Christmas Day 2010

My Christmas got stared off with a bang. Amy woke up around 1:15 am, and it took a while for her to calm down and go back to sleep. Although our kids have never woken up early on Christmas Day I was fairly certain someone would try to sneak downstairs early. So I propped our door open. At 2:30 I heard movement in the boys' room. I came out in the hall and saw David at the top of the stairs. David is a very sound sleeper, and almost NEVER gets up in the middle of the night. He said he had to go to the bathroom, so I waited for him and got him back in his bed. I heard him stirring again at 3:00, so I walked in and caught him standing up. He was having a hard time getting back to sleep - the anticipation was just too much. I couldn't blame him. I fell asleep but heard him again at 3:45. I don't think he had fallen asleep yet. He was upset because he was tired, but couldn't fall asleep. Eventually he did go back to sleep, but guess who woke up at 6:15am??? Amy! I was exhausted, and I didn't want to wake the boys yet, so Aaron turned on an episode of Dora on the computer, and let me sleep a bit longer. Finally around 6:50 am I heard the boys wake up.

So I went down stairs and the kids attempted to line up

Here they come

They quickly dumped their stockings.

And then they opened Santa's gifts.

Amy got a bin of Duplos

Timothy got LEGO City Police Headquarters

David got LEGO Portal of Atlantis

Aaron got a mix of his favorite things like summer sausage and a can of nuts.
And I got a new crockpot. It's bigger, and the lid fits (I dropped my old slow cooker and the metal dish got bent, so the lid doesn't fit properly anymore).

Then we had some breakfast - which didn't last long - and then it was back to opening presents. There were too many as usual, and we even hid one of Amy's and plan to save it for later.
Here are some highlights in pictures.

Timothy gave Amy a baby bottle for her doll. She immediately tried it out.
While David really wanted (and got) a basketball, Timothy isn't into sports as much. But we knew he'd love this:

Yes, we got him an Easy Bake Oven. He loves to help me in the kitchen, and now he can do some things on his own!

David loves his Mariner's shirt

Aaron found these horses for Amy and she LOVES them!

You can see what a mess the living room was, and the shop vac that Aaron got from me. Really he bought it and I wrapped it up and gave it to him. My two favorite gifts were a new BYU T-shirt and a book from Tina and John. It is the BYU Football Vault book. They found it at Costco in Utah. It's like a scrapbook of the history of BYU football - I love it!

Aaron went into round at the hospital around 11:00 and was back in about an hour. We had fun opening presents, playing with new toys, playing games, talking to family, skyping family, eating leftovers - although truthfully the boys didn't even eat lunch, they just ate candy all day long. We did make them eat some leftovers for dinner though. The turkey was gone too quickly, so maybe next year we'll do two turkey breasts :) We watched Toy Story 3, played on the computer, put together LEGOs, listened to Christmas music, and attempted to clean up a bit. It was a great, fun, and fabulous Christmas, and I'm a little sad it's over. Now we have another week of vacation. I hope it's as fun as last week.

Christmas Eve

Let's start with the 23rd. My plan was to clean the house so we wouldn't have to do much for the next few days. We did things that normally only get done on Saturdays, and basically just got the house in order. Then David invited Lauren over to play for a bit. That morning I got a call from Stephen and Amber saying that they were stopping by that afternoon on their way to Amber's parents' home. Stephen had told Aaron about that on Sunday, but when I asked him why he called we got distracted by something, and never got back to the conversation. So we had some surprise guests Thursday afternoon. However before all that we met with some friends at the local McDonald's playland. We bought some treats and let them run around. Before we left two more of our friends came to play and have lunch. My boys weren't too excited that they weren't staying for lunch. I made it up to them by feeding them hotdogs for lunch. I had leftovers. Our neighbor asked to borrow the boys for a Christmas craft they were making. While they were gone I put Amy down for a nap and went downstairs to vacuum. To my surprise Amy was asleep when I went back upstairs!

After the boys got back and Amy woke up from her nap they watched "Swan Princess" on Netflix. They had a snack and completely destroyed my freshly vacuumed carpet. Since the fog was slowing Stephen and Amber down I decided to make some spaghetti and breadsticks for dinner in case they were hungry. We had a nice visit with them - I forgot to take pictures - oops. We had an early dinner around 5:00 and then they were on their way again. I can't really remember what else we did that night, probably just cleaned up and watched a movie.

