Christmas 2013

We had a very merry Christmas season this winter. We stayed home this year until new year's week, so it was quiet but blessed! 

Even so, we stayed plenty busy throughout the month of December. School pretty much went by the wayside as students and teacher were distracted by so many things to do that were fun and more interesting.

We decked the halls, inside and out. We took advantage of some 50 and 60 degree weather at the end of November to put up the outdoor decorations. The next weekend it was down to zero and I seriously doubt I would have felt like dealing with it.

 Then it stayed around zero for the next week and a half or so. Now that does sound miserable but there's an upside to it... the pond in our neighborhood froze solid. Once the temperatures crept up to the high teens and low twenties, I took the boys and one of their friends to play on the ice and they had a blast sliding around and building snow forts.

 

 

One evening we visited a beautiful display of gingerbread houses at the Mormon Trail Center in Omaha, and it inspired the boys to make their own houses out of graham crackers the next day. Jonathan loved the giant gingerbread house that little ones could play in.

 

 

 

 

 

Caleb, who is the master of photo bombs, asked me to take his picture in the house but quickly turned and gave me this pose as I snapped the shot. This is so going up at all his graduation open houses and wedding. He can't say he wasn't warned, either.

 

We spent Christmas Eve going to our church's service where our family gave the final advent reading, then joined some friends at their house for a delightful dinner. I guess we all lost track of time until someone noted on the NORAD Santa tracker that the jolly guy was in Tennessee so we scrambled home to get ready for bed. This involved a massive slumber party in  Ryan's and my room- we pulled mattresses of the boys' bottom bunkbeds and put them on the floor so that we could sleep in our own bed without being kicked all night long. Of course, the mattresses made for a giant trampoline earlier that day, but the boys had energy to spare as you can imagine.

 

 

Most of our presents don't appear until Christmas Eve after everyone has gone to bed (except for Mom and Dad, imagine!), but this one gigantic present showed up several days early.  Caleb found a big piece of bulletin board paper and asked me to wrap him up. It wasn't the first time he'd been found under the tree...

Christmas 2009- 3 weeks old!



Umm, he's gotten a little longer.

Everyone was really happy with their presents. Jonathan got a little castle built out of huge Mega Blocks; Andrew got a new Lego set he'd wanted which Ethan was more than happy to help him build. Caleb spends hours playing with his new fold-out fire truck and Ethan got a 4D frog that's a puzzle you put together; it's like dissecting a frog without having to dissect a frog. The boys also got some new games like Operation and Battleship. Oh, and a pair of roller skates- they've been having an awful lot of fun teaching themselves to skate in the basement.

 

 

  

 

Ryan got a 22 foot ladder and a new Florida State University yard flag which I assured him he would need when the Seminoles won the national championship (which they did, thank you very much). I got some new ear buds for my ipod, an electric tea pot (which is awesome) and some Skeltoes shoes.

We hope you had a blessed Christmas and New Years, too!