Merry Christmas!

I have been remiss in posting our Christmas experience. I have been waiting on some pictures, and, well, haven't felt like blogging lately.

Anyway, this was a really fun Christmas for us. Elena is old enough to understand the concept of Santa, giving and receiving gifts, etc. She helped me wrap gifts, but hasn't quite conquered the idea of keeping secrets. I think she told Oma (Karen's mom) what her gift was about three times. I handed her the gift from under the tree to give to Mary, and she said, "Here are the pans we got you."

Prior to Xmas, Karen and I took the kids and their cousins to see the lights in Caldwell. You can say what you want about the city of Caldwell, but their lights kick ass.

 

 

 

We were experiencing a deep freeze at the time, so we basically sprinted through the lights and headed for a Chinese restaurant nearby.

Elena has been dying to make her first snowman this year. It has been so cold that the snow wouldn't cooperate until lately. Here is our Christmas snowman.

  

We had Christmas dinner at my parents' house. It was a great dinner and the kids enjoyed opening presents together. As you can see, they really got into the sharing spirit this year. 

 

All of the cousins got new PJs for Christmas. Afterward, we suffered through hours of Christmas Jammies lyrics.

We attempted to get a good picture of all of the cousins together. I say we attempted because it is impossible to get four small bodies to simultaneously hold still and look at the camera.