Our Christmas

My parents arrived last week to spend Christmas with us. On Thursday evening we took them for a drive down to the South Hills to see all the infamous Christmas lights which are totally amazing. Santa and the elves were there and the boys got to feed the camel carrots! On Christmas Eve we went to our church's candlelight service and then were able to come home and get into new Christmas PJ's to hangout for the night.

I will have to tell you that I am totally amazed with how our boys did. We had told them they couldn't come downstairs to check presents until we were awake. Last year this meant they woke us up during the night to see if we could get up. This year they went to bed no problem
and then when they woke up in the morning they hung out in their room waiting. Dan and I could hear the older 2 talking at about 7am. At about 7:15 we decided to get up and when we went to their room, Caleb was reading books to Elton while they waited! Incredible! When I was a kid I could never wait like that. When we went downstairs they even sat on the couch and waited patiently while Dan got the video camera set up (which seemed like it took forever). Then Caleb reminded us how we needed to sing "Happy Birthday Jesus" (a tradition we started a couple of years ago) before we started the presents. You see even though Santa comes, the presents are to celebrate Jesus' birthday! Caleb had been asking for weeks to be "Santa" to hand out presents and was excellent at bringing his brothers presents and waiting to open one of his own. Most of the pictures you see above are from the day after Christmas because Dan had the video camera running and with the excitement not many pictures were taken.

After breakfast I made a huge breakfast skillet while everyone played with their presents and in the afternoon we went to Dan's parents house to hang out with family. It was a wonderful Christmas!

Thanksgiving

This year I cooked the turkey and stuffing for Thanksgiving. We went to Dan's parent's house where Dan's siblings and their families were and hung out for the day. You see Caleb here with a whole turkey leg because this is what he was so excited about (along with hanging out with cousins) and he actually ate most of it. He did admit is was a little bigger than he expected. The boys stayed at Dan's parents that night so Dan and I could get up early (3am) and go do a little Black Friday shopping. We weren't crazy shoppers by any means, but did get a good chunk of Christmas shopping done. On Saturday we got our Christmas decorations up and with all of the snow we have had I am sure we are going to have a white Christmas.

A Snowy Winter

It is looking like we are going to have a very snowy winter. The Saturday before Thanksgiving is when you see the boys with the snowman after our first big snow and the second picture is by the end of the weekend. The boys actually had a snow day that Tuesday which is practically unheard of here in town. The surrounding area of schools have already had over a week of snow days.

Teddy

Our pound puppy Teddy has adapted to our house well. When he first moved in his favorite spot to sleep on the shelf under the coffee table. Then he discovered he could climb into the shelf of the TV stand and that became his new favorite spot. You can see we added a blanket, but he was quite content there even before the blanket.

One Last Trip To The Mountains

Since we only made it up to the mountains once this summer, we decided to get one more trip in before Winter the first weekend of November. We were lucky there was no snow as there had been a couple of weeks before and actually had great weather . We had a great time hanging out at the cabin with Dan's parents while Dan's dad showed him how to winterize the cabin.

A Weekend Of Halloween

Our Halloween lasted 3 nights this year starting on Friday night with a Trunk or Treat and games at the boys daycare. On Saturday night we went Trick or Treating and then on Sunday night we went to the Trunk or Treat at our church. We were all tired by the end! Caleb was Harry Potter, Elton was a Bakugan, and of course Oliver was Woody. The weather was wonderful all weekend, which you never know how it is going to be at that time of year so we were very lucky.