Christmas Eve was a great family day. The clinic was closed so Aaron didn't have to work. He was on call starting at 5:00 however, so we did most everything early in case he had to go to the hospital. With just our little family we decided to cook just a turkey breast. Aaron had put it in a brine solution overnight and then put it on our little grill. It was a little too big for the grill so we had to finish it the oven. I thought I had everything prepared for dinner, but I forgot the mushrooms for the green bean casserole. So Aaron walked over to the store and picked up a can of cream of mushroom soup. The boys mostly played outside in the melting snow. At least it wasn't foggy anymore. We had dinner around 2:30. And Amy was a little bit tired.
After dinner Amy was falling asleep so I carried her up to her room, but the second I laid her on the bed she woke up, so she had no nap on Christmas Eve. Later we read from the scriptures and acted out the nativity. Aaron was Joseph. Amy didn't want to dress up as Mary, but she was more than happy to put the baby in the "manger".

David also didn't want to dress up, so he was our narrator.

Timothy enjoyed being a shepherd

I was a shepherd as well, but I had the camera - so no pics of me :)

Aaron then got signout, but didn't have to go into the hospital. Earlier in the day one of his coworkers called and offered to round for him Christmas morning and take all calls from 7:00 am until 11:00 am! It was a great Christmas gift for us. He settled on doing rounds later in the day and letting her take calls from 7:00 to 11:00.

Then we let the kids open one present - the traditional new pajamas, and watched Mr. Kruger's Christmas. One of our favorites. I tried to take a picture of everyone, and had to laugh at this one. Aaron is mid blink, the boys are both picking their noses and Amy ducked.

Second try was better.

Then we put out the reindeer food

And the cookies and milk for Santa. Then Amy had a melt down. It was time for bed. I wasn't surprised that Amy crashed pretty quickly, I was shocked that the boys were asleep by 9:30!!! Santa was able to come early,
and Aaron and I got to bed at a decent hour.

One more video

Amy didn't get a nap today. As a result, she was very tired at 7:30 when we were putting the cookies out for Santa. This is what happened.

A few videos

I sometimes forget to post videos. Here a few that we've taken over the past couple of months.
The first one is of Amy and her cousin Abigail running around the hotel lobby while we were watching the Boise State game after Grandma's funeral. Aunt Brittany makes an appearance too.


This video was taken at my parents' house over Thanksgiving. Hannah cracked us up constantly. Here she is eating her salad.


This is a video I took of Amy while she was telling me about shoes.


This video is of Timothy's Christmas Program at school.

Winter Break begins

Sunday was a pretty normal day. The Christmas musical program was beautiful, and I felt bad that I didn't participate. I just haven't had time to make it to the rehearsals. After church we had tithing settlement, and then had some left overs for lunch. Then we visited a lady that Aaron home teaches, apparently she is the grandmother of two of my friends here. David had fun counting all of the clocks throughout the house.

I tried to get Amy to take a nap around 3:30 when she was going bonkers. It didn't work, so I ended up going in my room and took a nap from 4:00 until 5:00 - it was great! We were making dinner when our neighbor called. Her husband had broken his leg and needed help getting from the car to the house. So Aaron helped him into the house and realized they just got back from the hospital and they probably needed dinner, so he offered to bring them dinner. We ate a little later than we had planned, but it wasn't a big deal. As we were going to bed we noticed it was snowing.

Monday the kids first real day of vacation. Amy got up at 6:15!!! So much for sleeping in. Although Aaron had to get up for work anyway. I was going to make waffles, but I only had one egg. Then I remembered I was supposed to make cookies for our FHE caroling activity that night. David wanted to go out in the snow as soon as he was dressed. I was worried about him waking the neighbors up, so I made him wait until almost 9:00. He played outside in the snow for about an hour and then wanted Lauren to come over and play. He waited inside for about 30 minutes until she and her brother Landon came over. Then they were back outside until I called them in for lunch. We had a few extra kids for lunch and it was fun. I borrowed some eggs from a neighbor rather than send home friends and drag the kids to the store. I made some new bar cookies, I'll have to post the recipe!

