was really cute.

After the program we went over to my work's Santa party for the kids. She was very interested in having sugar cookies and milk...

...and not very interested in seeing Santa. She kept saying "I'm a little bit scared." So we did not force it - this is as close as we could get her to do a Santa photo. 

I kept Harper home one day while I had the week off of work...so we had a special Mommy/Harper day. Which started off with decorating a gingerbread house. She thought it was so much fun.

And then we went to our favorite place in Ames - Reiman Gardens. A weekday during the winter, and we practically had the place to ourselves. We walked around the indoor garden, threw about 20 pennies into the wishing water garden and sat for 30 minutes in the butterfly house. We love to just sit on the bench and watch all the butterflies fly around us. A big black and white one even landed on me - and it scared her a little. Her favorite ones right now are the all yellow butterflies. (She loves everything yellow now.)

After Reiman Gardens (and no nap) we made gingerbread cookies.

Harper continues to amaze us. Here, she sat down to play with her chalk mat. Next thing we know, she's writing the letter H. Noah looks at me and asks if I drew that, and I said no. She drew these all on her own. She knows her name starts with an H...and she knows the letters of her friends names too. It's a good thing she's moving up a classroom in a couple weeks - we think she's up for the challenge!

The Big Burn

The time came to burn Ted's house down. We purchased Ted's acreage about a year ago, and due to some DNR regulations, it was cost-prohibitive to try and fix up. We attempted to sell it as is, but no strong interest in the property with the house on it. So Noah worked with the Maxwell Fire Department to burn the house down. It was a very cold Sunday morning (Dec. 4) when the fire took place. Photos below document the morning.

Fire begins.

Harper enjoyed the show - from a distance!

Water supply.

Noah very happy it's almost gone!

This I found funny - for sale sign as the place burns down.

All gone. The plan now is to dig up the foundation, level off the lot, seed it to grass and maybe sell off to someone interested in building a house.