Holidays 2011 Part I....and II

The holiday festivities were only improved by the addition of good food. Deciding to host Christmas Eve this year encouraged our family to focus on not only the beautification of the palace, but the quality of the items delivered to our guests. In that vain, Queen Wendy pulled out all the stops and made from scratch all sorts of goodies including Polish pierogis (Grandma Bulawa's recipe), babka (Grandma Bulawa's recipe again), borscht/beet soup (Grandma Bulawa's recipe once again) and our annual piles of cookies/candies including these delicious chocolate peanut butter balls. :)

  On Christmas Eve, we enjoyed the company of family and friends including Aunt Penny (aka: Betty Toothpicks) and our cousins. The kids ADORE Aunt Penny and really enjoyed being surrounded by family on this very special holiday.

 Abby also received a very special 'love note' from her classmate, Fritz...who also came by with a spectacular container filled with sugar cookies that he had made just for her. :) PRECIOUS!!

We made our annual trek to "Christmas Street" ( a street containing 20 houses-- ALL of which decorate to amazing degrees for the holidays. Out front of the first and most decorated was Santa and Mrs. Claus! The street takes the opportunity to give back to the community by collecting donations which go directly to local food pantries. It's an awesome Christmas Eve drive.

  Santa was EXTRA good to our kidlets this year--probably due to having Blue Fred around all month! They received new bikes and lots of special toys that truly made their holidays even more enjoyable! 

After opening their presents and exhausting themselves with play, we rallied the following day to join our very good friends, the Schmiedels, at the New England Aquarium.  This was a fabulous day-long adventure in Boston during which the kids spent most of their time hanging around the penguins--Aramis' favorite! 

 

All in all, a fantastic kick off to our 2011 holidays! :)