Baby New Year!

This year, New Year's was extra special because it was also Stella's first birthday!  It was so much fun to celebrate this big milestone for our sweet little girl.  To ring in the new year, we went to the Ecotarium for a Noon Year's Eve ball drop, where we also made a family time capsule.  For Stella's party, we continued the theme with a Baby New Year party at our home, and we all had a great time with family and friends!

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Happy Holidays!

The holidays felt truly magical for us this year; it was the first year that Mia really understood them and, of course, it was Stella's first Christmas!  To make it even more special, baby Abigail arrived the week before Christmas, so we were all very excited about her arrival - the girls are so happy to have a cousin!

We had so many fun activities this year, including our annual Ornament Swap, a ride on the Polar Express, the Gleason family Christmas party, holiday crafts, Christmas sleepover weekend with Auntie Theresa, and a visit to see Santa! We continued our Christmas Eve tradition of hosting the Feast of Seven Fishes at our house, and Santa stopped by our house on Christmas Eve to deliver an early gift to Mia and Stella!  His elves also delivered some Christmas pajamas to help the girls sleep so Santa could return with the rest of their gifts :)

On Christmas morning, we opened stocking and presents!  Keeping with our family tradition, our girls received three gifts from Santa.  Mia received a large Rody horse (for lots of bouncing fun!), a wooden domino set and a game.  Stella received a wooden ball track, a doll and stacking blocks.  

For Christmas dinner, we visited Auntie Debbie and Uncle Doug's house, which was a lot of fun (and of course we had Nana's homemade raviolis, which are the best!)

It was such a wonderful holiday season and a great way to end Stella's first year!  We look forward to 2015!