Christmas!

We were woken at 5:30a.m. on Christmas morning to the pitter patter of little feet. Well, it really was more than a pitter patter (it's hard to be quiet when dragging a large pink rubber donkey down the stairs)!:) None-the-less we listened as Lily came down the stairs, stopped in the living room for a few moments, and then came running into our bedroom. With incredible excitement in her voice she exclaimed, "Mommy, Santa came! And he did bring my doll stroller!" Oh, it was precious and exactly what I was hopping for (though I had hoped it might happen a little later in the morning)! Because it was so early and Eli was still sleeping we managed to hold her off for a bit (snuggling in our bed and then eventually watching a video in our room). Finally though we just couldn't wait anymore. So Joe made a fire and the three of us started opening gifts (we figured it might be nice for Lily to open a few before Eli joined us).

She was pretty excited about this gift (a Princess book for the V-Reader she got from my parents)!

And after we opened just a few gifts Eli woke up to join us. He loved the drum that Santa brought for him!

And once he was awake we opened our stockings (Lily's had this butterfly puppet), enjoyed our Christmas breakfast (cinnamon rolls), and opened the rest of the gifts.

Previous to Christmas morning Eli had gotten really interested in gifts. So much so that we thought that opening gifts might be a bit challenging for him and Lily (since he is so curious and wants to be a part of opening every gift). But after a couple he actually seemed more interested in just playing with a few of them (like these light up balls)- and we even let Lily help open his last few gifts. It went so much better than we expected!

Lily enjoyed playing with her play silks right away making them into a dress!

And this wooden horse barn was her other big gift and she loved it (also playing with it right away)!

And after all of the gifts were open Lily continued to play and Eli napped for a few hours (so long that I had to wake him up). In fact, I managed to go into his room, pick out his clothes, and he was still asleep. So I snuck back downstairs and grabbed my camera (since I don't have any recent sleeping pictures of this little boy). Oh, he's just so cute (and a tad bit obsessed with his blankets in case you didn't notice)!

I'm not sure why I thought this would go well, but after I woke Eli up I tried to snap a few quick pictures of the two of them before we had to leave for Joe's parent's house. Eli was not really in the mood.

And they had had enough!

But we ended on a happy note with Lily giving Eli a little love.

After the pictures we left right away for Joe's parents house. We got there just in time for a wonderful Christmas dinner.

And sledding!

Joe's parents live at the top of this great hill and it's wonderful for sledding with the kids!

It was so good to get out and get some fresh air and exercise among all the food, goodies, and gifts!

Uncle Donald and the cousins

And then I had to come back inside because our sweet little boy refused to nap. So I may have missed out on some sledding, but I did get to enjoy some delicious dessert and play time with the little ones!

Our little elf just didn't want to have his picture taken this day!

And then things began to wind down. The kids got their pajamas on and everyone sort of just relaxed and snuggled in.

It really was a delightful Christmas!

And we were all exhausted (even I went to bed around 8p.m.)!

We hope that your Christmas was as joyful as ours!

'Twas the Night Before Christmas

The stroller and drum were their presents from Santa!

I just love Christmas Eve. The night feels so magical. And Christmas Eve service at church might just be my favorite part of the whole holiday! Well, this year at church I wasn't feeling so well and Joe had to leave half way through the service with Eli (it was past his bedtime)- but Joe did get to hear the rest of the service from the nursery. And even though I wasn't feeling great I rebounded part way through and did get to enjoy the service, all the singing, and especially the church being lit aglow as we each held a candle through the closing song (we even let Lily hold one- she was so careful holding in tightly with both hands)! And for the second year in a row we saw "reindeer" around our house when we got home from church! Earlier that day the four of us scattered reindeer food (oats with a little glitter mixed in) and Lily was so excited to see that the "reindeer" (otherwise known as the herd of deer that live around our house) were visiting! Oh, how easily she believes that they really are reindeer- it is too precious! And as we entered the house Lily found the sack that Santa had left almost right away- running and yelling from the living room that Santa had been there and left his sack (with a few treats in it)!

And I am quickly learning that one of my other favorite parts of Christmas is getting to play Santa on Christmas Eve. After Lily and Eli were tucked into bed Joe and I went to work cleaning up the house and getting everything ready for Christmas morning. This year we intentionally waited until that night to put all the Christmas presents under the tree- even the presents from Joe's family (it just seemed more magical that way). And it was so much fun for me bringing out all of the presents, arranging them just so, stuffing the stockings, and just making everything look merry and bright! It's sort of like getting to relive your childhood all over again! And then we just snuggled in and waited for the pitter patter of little feet in the morning...

A Skype Christmas

Opening presents with my parents!

Waiting for the big surprise (Eli doesn't quite understand yet what it means to cover your eyes)!

Hello donkeys!

Lily and Pinky

Eli and Babe (as in Babe the Blue Ox)!

And in case you are wondering- Joe is in the background trying to reconnect to Skype (we temporarily lost my parents for a few minutes)!

Apparently Babe's ears look tasty!

My mom had to work on Christmas day this year so we decided that we would spend Thanksgiving this year with my family instead. This was the first year that my parents haven't been with us (either here or in Wisconsin) for Christmas since the kids were born. So of course we were a little sad. But...we did get to enjoy a little Christmas celebration "with" them anyway. Enter Skype. Yes, we opened gifts and celebrated Christmas with my parents over Skype! It wasn't quite the same of course, but it was really great that my parents got to watch the kids open their presents (and we got to watch them open theirs too)! There were a number of gifts, but far and away their favorites were the Rody horses/donkeys that my parents got them! Lily was beyond excited and has for days now carried hers around with her and even brought it to bed!:)

Thanks Skype for helping to bring us together for Christmas!

