Merry Christmas?

Well, I promised to have these up by Valentines Day right?  Christmas was great this year.  We kept things pretty low key with mostly homemade gifts.  In case you're considering it, make sure you start crocheting the many hats and scarves at least three months earlier, rather than two weeks like I did.  My fingers were so sore, but it was still worth it...I think.  Maybe you should ask the recipients of these not quite perfect homemade gifts if it was worth it.

I owe my family a lot for making this year special for the kids.  My Aunt Ranee had us over to make Gingerbread houses, Grandma and Grandpa took Kaden on the Polar Express to see Santa, and we did the Nativity at my Aunt and Uncle's house.  My sister-in-law also gave us a magnetic nativity advent calendar. The kids loved this!  Every day they'd be so excited to put a sheep or a wise man on the fridge.  Plus, it gave me an opportunity to talk about what Christmas is really about everyday with the kids.  I don't know where she got it, but I highly recommend it.

Kaden was a lot of fun this year.  Every year he gets more excited to have Santa come to our house.  We started Christmas morning with a timeout if you can believe it.  Kaden had gotten things mixed up and thought he'd wake up Christmas morning to have Santa waiting in the living room.  Not this year, buddy.  He was so upset to learn that Santa had left already.  We couldn't calm him down, which leads us back to the timeout.

Other than that it was a great day.  Kaden got a guitar and Jo got her first Baby Doll.  Kids definitely make Christmas 10 times better.

Here are a few pics of New Years also:

Our New Year was at about 8:30.  We celebrated by banging pots and pans.  The kids loved it!  Then the grown ups watched the new Star Trek movie and missed the countdown.  Oops!  It is a really great movie.