Christmas 2007
Though I am a little late in getting all of these pictures posted, I hope you will enjoy the summary of our Christmas Season this year. The pictures are in no type of sensible order, so I will just include a comment about each one below it. There are probably more pics that my mom took, but I haven't seen the pics from her camera yet, and there is no telling when they will come my way, so this is what I have! Sorry, no video this time around.
After visiting a friend who had done this, I decided it would be a neat tradition to start by putting a small tree in each of the kids' rooms. They loved it, and wouldn't you guess, Leah found a pink feather tree and there it sits! There is nothing pink that she does not like :)
We did a ton of crafts and activities during the advent season. We even made out a family calendar to schedule in when we wanted to do each activity. One afternoon, the boys and I made live wreaths from greens around our house. Eric did his entirely by himself. Bay needed a bit more help, and as you can tell from the look on his face, he is getting poked by the spruce needles!
One day the kids spent at Granni's house they decorated sugar cookies. This is the three of them putting sprinkles and such on the cookies before they go into the oven. My mom said that Leah lasted the longest sitting there being content to decorate all afternoon!
The kids picked out wooden ornaments to paint/decorate for gifts for family. Here is Leah painting her heart with a star on it. She painted the entire thing all by herself. Want to guess which color she used?
This is the ornament Eric picked out to paint. He had fun working on a challenging project like this!
We have tried to make a tradition that while my brother is home for the holidays, all of us (our family, Heather's parents and brother) go spend a day in the D.C. area doing something fun, museums or something, and then a special dinner out to eat. This year we all went to the Air & Space Museum out by Dulles Airport. Way cooler than the one in downtown D.C. It is stil the Smithsonian, so still free, but much larger and a much more extensive display of hundreds of airplanes. Here is the centerpiece of the space section, with the space shuttle ENTERPRISE, which was used solely for testing on the ground and in our atmosphere. It never actually went into space. We had a great time (spent the entire day here) and then enjoyed some great Italian food at Carrabba's!
Okay, before you get totally grossed out, no, we haven't forgotten to go to the dentist lately. Eric and I made "crackers" for favors at Christmas dinner, and these fake teeth were part of the surprise. We had so much fun with them, and were rolling out of our seats laughing at each other. If you don't know what crackers are, they are a British Christmas tradition. Small gifts are wrapped in a tube with wrapping paper tied at the ends (to look like a fire-cracker) and then opened at Christmas dinner. It turned out to be a big hit!
Bay got a police-man dress up out fit and he loves going around the house writing tickets. He gave his mommy a ticket for playing the piano too fast! Of course, he will never make a good policema, all I had to do was fake a cry, and told me he would take it away! What a sweetie :)
Christmas morning, we started out at our house with the Christmas story, singing a Christmas carol, and then stockings and presents. Then we all migrated over to Heather's parents' house for presents over there as well. Leah is here being a little elf, passing out the presents to everyone. I made gift tags that had the picture of the recipient on them, and Leah and Bay loved being able to tell at a glance who the present was for and passed them out.
This is Bay in his woodworker belt with his new tools and his new tool bag is on the floor next to him. Of all of our children, Bay loves role-playing more than any.
Leah got a my little pony talking pony baby. She babies her stuffed animals more than her actual baby dolls, so this was perfect. It talks to her as if she is the mommy, which she loves :) And ponies are her favorite animal as well!
Eric with his big surprise, a Nintendo DS. He was totally floored by this and it was fun to see him be so surprised!
Here are most of us on Christmas morning. Dennis' mom came over Christmas Eve and spent the night so she could be there bright and early for the festivities. That's Andy on the couch with Bay on his lap, then Granni with Leah on her lap, Eric making a funny face and then me. Grandma is in the rocking chair.
Eric and Leah dressed up as elves for Christmas. They were being funny :)