Christmas 2009

We had a great Christmas day which always starts with the kids lining up on the stairs for a picture which is a tradition that Jim had in his family growing up.  We made them wait until Grandma and Grandpa were up to come see what Santa brought and I must say, they were impressively patient.  Jim took mostly video this year, so I don't have a whole lot of pictures, but Santa was good to them this year and they loved their presents.

The day after Christmas,Grandma and Grandpa House and Rob headed back to Idaho and we piled everyone into the car to head to Bend and spend a few days with Grandma and Grandpa Carey.  While there, we were able to have another Christmas--two in one year--no way!  I have some pretty lucky kids.  We really enjoyed our time in Bend, which included, for Jim and me, a night away for our 15th anniversary.

Very cool red car, Cooper!

Sleeping babies are the best!

Calvin loved the toy town at Grandma and Grandpa Carey's house.  He is so stinkin' cute!

Christmas Eve

I have to start with a couple pictures of our decorations this year.  Our tree is always really pretty, but really hard work to put up.  We may get a different tree next year, so I wanted to document it's beauty.  And, for the first time, we had lights put on our house this year.

We were really happy to have my parents and Rob come for Christmas this year 2009.  The year before, Hallie was really upset and told me that we were ruining Christmas because no one was coming to spend Christmas with us and we weren't going anywhere.  You can imagine how happy she was when she found out Grandma and Grandpa House and Uncle Rob were coming.

For Christmas Eve, Jim read the Christmas story in Luke 2, we sang some carols and each of the kids got to open up the gifts that they exchanged with one another.  Jim never opened a gift on Christmas Eve in his family growing up, so he protested, but my family did, so I won this battle and it will now be a Christmas Eve tradition.  Plus, opening the gifts they got for each other when there were no other gifts to be opened was more fun.

Yum, Yum!  Formula!

A star wars action figure, of course.  Obi Won Kinobi

Two of Lexie's favorite books.  We love Jan Brett at our house.

A book of science experiments=a big mess, but a whole lot of fun!

Hallie's favorite--Lindor truffles.

Calvin picked out such a pretty bracelet for Kenedy.  You can see the excitement on her face.