Christmas Morning

We woke up the next morning to celebrate christmas morning

with Reece's family. Its always fun to see the excitement of the

little kids. Everybody wore their traditional canine pajamas given

to us a few years ago by Reece's parents.

Breakfast was absolutely scrumptious. Fritatas of three different

flavors, breakfast casseroles, and strawberry orange julius'.

We gave Jonah some hex bugs robotic bugs that respond to their

environment in different ways, we got him one that changed direction

every time you clapped. And we gave Enoch alphabet cutouts and an sock-elephant.

Another year where Im caught off guard for how all the kids

are growing up so fast.

Winter Fog

One evening while driving home from my parents we I was

mystified by the fog. Had to get out and take pictures.

Christmas Eve

Reece and I got to spend all of Christmas eve together, just us two.

It was relaxing and fun.

First we went skiing. We got dressed up to spread holiday cheer.

The weather was perfect, and the freshly fallen snow was magical.

Then I decorated cupcakes that I made the night before with candy, holly leaves

and sprickle snow. I dressed Reece up in our Santa costume and I dressed up as

Mrs. Clause, and then we visited my little sister at work to try to make having to

work on christmas eve not so bad.

Santa and I needed to do some last minute shopping so we stuck around

to browse. Little kids kept staring and inching towards us. A couple of the

kids handed Reece toys they had picked off the shelves and asked if he could

bring them the toys later that night after they went to bed. We tried hard to

keep from laughing. Reece would look at the parents, if they nodded he promised

to deliver, if they just looked nervous he said he will just look into it.

Then we watched Home Alone and put together a gift we dropped off on

a friends doorstep. Then came home and ate a christmas pie dinner (pizza then

pumpkin) while watching Home Alone 2.

Some Seasonal Crafting

Reece's family decided to have a homemade gift exchange for christmas.

Each child was assigned an adult to help them make their gifts. We helped

little Jonah and Enoch make gifts for grandma and grandpa. We helped them

make handprints in paint on aprons, which I embroidered a "to" and "from"

next to with matching thread. We also got tote bags and fabric markers

and let them decorate a tote for each grandparent. We then rolled up the aprons

and put them in the totes with tissue paper for under the tree. I did make wooden

block ornaments to tie into the ribbons on each of the tote bags' handles. Each

ornament had a picture of the child on one side; brown, cream, and gold decorative

papers "modge podged" on the other three sides; a ribbon loop for hanging on top;

and a ribbon tassel hanging from the bottom.

Jonah was decorating Grandma's tote, he asked what she liked and we said anything french.

He didnt know anything french so we pulled up some pictures of france to give him ideas,

here is his eifel tower.... and we helped him with his french spelling. He did all the coloring

by himself. I thought it was amazingly adorable. And as you can see.....it was a lot of hard

work.

My family got together one night to do our annual decorating of gingerbread houses.

The little kiddos got busy eating the candy, Kitch and I focused on our houses.

The argyle roof design that I thought up too way longer than I thought but

it was still super fun. I loved the vintage dear that came with the kits.

Jenny dressed up her little boy Sammy as Santa. He was adorable.