Merry Christmas!

Grace's Barbie house ~ Sam's Legos

New bikes ~ American Girl

Cookie Tree ~ Cousin Roudolphs

Snowmen with G & G Payne ~ G Minster

G Minster made matching dresses for the girls and babies ~

Christmas morning

Merry Christmas!

We hustled and bustled with the best of them this year and managed to get in a lot of Christmas fun. We spent time with 2 sets of grandparents, and our Minster cousins. I hosted 2 classroom parties and a neighborhood party. We went to The Nutcracker and A Christmas Carol. We decorated cookies and made our cookie tree, exchanged gifts, went bowling, opened our books each night, made a chain to count down the days, and attended the live nativity at the zoo. We decorated the house and set up model trains and 7 Christmas trees, took pictures and sent out cards. It was exhausting.

Gary and I spent many Christmases without kids and, while we enjoyed sleeping in and having a relaxing day, nothing compares to the enthusiasm of a child who wakes you at 5:30 am having already shaken each gift to determine which were Legos. We felt truly blessed this Christmas to enjoy seeing our kids enjoy Christmas.

One of my favorite things about this year was their enthusiasm for each other. Sam threw two hands in the air and cheered when Grace got her long-awaited American Girl doll. Perfect.

Hope you had a good Christmas. I must say, the exhaustion only enhances the experience, don't you think? Although I slept all day today and it was great!

The Nutcracker

For the last few years we've gone to see the Nutcracker during the Christmas season. This year we decided not to do it. We had tickets to see A Christmas Carol instead, but at the last minute Gary decided to surprise me with tickets. I have to say that A Christmas Carol was my least favorite performance at Theater IV to date, so I was that much happier to know that the Nutcracker was coming.

Our cousins from Northern Virginia and my parents joined us for a fun event. My mom made Grace and her cousin matching Christmas dresses. She even made matching dresses for their American Girl dolls. The kids all enjoyed the performance. The list of "favorites" ran the gamut from the rat king meeting his demise, to Fritz getting spanked for breaking the Nutcracker, the break-dancing-booty-shaking bear, to Bo Peeps's little sheep who are afraid of the wolf. Many of the kids listed getting the Nutcracker ornaments from Grandma on their list of favorites.

We're all humming the music and doing the moves in the kitchen. Somehow we're not getting as much height on our jumps as they did. Maybe we need tights ...