White Christmas

There was some admiring of Grandma Vicki's digital picture frame.

And poses with the kids in front of the Christmas tree with Chloe...

and Owen before throwing on winter coats to play in the snow outside.

How did we not notice that Chloe stayed in her pajamas when going out in the cold?

With no gloves?

It was hard working pushing around snowballs bigger than themselves.

The snow was perfect for rolling into snowmen balls, but it used up all of the snow in our front yard.  Although one of them did break in half.

It was nice seeing the kids work together as a team to roll the biggest balls up the hill together.

Owen had fun catching snowflakes.

Owen found pine nuggets for eyes, a baby carrot for a nose and shiny black rocks inside the house to use for the smile.  They were so proud of their snowman.

This was the first white Christmas we have had together in years.  Glad the kids were old enough to remember this rare occurrence!

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning, I awoke to a text from Papa Ford at 6am telling me to wake up.  I started to go back to sleep, but before turning over I decided to text back asking when he would be up to share Christmas with us (I was thinking 9am?).  Papa immediately texted back that he was outside. 

As I headed downstairs, I found a tearful Beanarina in the upstairs hallway.  She thought Santa Clause hadn't brought her any presents. 

I knew this wasn't true because Owen had woken me up at 4am to tell me about the letter from Santa to both kids and what was left for each.

We went downstairs to let Papa inside and admired all of the presents under the tree for our whole family who would be arriving throughout the morning.

Owen was going through new packs of Pokemon cards found in his stocking and Chloe was checking out the new Bey Blades battle arena.

Santa brought Chloe her very own Grown Up camera!  She was immediately taking pictures of everyone and everything. 

Owen was dancing with excitement over the morning.

He received many new books, but was most fascinated with this one.

Chloe got her own cookbook and was excited to start cooking for us one night a week, just like her brother!

Chloe was our Christmas elf and helped pull out presents and distribute them to the correct people.  Because she knows how to read names!

Even though this shot is blurry, I love that it captures Owen and Jez running together through the house.

Jezzie was a trashy cat and had fun sneaking into the garbage bags filled with paper to recycle later.

Papa Ford and Chloe chilled together on the sofa while reading one of her new books.

And he also crawled down to the floor to battle with the kids and their new bey blades.

Todd strummed Owen's new guitar that Santa brought for him.

The Grandmas arrived and cookies were consumed while unwrapping presents because I didn't have breakfast ready terribly early.

We don't have many big family breakfasts, so this was nice.  The kids LOVED being surrounded by grandparents!  We had hoped Grandma Vicki and Aunt Kiki would have been over, but they arrived a bit later and ate our leftovers. We wished that Papa Wenzel and Grandma Sharon could have shared Christmas with us, as well as Grandma Sue.  The kids feel there are really never too many grandparents around to spoil them.

After Grandma Vicki and Aunt Kiki arrived, the kids got more presents and were thrilled there were Minnesota Vikings clothes included!

Aunt Kiki got some new scarves for Christmas.

And then it started to snow.

Merry Christmas Maggie!

Grandma Vicki got a cool hanging rack with coffee cups.  Looks like the colors will fit into her home perfectly!

It was a fun Christmas morning of opening presents and being with our family!

Christmas Eve

In the afternoon, we went to a candlelight service, which the kids loved because they could hold their own candles.  Can you tell? :)

Silent Night.

Holy night.

All is calm.

All is bright.

After the service, we came home for dinner.  I snuck upstairs to change clothes, but first got in a quick pic.  It's not often that I am seen in pictures since I'm always the one holding the camera.

The kids had fun with the Grandmas at the table with us.

I think Grandma Suzanney and Chloe got into a little staring match.

Then we went out driving to see Christmas lights.

When we got home, it was past bedtime.  But we made sure to put out cookies and milk for Santa (as well as a few packets of Smartees) and some carrots for the reindeer.

The Morning of Christmas Eve

After we woke up and had breakfast, the kids jumped back into wrapping more of their Christmas presents that they had carefully picked out for each, Todd and the Grandparents who would be coming the next day.  Both were very particular about how they wrote the name tags to each person, signed their name and even took the time to write "Happy Christmas" on the top of each tag.

Our silly Bean.

Jezzie watched over us in the hopes some spare wrapping paper would fall to the floor for her to play with and bat around the room.

They were both very interested in what the other was wrapping and writing.

They each loved every bit of the wrapping process and wanted to do it all.  by.  themselves.

After we finished wrapping, we moved to the kitchen to make the first and last batches of Christmas cookies for the season (Todd and I agreed ahead of time that I really shouldn't be making multiple double batches of cookies each weekend in December this year).  Owen watched over the mixer while Chloe scarfed raisins and watched the cartoons on in the family room.

She snapped to attention when it was time to decorate the cookies.

Owen had fun sprinkling sugars on the cookies, too.  Once the cookie sheets were in the oven, they were both off as fast as they could be to watch cartoons and chase each other around the house.  :)