Eventually the kids came inside and warmed up, and watched some more Inspector Gadget, and played on the computer. Amy refused to nap again. Aaron called and said he was swamped at work, and wouldn't be home until at least 8:00, so we had dinner and went caroling without him.
We had fun and went to about 7 places to sing. Amy fell asleep on the way to the first one. I pulled her out of her seat, then she fell asleep on the way to the second one, I gave up and just left her in the van. We were close enough I could see it from where we were. Stop #5 was in an apartment complex, so I brought her inside. She did pretty well considering she'd just taken a 45 minute, late nap. Once we got back to the church the kids played musical chairs, and we got the cookies and hot chocolate ready. It was really hot. I spent most of the time in the kitchen just talking to people. Amy didn't want me to go anywhere, and surprisingly Timothy didn't like all the commotion in the gym. So we stayed in the kitchen. I had planned to leave around 8:30, but I think it was 8:50 by the time we got to the van. It was not easy to get those kids to bed so late.

Tuesday was Aaron's day off. We got to sleep in until 6:45! I ran up to the city to do some grocery shopping, and David went out to play in the snow at about the same time - 8:00 am! It was a good day. After I got back from the store we went over to the church to play basketball. It didn't last very long. Then Aaron to Amy to yet another Christmas party. This was a Pediatric Department party. The physicians catered the event (I was in shock at Aaron's portion of the bill - I guess I'll have to get used to that) and gave gift cards to the support staff. I stayed home with the boys and we attempted to clean out all of the boxes of toys, and throw away or giveaway toys they no longer played with. I succeeded in throwing out a bag of garbage, but for some reason those boys do not want to part with any of their toys. The best part was finding a library book that has been missing for 3 weeks - I'm not looking forward to paying that fine. We took a break for lunch and then David wanted to separate his LEGOs by color. We did that for a bit, and then he wanted Lauren to come over. So Lauren came over about the same time Amy and Aaron came back from the party. Surprisingly Amy didn't fall asleep on the way home - she was wired! They played upstairs for a bit and then I turned on Anastasia for Amy. They all ended up watching it for a while and then they wanted to go out in play in the snow. I have to mention that the snowman that were built on Saturday became a snow fort on Monday and is now a throne.

David and Bryson playing in the snow this morning.

Bryson on the throne

And it's still snowing! It starts to melt and then it freezes and and snows some more. David finally came inside and wanted to play a game on the computer. Amy was losing it at this point and I tried to get her to lay down for a nap. She mostly just screamed at me for 20 minutes. I finally got her to calm down and I thought she would sleep, but then she started talking about Santa, and she perked up. At least she was in a better mood. So instead of napping I gave her a snack while I made dinner. We ate a little early and then got ready for the Primary Activity.

We had a great time at the activity, even though the boys complained about getting into church clothes. They had three crafts for the families to do together. We made a beaded snowflake ornament, and two Christmas Cards. Then we split into a couple of groups and had a "Walk Through the Life of Christ". Several ward members participated. The youth portrayed the Nativity, and played the video "Luke II". At the next stop a couple talked about the miracles Jesus performed. In the next room a couple talked about the Last Supper and the Sacrament. Timothy was quick to answer the questions and was spot on! The next stop was about the Garden of Gethsamane. Then there was a slide show and reading about the crucifixion. The last stop was a family reading and singing about the burial and the resurrection. We went back into the gym to wait for everyone else to finish. Then we went into the chapel for a few musical numbers and testimonies. It was done very well, and the kids were mostly reverent. We ended with cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate. It was our third late night in a row - oh well - it is vacation after all.

Today it is snowing again and our plans to go to the McDonald's play land have been put on hold. The roads are pretty icy after last night freezing fog. Maybe we'll head out later if it warms up. We'll see. Meanwhile David is out playing in the snow again and the rest of us are inside watching PBS.

More Christmas Parties

Thursday I made the drive up the city for a few things. As I was walking into Target I saw Abby - my neighbor - coming out. We talked for a bit. While inside Target I saw Wendy - another friend from church, and she said her sister Melissa, another friend, was there somewhere as well. Amy and I also went over the Walmart just to pick up something we had shipped to the store. As I was leaving with the box, Amy - who had been complaining that she wanted to go home - decided she wanted to run away. After I chased her around for a bit she proceeded to hop down the aisle like a frog. Mostly she just dragged herself down the aisle on her hands and knees. It was quite a funny sight. Luckily she fell asleep on the way home and transferred to the bed just fine. When I got home I made more sugar cookies- this time for David's class. I can't remember what else we did that evening.... I think that was the night Aaron decided to start our Netflix free trial.

