Christmas at home

 A family picture on Christmas Eve.  (Missing Troy of course who was busy preparing for the many Christmas eve services.)   We just spent the day playing at home while Troy worked.  We attended the 4:00 church service and Timothy had so much energy.  I was so glad to make it through the hour!  Troy made it home by 7:30 to help with bed time and then enjoy a late dinner together.

 Timothy and Teresa both woke up about 7am on Christmas morning.  They were excited to see some presents in their stockings.

 After a yummy breakfast of bagels and omelets made by Troy, we opened our other gifts.  We had a lazy family day at home.  The kids stayed in jammies all day.  Troy took Timothy sledding in the afternoon despite the really cold temps.

Teresa opening her Dora DVD

Timothy excited bout Captain America

It was a wonderful day.  We had a nice dinner and then celebrated Advent one last time.  The kids like to blow out the candles, so they love Advent time!  We also took a family tour of Christmas lights and finished up the night with a Christmas show.  Our Christmas was low key and laid back.  The simplicity and time together as a family are what make it beautiful.

Celebrating Christmas

We began our Christmas celebration with Troy's mom.  We had a great dinner, and fun opening presents and being together.  Timothy and Teresa helped Grandma Judy decorate her window with snowflakes and nativity characters.  When they were done, it had quite the artistic look!

We snapped a few family pictures before dinner.  It takes quite a few pictures to get everyone looking and almost smiling, but what a great picture.

An focused and excited boy starts the opening of presents.  He was pretty happy with all the nice new things from Grandma.

Teresa takes a turn at a gift.  She had the most memorable moments.  When she opened a baby doll and realized what it was, she said, "I don't like babies!" Then she proceeded to throw it over her shoulder.  Earlier in the evening Teresa had a huge fit about her cookie.  When she bit it, it broke into pieces.  She started crying saying she did not want it broken.  What makes this so funny is that almost every other food she wants broken into tiny pieces.  She even woke up in the night crying about her broken cookie.

A favorite gift of Timothy's was his new scooter.  And since it is too cold outside, he got to ride it around Grandma's kitchen and I even let him bring it our house.

5 Years old!

The 5 year old!

Timothy is now a whole hand old...5 years.  And he has learned that it's 'his day' and he can use that to his advantage.  (i.e. "Mom can I have more pancake, it is my birthday?  Mom and dad can you read stories, it is my birthday?")

We had his friend party today, hoping that a few friends would still stay in town. We ended up with two friends able to come which made for a great party! It was a bit of a superhero theme with activities that would train some great super heroes. The kids made masks, practiced jumping, worked on shooting silly string at bad guys and a few other fun games. We finished the party with lunch and chocolate chip ice cream cake.

Decorating masks

Musical presents game

Opening gifts

Angry birds/super hero Chocolate chip ice cream cake

Yummy cake!

Despite some pretty cold weather, Troy took Timothy out sledding since his big gift was a new tube sled.  Timothy proved to be quite hardy in the cold and the stayed out nearly 45 minutes.  I had to keep our sprinkle pancake dinner warm while awaiting their return.  The only bummer was a hole in the sled already.  Hopefully a patch job will keep it going for the winter.

The new snow tube

Timmy's dinner choice...sprinkle pancakes.  With a candle to blow out of course.

I am pretty sure Timothy had a great day.  He wanted to know if he could have a candle in his leftover scone again tomorrow, and maybe two candles.

The new jumpy to keep an active boy busy!

We feel so blessed to have our five year old boy. His interests right now are super heroes and good and bad guys.  He continues to love the outside...which is why he loves to sled.  He is quiet and serious at times, but he can get pretty loud and silly with certain people.  We see that most when he and Teresa play.  He is a little prayer warrior.  He often leads our family table prayer and is quick to pray for friends or family.  He does well with routine which is probably why he enjoys preschool.  He is a very active boy and likes to run, jump, dance, and wiggle at any chance he can get.  And he's got a heart full of love to share.

Santa Village and 1st Christmas program

We had a wonderful and full family weekend.  From sledding, to bowling, to Christmas crafts, to riding horses, to a Christmas program, we had it all. 

This was Timothy's first program at church as we were out of town last year.  Along with his class he sang a few songs as a part of the worship service.  Here are some pictures and video.

 Santa's village was at a golf course clubhouse.  There were lots of decorated trees, cocoa & cider, crafts galore.  Santa was there too, but we did not make a point to visit him.  An 'elf' did ask Timothy what he wanted for Christmas.  He was quick to say Ironman. (Which he did get as an early birthday gift from Grandma Judy!)  Teresa wanted neigh-neighs.  (That seems to be her answer for everything.  She always prays for neigh-neighs too!)

 Outside of Santa's Village there was a sleigh (wagon ride) and horse rides.  Teresa was excited to see the horses and kept commenting that the horses pulling the wagon were "bigger than her head."  Funny expression, but true indeed--they were big!  Both Timothy and Teresa got to go for a ride on a horse.  That was a definite highlight.  Lots of special memories made from fun times.

Cookie baking & Santa Pancakes

Cookie baking and decorating has always been a fun holiday memory of mine.  This year I got to share that with my kids.  Timothy and I were going to make some snowman cookies to go with our current snowman obsession!  He was really interested in making some cutout cookies, so we did a little of both.    He was a great helper!

Concentrating hard on cutting out the cookies.

When Teresa was up from nap, we attempted some decorating.  The kids did very good.  I put the frosting on and they added a variety of candies.  Timothy had a few that were quite heavy on the red hots and Teresa made a very chocolate angel.  They had fun and even waited until the very end to sample some of their products.

Teresa wonders how to get the sticky sprinkles off of her fingers without licking them.

Deciding what decorations to use on the next cookie.

The finished products.  Timothy's on the left.  Teresa's on the right.

And this morning we had our annual Santa pancakes.  Timothy was happy to pose for a photo before digging in.

Teresa not so happy about the picture and not so sure about this stuff on her plate staring back at her.

After a few bites, Teresa is much happier with this Santa pancake idea!

Superheros!

Evidence of Timothy's love of superheros...he and I wearing the masks I made.  And Teresa putting a mask on Peef!

A bit of live action

Here are a couple of videos just for fun. We did a little bell ringing this past weekend. It went okay. The kids helped a little and then spent some time at the mall playground. The other video is of Teresa and Peef the bear. Troy and I think it is cute how she says "peef the bear!"

(Sorry I don't know how to flip the videos the right way.)