Our Christmas

Okay, back to the catching up - I could let most of this stuff pass...probably those who care have seen the pictures already and heard the stories, but I hope to put this blog in book form someday and would be sad to have skipped Christmas and Brielle's birthday, so on with the REWIND...

We had a lot of fun this Christmas season. Joshua was really able to experience and enjoy this special time of year. He loved picking out our Christmas tree, lighting it up everyday, blowing out the Christmas candles we lit, opening a door on the chocolate Advent calendar everyday after lunch, seeing the Christmas lights (especially the choo-choo train on 11th St on our evening runs), opening presents, saying "Merry Christmas", listening to us sing Christmas carols, eating Christmas cookies...it was funny, both kids took a special liking to the Baby Jesus in our Nativity scene. Josh liked to take him in and out of the manger and make him go 'nigh-nigh'. Brielle would reach desperately for him whenever she got upset or hurt and would NEED to see Baby Jesus to feel better. So funny. She also liked the sheep in the Nativity and starting 'arfing' at them (right now most animals go 'arf' and birds go 'quack').

First time to sit on Santa's Lap

We weren't sure how our outing to sit on Santa's lap would go over, but the picture is pretty much worth a thousand words! Joshua is not to the point where if we talk something up as fun and a good thing, he can understand that...we expected him to be afraid/weirded out by the whole thing, but because we talked about it in the car there, he was excited to go to Santa's house. Brielle was not such a fan of the strange man, but did her best to hold it together.

Playing Chase - right before B started walking

We didn't really get a good picture of the tree this year, but it was large and pretty. The kids did really well leaving it alone for the most part, although Brielle did take a bite out of one ornament. It was one I'd made with a friend out of cinnamon clay about 20 years ago - now it holds even more "special meaning"!

Opening Christmas gifts by a raging fire

The Christmas gifts became a choo-choo

Our family Christmas gift was a bike trailer

Since we did a big family gift, the kids got a few small things in their stockings. These light up balls were a hit with the birthday girl and her big brother.