Friday I walked the kids to school do I could drop off the cookies at David's classroom. I don't remember much else about that day. However that evening was yet another Christmas Party. This was the hospital employee party. Usually this is a really big deal, but because of budget cuts it was really scaled back. It almost didn't happen at all. But because this is where they give out end of the year awards they wanted to still have the party. The hospital chef whipped up some yummy appetizers, and desserts. For a while Aaron was the only physician there. After a while they handed out awards. They had a few games that were fun. They roped Aaron into playing one of them. As luck would have it he won, and got a gift certificate to Olive Garden - date night! They also had a raffle, somehow we never got a raffle ticket, but it didn't really matter. Then they played really loud music with music videos included. Some were a bit scary. They did play some good songs to, and I got Aaron to dance with me for one song. We left around 10:00, although supposedly the party ended at 1:00 am. When we got home apparently Amy gave the babysitter a hard time about staying in her bedroom, and ended up sleeping in David's bed. Oh well.

Saturday after breakfast we went to clean the church. It had snowed, so Aaron shoveled the entryways, and used the snow blower on the sidewalks. We had planned on going to the Santa Train, but we couldn't get the boys to agree on what to do. So we ended up scraping the train things and going to the city to finish our Christmas shopping. We went to the dollar store so the boys could buy gifts for family members. David even found one for his teacher. We went to Sonic on the way back. It's been a while since I've been there! Our lunch actually cost less than the train thing would have. The rest of the day I think we just cleaned and watched movies, oh and built five snowmen in the back yard.





We had dinner and movie in the family room. We couldn't agree on a movie and the kids ended up picking Inspector Gadget episodes. Aaron and I watched another Netflix movie and stayed up way too late watching it.

Still more to come...

A partial update

Last Monday I did more than just blogging and cleaning. I also went to the post office. One thing I love about living in a small town - there was no line! My VT companion walked in after me, and then the lady from the flower shop across the street. As I was getting Amy back in the van Timothy's 1st grade teacher pulled up. Based on the time I'd say she was out while the kids were at lunch recess.

In the morning I had heard good news from the other residents that worked with Aaron, so I was anticipating his typical call at lunch time. I think he could tell I was excited. Monday he got the official word that he passed his boards! He is now a board certified pediatrician!!! I am very proud of him!!! He bought some sparking apple juice to celebrate in the office, and we finished it off after the kids went to bed. That evening we had dinner and FHE with some friends int eh ward. The boys loved the pool table downstairs, and played with Aaron and Br. R* before and after dinner. We had brought our goodies for a dessert. I got to talk with Sister A* - who teaches the Beehives (12 and 13 year old girls) at church, and Sister R* - the seminary teacher. Amy entertained us for a while, and then latched on to Sis R*. It's always nice to see Amy warm up to other people. For our FHE activity we play Christmas Songs on their Chimes. I was pleasantly surprised to see how well the boys could follow along and play their chimes at the right time. We ended up playing 3 or 4 songs. It was a good day!

Tuesday I finished my blog post and cleaned some more. It was Aaron's day off, so he helped out in Timothy's class. We also went to see Timothy perform in a Christmas Music Program at school I just realized it was the first School Christmas program we've been to. Somehow I missed the memo that they were supposed to dress in Christmas colors. So I brought a green button up shirt for Timothy to put on just before they came in to sing.

He saw us and smiled - it's zoomed in a lot, so it's not the best picture

They sang 5 songs. It was short and sweet, and I loved it! We also tried to go visit one of his Home Teaching families. I don't remember anything else out of the ordinary. Tuesday night there was scouts, but that's about it.

Wednesday I did laundry and made some dessert for our ward Christmas Party. I was also asked to bring table decorations for 3 tables. Anyone who knows me well knows I have no decorating sense whatsoever. But I was given a few suggestions, and came up with a few things. Aaron was on call so he met us there. He got to miss the sitting around and making the kids sit in their seats, and got there after we got in line to get food. Someone had the fabulous idea to bring food that kids would like. So among the ham, potatoes and rolls people brought pizza hot dogs, mac and cheese and chips. Oh and fried chicken. It was a fun dinner. There wasn't a program, but rather just dinner, and singing a few carols. And then Santa arrived. Somehow we ended up toward the end of the line. But the kids were so determined they didn't seem to mind. They did however keep running up to the front to see who was talking to Santa and if they were getting any closer. Amy could care less about Santa, but her nursery leader Becky (whom she adores) was behind us, so she sat at her feet little puppy dog, and sometimes a frog.

