Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve in our Waterbury neighborhood is always a beautiful night. Every house in the neighborhood sets out identical white luminaries and the whole neighborhood glows. 

Ksenia taking photos, Tyler peeking out at us.

Our house

Smithmakah

Christmases 2 and 3 were spent in Storm Lake with the Smith clan. They are such a fun group, and I think Ksenia fit in really well with them!  The big Smith Christmas was an "Ugly Christmas Sweater" event, and I think Tyler, Ksenia and I really excelled in this arena. It was fun to be able to do this with her!

Ksenia, the adorable Santa's Helper

All the Smiths!

Chloe absolutely adores Ksenia. And also those monkey slippers.

Chloe and Ksenia in Chloe's gift-storm!

Ksenia playing Jenga for the first time--Tyler a bit nervous for her

Ksenia realizing that Tyler didn't tip the Jenga tower, and now it is all on her. Smiths watch on.

Christmas highlights

We celebrated Christmas 6 different times this year! Here are some of the highlights of Christmas #1

Santa and one of his reindeer came to visit. 

Snow globe, gift from my mom

Ksenia handing out some of her Russian coins

Mom, Jim, Laura, us and the boys--after a couple of drinks. :-)

Christmas ribbon Hippie turned into....

Christmas HippieS

Peace, Love, Duck Lips. 

Holy Crap it's Cold

We have had a harsher winter this winter than last winter by FAR, and as this is only the second winter we have been in our home, we experienced for the first time what a winter storm can bring us in our older neighborhood.  We had a beautiful storm with beautiful white, heavy and wet snow that stuck to all of the trees. And while the trees were gorgeous, the loss of electricity for 12 hours was not fun at all!! It is my understanding that in Russia, when they lose their electricity, they don't lose their heat, so this was an unusual experience, even for Ksenia!

Our tree in the front yard, the night the storm started

Our back yard the next morning

Sadness in our front tree the morning after the storm :-(

Ksenia got an early Christmas present from us so she could stay warm!

We were all Russians that day!

Where do you go when you can't cook at home!? B-Bops Burgers-though reading the menu was difficult!

Cooking?! What?

So, I am most definitely NOT known for making magic in the kitchen (I have set a frozen pizza on fire in the oven!), but Alessandra from "Cooking with Alessandra" makes everything so EASY! Thanks to her cooking class we went to with some friends, we now can make some fantastic foccacia and pasta! Ksenia went along with us to this Friday night cooking class and was Alessandra's helper on the foccacia process. 

Shop Local

Shopping. Shopping. More Shopping. Like it or not, that is a part of the holidays! Tyler and I do try to shop local as much as possible. This year we did pretty well with that and did a bunch of our Christmas shopping in the East Village.  We did get out to a couple of fun nights of shopping this year-"Holiday Promenade" in the East Village and "Jingle in the Junction" in Valley Junction. 

Photogs

Since Ksenia and I purchased our identical T3I Canon's this fall, I have had a couple of friends ask me to take their family/engagement photos for them. This has been SO MUCH FUN and such a great opportunity for me (and free photos for them!).  Ksenia has come along with me and has not only helped capture some shots of the family of 5, but also helped with moral support and with helping bring the levity that is needed to get great natural shots of people.

Hiatus

It appears that not only do our crazy holidays cause us to overspend and over-indulge in calories and libations, but they also cause extreme procrastination in blog maintenance.  It will be my goal to get caught up-to-date from Thanksgiving to today, this coming weekend. I don't even truly know if anyone out there is following this blog....but if YOU ARE, oh boy, you're in for a deluge of posts this weekend (hopefully!). Happy New Year!