Christmas Day 2010

Christmas this year has been beyond awesome. Ashley is almost four, and she's been truely enjoying all that the holidays have to offer, going out to cut down a Christmas Tree, decorating it together, reading Christmas stories, visiting with Santa and singing Christmas carols.

Santa sent Ashley a very special video message using the Portable North Pole console that was so cool that words can't describe it. When Ashley watched the video she was just amazed! Check it out for yourself:


Ashley really wanted a Unicorn pillow pet for Christmas. She asked Santa for it when she saw him at her preschool and at the mall. So, on Christmas Eve we baked and put out Chocolate Chip cookies and some milk for Santa by the fireplace. Ashley went to bed early because she knew Santa would come only after she's asleep. And in the morning she woke up early to find cookie crumbs by the fireplace and a pillow pet by the Christmas tree. She spotted the unicorn from upstairs and was so excited!! We asked her to wait until Katelyn woke up before going downstairs to open the other gifts and she did. It was really fun watching them tear into the gifts!

Ashley's been wanting a picture camera, so she got a kid camera to take pictures. She and Katelyn also got plush princess chairs for TV room, a trampoline and a Dancing/Singing Mickey Mouse! Here's a couple videos of Ashley and Katelyn dancing with Mickey:



In the afternoon mom, Chuck, Joan, David and Dan came over for a celebration. We started the afternoon with my mom and Chuck giving Ashley the biggest gift - a Battery Operated Cadillac! Ashley really liked it. She drove it all the way down the street and back. This is her first car, so she needs a lot of practice driving, but she caught on quickly on what to do. Hopefully in the spring she can drive Katelyn around :) For now, the car will have to hibernate in the shed unti it gets a little warmer out.

I made a spread of appetizers and Snowtini drinks for adults. And then we opened the rest of the presents. The kids got more cool stuff as well as adults. Ashley got a Princess Belle dress with matching wand, shoes and tiara, and Katelyn got a scooter and monkey slippers from Nana. Mike got a new suit and I got stuff for cooking :) Everyone was still full from appetizers so we had a nice time before sitting down for dinner. This year for main course I made smoked turkey legs and roasted turkey breast with double stuffed baked potatoes and creamed spinach. For desert I made creme brulee with fresh raspberries, chocolate pecan pie, cookies and fruit salad.

Again, I didn't take a lot of pictures, but Chuck did. I'll add his when I get them.

Skudera's Annual Christmas Breakfast 2010

On Sunday, December 19th, we hosted our Annual Christmas Breakfast. We crammed nearly 60 adults and 20 kids in the house. We got to see a lot of family, friends and neighbors! We went through 6 gallons of orange juice, 80 cups of coffee and 10 lbs of bacon! It was an awesome morning!
I didn't even get a picture of the table with food, but here's slide show of whatever I got.. (Note to self, next year delegate picture taking to someone else..)

Santa's visit on the fire truck

Every year in our town a fire truck with Santa comes to every street in the town to wish kids Merry Christmas and give out Chocolates. They come with an entourage of about 3-4 trucks and make a lot of noise with the sirens. Ashley was again too scared to come out, but Katelyn, my fearless monkey was right there with Daddy waving to Santa :)

Ashley's Preschool "Holiday Tea" Party

It's been an extremely busy end of 2010 for us, so needless to say there's been no time update the Blog.

Before the holiday break, Ashley's preschool had a surprise "Holiday Tea" party for the parents. It turned out that it wasn't just a "Tea" but a full blown Holiday Concert, with the kids singing Christmas songs on Stage, a visit by Santa and a breakfast! It was definitely a surprise.. Had I known it was going to be a such a big production, I would have invited more people, but at least Mike and I, along with Katelyn, Indira and Geli were it.

This was Ashley's first concert that she was a part of, and she did great! She's really come a long way since starting preschool in September. She's become more confident, outgoing and independent, and made a few new friends along the way :)

Here are some pictures and videos from the day:
(You can see Ashley yawning and half asleep.. it's rather early for her to be up and at school, it was 9am, and her class typically doesn't start until 11am)

Our Christmas Card

Here's our Christmas Card that we are sending out this year.

I like the idea of keeping electronic versions of all special things, rather then cluttering up the house with them. I'll have to go back and scan our Christmas cards from previous years as well.

Our Christmas Tree

After all the Tree lighting festivities outside were finished and everyone was in bed, I rearranged the furniture in our living room, trying to find a way to make room by the front window for the tree. I spent more time then I'm willing to admit on moving our couch, love seat and an arm chair around the room, only to come with the conclusion that there's no way to make room for the tree by the window without removing the love seat from the room, which wasn't an option. I went to bed thinking that at least I tried.. In the morning, everyone in the house was laughing at me, because all of the furniture was back in the regular spots except for the arm chair. Sigh.