David is reluctantly sitting with Santa - he's not sure how much he believes anymore.

Timothy is more than happy to tell Santa everything that he wants for Christmas

Amy wouldn't even let me hold her next to Santa

After the kids finally saw Santa they ate some candy from their bags while I shuttled stuff out the the van and Aaron helped clean up. We got home around 8:30 after a great evening.

More to come...

Holiday Baking

Now that I am finally done with my holiday baking - for the most part - I can get this house back into shape. I should be cleaning, but instead I'm blogging. I've got my goodies delivered (except for a few) and mailed, and now I've got a sink full of dishes and a bathroom that desperately needs to be cleaned. But I thought I'd do a quick update.

I left off on Tuesday. I didn't mention that Aaron and I missed a physician Christmas Party that night because of his scout training. However we didn't feel bad missing it because it was the 2nd of 5 parties that he will have for work. Wednesday I failed to find a babysitter for Amy, so I didn't go to Timothy's class. However I did start my baking. I knew I would be short a few items so I walked over to the grocery store without seeing the new ad for the week. I picked one up there and realized there was produce on sale. So I ended up buying a little bit more than originally planned, but now I could have salad with more than just lettuce and carrots, and fresh oranges - mmm! However when I got home I realized I didn't have enough oats for my chocolate chip cookies - so I had to put them off. I did make peanut butter cookies, gingersnaps, fudge, white chocolate covered pretzels, and started making truffles. David had scouts that night. I dropped him off, and Aaron made it home before bedtime, so he put the other two to bed while I picked David up.

Thursday I did the sugar cookies, and attempted some peppermint bark. It's the first time I've tried to make it. I think it tastes great, but I still have trouble getting the two layers of chocolate to stay together consistently. I also dipped the truffles which was a new experience for me. I've only rolled them in sugar, nuts etc. before. My first try wasn't very pretty. The white chocolate ended up with pieces of milk chocolate in it. Then I did dark chocolate and used a different method to dip, and it worked much better. I tried again with milk chocolate the next night, and it would have worked fine except that I didn't stir it well enough while melting it and some spots got cooked too much and I ended up with little chunks of chocolate. Oh well. Maybe next time I'll get it right. Timothy helped me frost the sugar cookies. So some of them had way too much frosting. It was a fun project.

Just before we started I got a call from the school nurse who saw Timothy in the office and was concerned about the bumps on his cheeks. I assured her they were just dry skin and not a rash. She said perhaps they looked red because he was emotional. Then it occurred to me that he didn't tell me that he was in the office. So we had a little talk about what happened at school that day.

That evening we went over the A*'s to do some home teaching, and we gave away our first plate of cookies. I felt bad I hadn't made the chocolate chip cookies yet. We stay for a bit, and Sis. A* ended up giving away one of her musical snowmen decorations. She has a ton, and they are pretty cute. We got home late, and it was time for bed.

Friday I still needed oats, so Amy and I went to Safeway and got some groceries, then came home and made the chocolate chip cookies finally. I made some more peppermint bark and finished dipping the truffles. Finally I was done! That evening we just did baths and that's it.

Saturday Aaron went up to the city to do some more shopping and returned our broken vacuum. I think I mentioned that our vacuum broke last Sunday. We've had other issues with it and we'd rather get our money back than have it repaired - even though it would be covered under the warranty - so I called Costco to see about returning it. They suggested just bringing it into the store and returning it citing "unsatisfied, didn't last as long as expected". Really after 5 months of use they'll take it back? Well they did - yippee! So we just went with a cheap model, and it works great so far.

On the way back from the city it started snowing. It had been raining earlier, so we didn't expect it to stick much. The forecast said a rain/snow mix. It was coming down in huge flakes, and soon started sticking. By the time Aaron got home we had about 1/2 inch, and so we shoveled it and put down some ice melt. We had some lunch and the piled into the van to deliver our goodie plates. By the time we got going there was about 3 inches. After the third stop we decided we had better put chains on. Unfortunately we left them at home. After a few more stops we went back home to put them on. It's a good thing, because there were a few hills we would not have made it up without them.

