Merry Christmas

We 've had such a nice time preparing for christmas !  

Our sweet friends the Donaho's invited us over for dinner one night while christophe was away and we had a fabulous time !

 Adrien was so happy to hang out with the boys and was excited to see his old friends Gracie and Libby there too :) They were so sweet to Stella too, following her around and showing her toys.  Very sweet !

 after dinner we went out around their nice neighborhood to see the christmas lights, we were singing holiday songs...it was just perfect !

Then Christophe arrived and the kids saw them on Friday morning...they were so excited !  Both of them wanted to be in daddy's arms :) I took cute pictures but broke my camera that saturday and lost them.  Christophe was super sweet , he rushed to get me a new one so we could take pics during christmas :)

On Sunday I was so excited to have "ma puce" visit us :) Kelly and Charles flew up here to spend Christmas with us- the best gift !! thank you very much !!!

 Adrien enjoyed having them around !  Charles went with Adrien on a few walks, Adrien would ride his big boy bike and Charles would walk very fast next to him :)

I baked Kelly's favorite cookies: oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

 we went out to see Christmas lights

 Said our goodbye to sweet "Lutti" our elf - Adrien thanked him for being so fun !

 Kelly and Adrien made the best looking gingerbread house !  It was cute to see them both work together :)

 We decided to make a lobster risotto this year.  I had set out to make a truffle risotto but everyone was sold out already (next year I will special order them) .

 Kelly was a wonderful helper (and such a cute chef ? right:) )

 Christophe had fun boiling the lobsters

Kelly and charles took our kids & Duff for a walk while  we moved around the  gifts that were in our room to our office  :)

 Christmas eve - we had apetizers while the kids had dinner so they could be part of the celebration

 Adrien was proud to drink his non alcoholic cider

 I forgot to take a pic of the lobster risotto ... woops :)

 There was a thunderstorm on christmas eve and Adrien woke up at 2:30am while I was nursing Stella. He was so excited when he saw that Santa had already come that he could not fall back asleep.  So I set his pillow on the couch with a little blanket and he finally fell back asleep at 4am looking at the presents...it was so cute to see how excited he was.  He kept saying:"I can't believe Santa came!  Santa came !"  "time to open the presents"  :)

 at 6:45am the kids were so excited to see the presents under the tree

Adrien was sweet and helped Stella opening some of her gifts.

 The best surprise was the SNOW that came that afternoon !  I was as excited as the kids I think :)

 We spent the whole day at home playing with our gifts, building legos, eating ... it was SO RELAXING !

 the next day was Duff's birthday !  He loved his presents and was super excited ! Happy 3 year buddy !

 Kelly and I got to "escape" and go alone to a few stores :)  I so wished I lived closer to my family ...but I really do appreciate the time we do have together & I LOVE when they come to visit me here :) I had a wonderful time ! Thank you so much Kelly & Charles !

 I tried my torch for the first time !  My goal is to successfully make a delicious creme brulee in 2013 :)