Christmas at Home

I am so behind in posting Christmas pictures ... I'm still sorting through a few hundred of them. Here are just a few highlights. We had a great Christmas! Tori's favorite song this year was Little Drummer Boy. We sang it together all season long. I love hearing her little voice. She really did learn the words and we're still singing it even though it's the middle of January. (ahhh...she's singing it right now.)

Our stockings are filled by Santa... he only gets credit for the little things in our family. We don't really focus on Santa but Tori's into it, so we play along. For Tori and Josiah's main present we made a train board. We collected parts and trains from friends (thank you sooo much) and Craig's List to make this fun board. Josiah immediately climbed into the middle of it and proceeded to remove anything that wasn't glued down. It slides under the couch when not in use. We really felt like we were in Santa's workshop while we were making it. We'd sneak out to the carport each evening after the kids went to sleep and work. It was freezing outside so we'd come in and warm up with hot cocoa.

Our Christmas morning tradition is to enjoy a nice breakfast together... we make Monkey Bread the night before and bake it while we are opening presents. It fills the house with the delicious smells of cinnamon. We put a candle in it and sing Happy Birthday to Jesus before enjoying.

We then went to my parents home in Corralitos to have Christmas with my family. My brother Jason and his family were in town from Colorado. It was so nice being able to spend time with all of them. (Luke and Ann Helen were in Norway this year... we of course missed them.) It was a beautiful day so we went for a walk up the hill, opened tons of presents, and had a wonderful dinner together.

We got a Wii from my parents & Jeff's parents for a combined Christmas/Birthday gifts. We are having so much fun playing it almost every night. We also got Mario Cart and the Fit Board. It's good to feel like a kid again. As soon as the kids go to sleep we get to play... we love boxing each other... I do pretty well and it's a great workout.