Christmas and New Years 2016

It was just us this Christmas which was nice and a little more quiet... well, not really that quiet. But we had a great time.

Cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer

Christmas eve and ready for Santa

Santa has come!

All Adriana wanted was worms... and she got them. 20 of them!

Maybe this will help Savannah walk

With Christmas being on Sunday this year, we had to make a plan. We had 1 hour of church at 9:00 so we decided to have the girls get all ready before they came down, (they did this in record time). They got to see what Santa had left and then we did everything else after church.

Family Christmas shot

Definitely nice!

Loving her new dolls, and already has some signatures on her purple cast!

Elena & Abigail both wanted crutches and are loving them!

I love all the creative gifts. The girls gave lego creations to each other as well as some other fun drawings, etc.

The last few years we have given the girls coupon books to use throughout the year. This year Adriana gave us coupons. We love them! There were several "Take care of Savannah for 1 hour", and "hug" coupons. :)

We also have a tradition to give Mark a photo desk calendar. This year the girls did it all!

Elena's lego set

Abigail's new doll

Christmas party time.

New blankets from Grandma

The biggest highlight from Christmas was getting their own gymnastic equipment! All the girls love gymnastics and they were overjoyed to have it here at home to play practice on every day! We got a bar and a balance beam.

Poor Christine hasn't been able to use the bar yet, but she's loving the beam!

The boxes were also fun to play in.

We had a fun weekend with lots of Star Wars. The older girls even stayed up till midnight. Christine and I fell asleep on the couch, but I still got to join in the toast. Ring in the new year!!

A toast for the new year 

Fro-hawk 

December 23: Christine's broken arm

We had an unfortunate event a few days before Christmas and this deserves its own post. After a fun day of no school, play dates, treat-making, and movie watching, Christine fell off her bed and broke her arm! She was trying to balance on her bed while reaching for her PJs in the top drawer of her dresser. She lost her balance and we think her arm got stuck in the drawer when she fell. We had just sent the girls up to get ready for the bath/shower and heard a loud thump followed by terrible cries from Christine. We ran up there and found her on the floor. It was pretty obviously broken with a little droop in it (pictures below). Adriana was her secret santa that week and did a lot to make her as comfortable as possible by helping get her a stuffed animal to hold, little pillow for her arm, and some other things to help her be happy.

Earlier in the day

On our way to the ER

She got a new puppy from the hospital

She broke both bones in her right arm just above the wrist.

Splint on her right arm, IV in her left and still a smile on her face.

Just waking up and seeing her awesome purple cast!

We were sleeping under the Christmas tree that night so with the craziness there are no cool night pictures of the girls sleeping. Her sisters had a bed all ready for her when we got home from the hospital (about 12:30am). This is a morning after shot.

December 1-22

We had lots of Christmas fun this month. We have an activity advent calendar and although many days are quite small, we try to get out and have fun.

Mark taught the girls how to tie a tie

For Adriana's baptism, I made a quilt for Adriana. It took longer than I thought, but we finally finished it!

Our annual carriage ride at the Avenue

Savannah wasn't so sure about Santa, so this was as close as she would get.

The Bethlehem walk. A family favorite

With the Roman soldiers

The storyteller

Abigail's lego spider

Man, I love her laugh!

Before our membership expired, we had a fun day at the Atlanta History Center's Magic Mondays.

Snowball race

Fun in the Swan house

Buddies

Polar Express night at Chick fil a

Photo shoot!

Sipping hot cocoa while waiting for the Polar Express Train

Riding the train!

Christine's ballet class

Mark and I got to see Rogue 1 the night before it came out! We loved it!!

We have some awesome, silly girls!

Lego art created by Adriana

The girls have done fantastic in gymnastics! They had a little show so we could see all their skills.

Our annual making of the gingerbread house.

Here are a few more shots up close. This year we used coconut for snow and it was beautiful! Don't know why I haven't thought about using that before.

The last day of school was filled with class parties. I helped plan Adriana's which was so fun and the kids loved it, which was a definite plus!

Making snowpeople

Snowflakes

Then I headed down to the first grade and went back and forth between Elena and Abigail's classes.

Abigail's BFF

Elena's BFF

Our adventures didn't stop there. After school we went to Lennox Square mall to ride the pink pig at Macey's. It is an Atlanta tradition and now we can check that off our bucket list. It was very cute and very pink. Afterwards we went to see the decorations at Mark's work and then a fun pizza dinner. Abigail's friend Mia came along for the ride.

You can see her in the background