Yesterday we spent a good part of the day setting up and decorating our Christmas tree. This is the biggest, fullest tree we've ever had! It smells amazing and looked really beautiful even without any decorations! While the kids nap, I put up the lights on tree. Typically I'd wrap every tree branch with lights (Last year our tree had 3,000 lights!). This process takes about 8 hours and at the end I need a day or two to recover from the back and shoulder pain.. This year, I went with a simpler approach, I ran strands of lights up and down the tree until it looked like it had enough lights on it. I was a little skeptical, but I think it came out alright :) Ashley was really into decorating the tree this year. She put unbreakable ornaments all on the bottom, so that it's safe for Katelyn, and then helped me with the glass ones.

We usually hang our stockings over the fireplace in the family room, but since Katelyn is such a trouble maker, we decided to put our stockings on the railing above the piano this year. All our indoor Christmas decorations have to be 100% baby proof. If there's a way, Katelyn will find it and try to eat it and if doesn't take good, she'll destroy it, so a preemptive strike is the best approach for us this year to keep our house festive and safe for all :)

Here is a picture of our tree all done, minus the tree topper, it was too high to reach without a ladder and we didn't want to disturb Katelyn with the noise since she was already in bed.

Lantier Tree Farm and Tree Lighting on Our Street

Every year since we moved to this house we've been getting a live Christmas tree. We've been going to Lincroft Tree Farms in Lincroft but last year we decided we wouldn't be coming back. The place didn't have any trees that were big enough to cut down that we liked, so we had to get a precut douglas fur which was beautiful but cost us an arm and a leg and defeated the purpose of going to the "Cut Your Own" farm. This year we decided to join our neighbor's Tree Picking party and go to the Lantier Tree Farm in Englishtown (http://www.lantiertreefarm.com/). This place as it turns out is the biggest tree farm in New Jersey! They have 50,000 Christmas Trees that you can pick from and any cut your own tree costs only $50!

The weather was great, about 50F, sunny and no wind, but we bundled up in case it got chilly. Turned out we were a little overdressed (except for Mike who doesn't wear jackets or coats ever). It took us about half hour to get to the farm, and once there, we took the wagon ride into the section with bigger trees,

and walked around until we found a few that we liked.

We found one about nine feet tall that looked perfect, so Mike cut it down and we carried it out carefully not to break any branches.



After our neighbors got their tree, we got some hot chocolate and funnel cake. Ashley and Katelyn had fun with Emma and Liam. Here's a picture of the four of them:
(You can tell my how they are dressed that it was a rather warm day for December!)

Our neighbor's brother came with a pickup truck, so we didn't even have to tie the tree to the roof. He drove it home for us and it was on our front door steps when we got back! Everyone had a great time.

Later that day festivities continued with the Tree Lighting Party on our street. We have a tall Christmas tree in the middle of the circle that guys put the lights on. You can see the tree coming down the street and it looks beautiful! After Santa arrived the lights were turned on and people continued to roast marshmallows by the fire. Ashley's still a little scared of Santa.. As soon as she saw him coming down the street, she ran inside the house, and didn't come back out. Only Mommy and Daddy got a picture with Santa.


We ended the night back at Stacy and Bill's house next door. Ashley had more fun with Emma and Liam. (Liam was teacher her how to play hockey, and then she was practicing rollerblading) Katelyn only took a short nap on the car ride back from the farm, so she was tired and checked out by 7pm.

Here's a view of our house with the lights. Mike and Dan worked very hard to get the lights up on the second story, but the wind storm we had last week pushed them inside the gutters. Nevertheless, the kids love the way the house looks. Katelyn keeps going "Wow" when she seems more lights, it's very cute :)

Ashley's Art Work

I finally got around to taking some pictures of Ashley's drawings. She really likes to color and is getting better at it.




This is a picture of Busenka and Grandpa Chuck that she drew for Grandpa Chuck's Birthday.

Taking Pictures for Xmas Card..

Yesterday I attempted to get a nice picture of my two crazy monkeys for the Christmas Card. I had to bribe them with sweets, and even then it was a challenge...

Here's the best that I could get:



And here's the rest.. my failed attempts at getting a decent picture. I got the best picture in the first two minutes, after that it all went down the hill, not to mention the scratches on Ashley's face that make her look like she's been in a cat fight..

We'll be going for formal portraits in January for Ashley's 4th birthday. Hoping to get some nice shots then.

Joan's Birthday

Yesterday was Joan's, I mean Nana's birthday. We cooked dinner at home and had a little celebration. It's much easier these days to stay home than to go out for a dinner with kids. Ashley's still ok, but Katelyn will not sit still for more than 20 minutes. I made a few appetizers, including bruschetta on french bread toasts, blueberry goat cheese with crackers and shrimp. For dinner we had Indira's famous Harvest Salad (with roasted turkey, feta cheese, pears, walnuts and dried cranberries), and I made a ham with mashed potatoes and string beans almondine. For desert I didn't have time to make a homemade cake, so I bought a cheesecake and make my own raspberry sauce to go with it. Katelyn loved the sauce so much she could have eaten a whole bowl full of it!

Here's some pictures of Nana and Ashley. (This was already after Katelyn retired to bed, so no Katelyn pictures this time)