On Saturday, December 22, we took Ellie to her first ballet. We took her to The Snow Queen done by the California Contemporary Ballet Company. We got her all dressed up and headed to the ballet! The main lead was danced by her ballet teacher and she was so excited to see her. Ellie was not the youngest kid in the audience, but she was one of the best behaved. She sat quietly and was engaged for the entire 2.5 hour ballet. She was so excited to see her ballet teacher dance and was so happy to see her after the show. We all enjoyed the show and had a great time. I was so proud of Ellie.
And then Aunt Susu arrived. Ellie was looking forward to seeing Aunt Susu so much. So on Sunday night, she and I drove to LAX late at night (in the brand new car that was literally like 4 hours old at that moment) to pick up Susie. On Monday I had to work a little bit in the morning so Ellie and Susie got to work creating a gingerbread house and made some snowflake decorations for the house. Then we all had lunch and headed out for a little shopping in Old Town Pasadena.
Then it was Christmas Eve! My parents drove down from Santa Barbara to spend Christmas Eve with us. They arrived and we went shopping a little bit in Pasadena (last minute shopping is the VB tradition). And then we all proceeded to eat way too much...I think the technically term was "grazing" and we did that all afternoon before the traditional dinner of pizza. Of course there was some cookie cutting, decorating, and baking. There was some serious cookie decorating going on...
Then it was time to open presents! Below our tree was pretty crowded with presents. I think Ellie opened her favorite present first, a Playmobil kitchen that she has been coveting for a long time. She only wanted to play with the kitchen and we had to talk her into opening more presents. Of course, once she did open more she realized that she was a pretty lucky little girl this year.
Nick was pretty excited about his new dustbuster that Ellie and I got him...its the little things I guess that make him happy. Ellie was pretty excited about her Playmobil kitchen, but also VERY excited about the Playmobil kids room. And she was super pumped to see the cash register with play money that she got. She also got some great new books, a butterfly garden, and some other fun toys that she received from family. Ellie also did a pretty good job playing Santa and passing out presents to everyone. It was a fun evening, but once we saw that Santa was almost to Chicago and leaving presents for Tristan on the NORAD Santa tracking website...it was time for Ellie to change into pajamas and head to bed. Ellie and Susie had a slumber party in Ellie's room.
Christmas morning, Ellie stayed in bed until just before 7...which is her usual wake-up time anyway. After we heard her walking around Nick and I got up. We got my parents from the guest house and got set-up with cameras to watch Ellie walk into the living room to see the presents that Santa left for her.
She was so excited to see that Santa had brought her American Girl Bitty Twins. She was a little in shock, but also I think that she expected them. She had only asked Santa like 5 times...lucky little girl. Santa also had some fun stuffing stockings for everyone, especially Ellie. And of course Santa remembered to bring some Cronuts for Grandma Pam (and Grandpa Mike...but mostly Grandma Pam).
And then it was time for the traditional Christmas morning breakfast of friend mush. Then we headed up to Santa Barbara for Christmas dinner. Ellie would not leave her new twins (aptly named Luke and Leia, she came up with Leia and her dad volunteered Luke as a name for the boy twin...and its already starting).
It was a great Christmas full of family, good food, and good fun. And then we got up early and headed to Disneyland with Aunt Susie...which is deserving of its own blog post!
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