The Mantle Family: Christmas Week

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! We had a great week of celebrating Christmas. My bro, Adam and his girlfriend, Katelyn, were in town for 5 whole days (the longest he has been home in 8 years). It was great having them around. Ella loved playing with them and still expects to wake them up every morning. She asks for them everday...Adam and Katelyn come back! We'll definitely have to go up to Flag to play in the snow sometime soon.

Anyways, here are some pics from the week. My dad built Ella a sandbox in our backyard as her Christmas gift. Even though it was quite chilly out all week, we managed to play for a little while. Last Tuesday, we had a day of baking. Grandma, Amanda, Mom, Katelyn, and I spent most of the day baking all sorts of cookies...fun! Christmas Eve day we went up to the Mantle's and that night we were at my mom's. Unfortunately, I have no pics from Christmas morning (way to capture those moments). We got a lot on video but I didn't get out the camera. Hopefully my mom did and I will get those from her soon. Ella was very hesitant to open presents at first and spent the first 15 minutes hiding in her playroom until we all started without her and she eventually came out and opened her gazillion presents throughout the rest of the day. It was funny though, whenever we asked her if Santa came to her house she would say, "No, Dora and Boots came!" I guess watching the Dora "Santa" episode on On Demand too many times kind of distorted her view on Santa (they bring him the presents in the show). We even attempted to see Santa this year and all we got was "no, Ella's scared". Didn't even know she knew what scared meant. I was not about to tramatize the girl and we did not sit on Santa's lap (I was the same way as a kid). So that explains my lack of pictures....

Hope you all enjoyed your Christmas as much as we did!

taking pictures with her Elmo camera