Other Christmas Things

There are a few other pictures of Christmas things I thought I'd share, including our wall of Christmas cards. A few years ago, I took a cue from my MIL who displayed her cards around her kitchen. The idea is fantastic and a wonderful way of decorating throughout Advent, slowly growing through Christmas Day. Although these pictures were taken before we had put up all the cards we received, they're still fun! (...do you see yours?)

The kids and I also had a bunch of fun making Christmas goodies for our family in Florida (and for a few friends in Birmingham), including chocolate covered pretzels and marshmallows, as well as Nutter Butter truffles and OREO truffles. Sooo good!!

Ready to dip some goodies!

Melting the chocolate

The pretzels

Nutter Butter truffles

OREO truffles

Christmas Morning!

Is there ever a better time than Christmas morning?! We had such a blast! Here are some pictures and video from the morning. We hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!!

Santa was good to the kids this year!

The kids loved all their gifts, but some were big hits, including their electric toothbrushes (seriously, they were sooo excited), baby dolls, the basketball hoop, the games (including the new Wii), and, of course, their new roller skates!

Ready to skate!

Getting some practice around the house

They also played with lots of other toys, including some time with Mario Cart on the Wii, coloring in their activity books...

Beginning to work on their activity books for the car

...and rolling around (I mean "doing gymnastics") on new tumbling mats from Gido and Gigi!

Happy tumblers

Christmas Eve

Happy Christmas Eve to all of you! Girata Christmas Eve (last night) was great fun! We began the night with a special Christmas Eve dinner (yum!) and then the kids wanted to take pictures in front of the tree -- all their idea!

After pictures, we opened our family presents. What fun!! Lots of books and games and clothes -- just what kids want (at least our kids!). After presents, we played Cranium Junior and then watched Home Alone, one of our favorites from childhood, and now one for the Family Girata! After the movie, it was time to get ready for Santa's arrival. We left out some chocolate chip cookies, carrots, and milk...

Our special Christmas set

...and then the kids sprinkled reindeer food in the backyard.

Now, time to wait for Santa!!

Getting Ready for Christmas

Tonight is a BIG night for the Girata family. For those of you who don't know, we have a special arrangement with Santa Claus to come to our house early, so tonight is Girata Christmas Eve and tomorrow morning is Girata Christmas Day! ...it's a long story, but here's a shout out to the big man in red -- thanks for hittin' us up early, Santa!

As we ready ourselves for the day, the kids have been preparing in a few different ways. On Sunday, the kids participated in Saint Luke's Christmas Pageant (if you'd like to watch the long video, click here).

Our little donkey and kitty

And they've been closely studying the Santa Map they received from Gigi (thanks, Gigi!).

Christmas here we come!!

Sweet Kids

This post is a little random, but all cute pictures I've been waiting to share.

First, we begin with a hilarious morning story -- about a week ago, Brayden was bugging Nicole about what a certain word meant (I can't remember what the word was), and she said they could look it up. Until that moment, the existence of a magic book that contains every word and its definition was unknown to him ...welcome the dictionary! He could not have been more excited about the dictionary and promptly brought it into bed (mind you, it was something like 6:30am) and began to peruse. I couldn't resist a few pictures.

One excited boy!

Last Monday, before we went out shopping, I found Layna on the stairs playing "giddy-up, horsey" with her Princess Aurora baby doll. She's such a little mommy -- and so cute!

And finally, I asked Brayden to get ready to run a few errands -- and by get ready I meant put on your shoes, grab a light jacket, the usual -- and this is how he presented himself. Crazy child!

Ready to go shopping!

Zoolight Safari

As we do every year, the Giratas headed to the Birmingham Zoo's annual Zoolight Safari. This event is a huge deal in Birmingham and one that is always (always) well attended. We tried to beat the biggest crowds by going on Sunday night -- and it worked! I have a bunch of pictures of the night, so I hope you enjoy. Christmas is almost here!!

Ready to go!

We immediately headed to ride the zoo train (the most popular attraction, translation: the longest line).

On the way to the train

Waiting in line for the train

...and the girls

A family shot (the kind stranger didn't get it focused...)

After we rode the train, we walked through the zoo (around the lake) on our way to the kids area. The kids area had face painting, the carousel, the butterfly house, the petting zoo, and a hay ride -- what more do you need?!

Getting a cheeky butterfly

And Brayden got a lion

...and we found a few surprises in the kids area, including some sliders (what are these things actually called?) and life-sized chess, one of Brayden's new favorite games!

As promised, we also hit the carousel, hayride, petting zoo, and butterfly house.

Always a good time

On the hayride

They met a 6-month old baby doe named Ginger

Check out the butterfly house!

This was, perhaps, my favorite part of the night. Just before we exited the zoo, we passed a talking snowman. One of the zoo staff was inside and speaking through a microphone to the kids, although they had no idea what was going on. The funniest part was that the woman inside was talking in her normal voice, not a goofy "snowman" kind of voice. Hilarious!

And just before we left, the kids stopped to play in the snow machine -- so fun to hear them having such a good time even after walking around for hours! They could not have had any more fun!

Christmas Blitz

Now that we are so close to the BIG DAY, I'm going to try to do a blitz of Christmas posts to close out the year... beginning with decorating our tree! We put up our good 'ole artificial tree again this year (since we go out of town after Christmas each year, we haven't graduated to a real tree or else we would leave a fantastic pile of firewood in the shape of a Christmas tree while we travel. One day.).

This was the first year that the kids really took charge of decorating. As we pulled decorations out of their boxes, Brayden even said things like, "I know where this goes!" and would then run to put the thing in its place. Nicole was very excited about that -- traditions!! Here are some quick pictures of putting the tree together.

Organizing the ornaments

Nicole was telling stories about different ornaments

Time to put them on the tree!

Careful placement is key (or Nicole will move them!)

And don't forget the mantle!

We've also received some extra ornaments since the tree went up (thank you!!), including...

A dove from Aunt Annette

And Linus (and Lucy for Layna) from Miss Jeanna