Happy Birthday Jesus!

Two days before Christmas we decided to spend the day really celebrating Jesus' birthday! Throughout the whole Christmas season we try to emphasis that Christmas really is about the birth of Jesus, but we wanted to spend a whole day just our little family being together and focusing on Christ and celebrating Him!
So we started out our little celebration with some lights (and obviously taking some pictures in the lights)!

No worries- we promptly stopped him from chewing on the lights!

We may go to a Baptist church, but we love dancing so of course our celebration had to involve some dancing (mostly done by Lily and Heart Bear)!

And while Lily was dancing Eli mostly watched (and chewed on things).

Lights...Dancing...and Cake! Every year for the last few years we have made Jesus a birthday cake- it's one of our favorite traditions. Here's Lily putting the finishing touches on the birthday cake-sprinkles!

And birthday candles!

Lots of birthday candles- I let Lily do as many as she wanted and she wanted pretty much the whole box (I guess she figures that Jesus IS pretty old)!

And for Lily no party is complete without decorations (she loves to decorate)- so we decided to make some candy inspired ornaments to decorate with. Here is Lily and Eli patiently watching and waiting for the candy ornaments to melt in the over.

And ummm...they didn't turn out exactly like they should have. The candy should have melted into pretty stained glass shapes to hang. But when you forget to line the cookie cutters with foil (oops) then what you get is something a little more exotic! And actually they turned out really interesting and beautiful- kind of just like Jesus himself.

See- beautiful.

And the scene is set for our celebration! Lily wanted to include her alarm clock so that she would know exactly when the party was starting (even though the party really was going on all day)!

And before we knew it it was time for the party!

We started with a gift for Jesus. This is our brand new family tradition. Every Christmas we will give Jesus a birthday gift- something we think he would like. This year our whole little family gathered around the computer, checked out the World Vision International website, and discussed our options. And in the end our present for Jesus was buying 10 ducks for an international family in need. The ducks will help the family get food (eggs), income (selling the eggs, down, and future ducks), and even fertilizer. I think that Jesus probably enjoyed this gift as much as we enjoyed giving it.
After presents we enjoyed a lovely dinner together and then...

Cake!

We sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and then decided to let Lily blow out the candles (somehow very fitting since this was the year that Lily invited Christ into her heart)!

And I just loved this series of pictures as Lily blew out the candles and things gradually got darker.

And after enjoying cake Jesus was finally placed in the manger and we all snuggled up on the couch to read the Christmas story.

The whole day was just fun and joyful and that's probably because our focus was on the true giver of Joy. Happy birthday Jesus!

Happy New Year!

I think that the hat made her feel like a super model because she came up with these poses all on her own!:)

Below: Apparently 2011 will bring the continued pursuit of the illusive great picture of my two children together!:)

Happy New Year!

I love the hope that a new year brings. Living on a college student calendar I feel the same sense of hope and new beginning with the start of each semester and with each long break. It's wonderful to be able to start fresh a few times each year!

Now don't worry- I still have plenty to share from our Christmas celebrations, but I thought for once I would actually be timely with one of my holiday posts!:)

We had a fun and pretty laid back New Years Eve yesterday. Lily and I spent the morning making these fun party hats (we made about 8 of them). Making them was actually pretty easy and fun, but I did somehow manage to burn myself twice with the hot glue gun, puncture my finger once with a tack, and even cut my hand once (this is a mystery to me since we weren't

using knives of any sort)! Thankfully Lily managed to stay injury free (I wasn't letting her anywhere near the hot glue gun)!

We made the party hats for a little New Years Eve get together we hosted at our house last night with two families that we just love! Brave and Jennifer (and their two kids) and Laura and Wade (and their two kids) joined us for a pizza dinner (it was delivery- like I said it was pretty laid back). We ate pizza, made fun kid friendly drinks (complete with cherries and cute drink umbrellas), and just hung out together and let the kids run wild. And run wild they did- with a living room full of balloons and party horns/blowers in hand they just let it all out! We all also played a board game which involved the Grinch stealing presents, singing, and lots and lots of full out laughing and screaming. Yes screaming. All it took was one child letting out a little yell, scream, or even just a laugh and all five of them would bust out in full hysterics. It was beyond comical and had most of the adults going too! I had envisioned doing a few more games, but we decided that the kids were just too wound up and that it would be best saved for another night! At around 9:00p.m. the kids started to crash big time and Lily was ASKING to go to bed. Joe and I stayed up and watched a movie, but didn't quite make it until midnight (oh well, I never make it to midnight)!

So do you have New Years resolutions? I don't know if we are much of a "resolution" family, but we do like to set goals (which are probably pretty close to the same thing). So, here are some of my New Years resolutions/goals (at least the ones I've thought of so far)...

1. Train for and compete in my first spring triathlon

2. Photograph my first wedding (and hopefully more like 3 or 4 or more)

3. Learn how to make my own yogurt and granola

4. Bake more homemade bread (I would love to do this once a week, but I make no promises)!

5. Start most of my mornings with time with God (whether that is with my kids or alone, long or short- I want to do something).

6. Do our 56 weeks of family service project (you will be hearing way more about this soon)!

I think it's going to be a good year...