Amy eventually fell asleep, but it didn't last very long, so she got a short nap. We got home around 3:30 and there was about 6 inches on the ground! David went out to play in the snow with neighbor Zachary.

I also took a picture of the tree out back.

Aaron and I had a Christmas party in the city (the 3rd work party) that evening. We heard the roads were pretty bad so we decided to leave early. Nikki (she works at the same clinic as Aaron) came with us since Gary was already in the city at work. We got both babysitters to come early. Gary suggested that we take a different road than the freeway. We agreed. It's not like we had a choice though, the entrance was blocked. There was an accident blocking the freeway so police had guided traffic off the freeway, however those getting off were at a standstill because a semi was stalled on the off ramp. So the alternate route was wide open for us. We still had the chains on which we needed for the first little bit, but once we made it made it back to the freeway it was raining again and we were about 10 cars behind a snow plow. We finally made it to the party about the time we wanted to get there. We found a table and grabbed some appetizers - crackers and cheese, veggies, and chocolates. Then the salad was served, then the main course. The rolls and dessert were already on the table. We enjoyed some good conversation with adults!!! The second hour of the party was honoring employees with 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 years of service. that was interspersed with giving away door prizes. There were multiple digital cameras, digital picture frames, 19 and 22 inch LCD TVs, and a couple of Wiis. We didn't win anything. Nikki and Gary however won the table centerpieces - a bottle of wine and two wine glasses. Gary said he'd give the wine to one of his employees. The music and dancing began around 9:00. We kept waiting for a song we wanted to dance to, but that never happened, so we left. Aaron took the chains off, and the roads were clear all the way home.

I'm glad I took a picture of the snow while I had day light, because by Sunday morning it was already melting. By Sunday afternoon, it was almost completely gone. Sunday morning I woke up early because I heard Amy. She went back to sleep but I couldn't. So I got up to work on my YW lesson. I got over and hour of peace and quiet - it was wonderful!!! Everyone else slept in. Church was great of course. After a large snack/small lunch Aaron and David went home teaching. After dinner we delivered a few more goodie plates, and then got ready for bed.

Monday I started this post and then took a break to clean the kitchen. I didn't get to the bathroom until Tuesday. But they are both done, and now it's time to make dinner once again. More to come...

Giveaway winners

I was sorely tempted to do the drawing early since the boxes were packed and ready to go, but I got one more entry this morning, so I'm glad I waited.

And the winners are....
My fabulous SIL Valerie!!! We sure miss her since she and Christian moved to Kansas with her adorable twins.
AND
A friend from my hometown who goes by fijiangirl in the blogging world! (I don't have your address so I'll contact you)

Thanks to those who entered. Play again next year!

Last chance

Just a reminder I will draw names at 9:00 tomorrow morning for my goodie giveaway. Comment on this post of on this one to enter, and tell me what you favorite Christmas treat is. Good luck!

Shutterfly Promotion (revisited)

(This is my second attempt - I really should read the instructions before I post!!!)

My friend Larissa blogged about Shutterfly's photocards. I have used their site for sharing pictures. A few of my friends send monthly emails from Shutterfly, with links to an online photo album with pictures they have taken that month. I have also purchased photobooks from them in the past. They have always turned out great. You can also share your photobook online through email or Facebook.

I've haven't used them for photocards, so I thought I'd take a look to see what they offer. I love them!!! Here's one of the many choices the have!

And I love this one because I can use so many different pictures.

Or how about this one?

There are literally hundreds of choices. This is going to be harder than I thought. You really need to check them out.

They are offering a promotion of 50 free photocards to bloggers. The promotion ends soon (Dec. 15th) so find out more about it here. Enjoy!

P.S. as I was looking at the photocards I also found some other cool products like photo DVDs and photo calendars. Now I have so many ideas for next year!

Making Gingerbread Houses

The candy stash

Amy tasting the candy and royal icing- no salmonella yet ;)

David's graham cracker house

Timothy and his graham cracker house

Amy's graham cracker house

I put icing where she wanted me to and she put the candy on, and took it off and ate it.

The gingerbread house that Aaron decorated

The detail on the snowman

He used a white gummy bear, and dipped toothpicks in food coloring gel to decorate it.

Our family and all the houses.

Trimming the tree

Sunday afternoon we trimmed the tree

ornaments on the table

Amy needed some help

watching the Christmas Devotional

Our Christmas Tree 2010 (view from up the stairs)