Christmas fun

Well, I have finally found a moment to share all of our Christmas fun with you. 

Mikayla and I had a lot of fun baking (and eating!) some Christmas goodies.  She has become quite the good little helper in the kitchen and I love having her there.  Here is a sampling of some of the things we have made.  These are some reindeer cookies we made – they were a big hit since Mikayla had a great love for all things associated with Rudolph this year. 

Here she was helping me crunch up some candy canes for peppermint bark. On Christmas Eve, Mikayla decided to mail Santa a letter.  She wrote out a list, made an envelope and taped our family picture (aka the Christmas cards that I never sent out!) onto the front of it.

She hurried down to the mailbox and put it in there all by herself.  I can’t believe how big she is!

On Christmas Eve, we spent the evening at my parent’s house.  We always start the evening out with a wonderful dinner, which is followed by a short Christmas program.  We read from Luke 2 and sing some Christmas carols.  It’s a nice way to help the children remember the reason that we are celebrating Christmas.  After our program, we moved on to opening presents.  The kids had a great time seeing what they got and also seeing what everyone else got.  Here are a couple of pictures of some of their faves. Anything to do with Diego is always a hit with Gavin.

Grandma was able to score a Zhu Zhu pet for Mikayla.  “Mr. Squiggles”  is a fun member of our family and he is definitely the type of hamster that I like having in our home. This is Gavin wearing one of his Christmas presents.  They are Wonder Pet jammies, complete with a cape.  He kept running around saying, “I Lenny!  I Lenny!”   Gavin also got this Handy Manny tool set.  The tools move around in the toolbox and sing a song – he still loves playing with it!

Christmas morning, the kids gave mom and dad a present by sleeping in until almost 8!  We then hurried downstairs to see want Santa had brought.  I LOVE seeing the excitement in their eyes.  It makes Christmas so magical! Santa brought Mikayla a scooter – she was really excited about this presents.  (Which unfortunately had to be retired to the garage the next day after Mikayla broke her arm :( . )

Gavin got lots of fun things.  One of his favorite gifts form Santa was this orange Diego Rescue pack.  He wore it all morning and it had to be pried out of his hands when we ate breakfast.     MIkayla’s all time favorite present was this baby tiger.  Santa brought her the big version last year and she was so excited to get “Bengal’s baby brother.”

After Santa presents and a nice breakfast together, we got together and went over to Jeremy’s parents.  We had a wonderful lunch together (Shrimp casserole!  Yum!) and then we opened some more presents.   Gavin got this BIG Tonka truck that converted to a ride-on toy.  He had a lot of fun with this present!

Mikayla has expressed interest here and there about how nice it would be to have a cat.  Her Aunt Ashley pulled through and got her these “Furreal” kitties that are the perfect cats for my home.   I am not a big fan of litter boxes and my mom is very allergic to cats, so this is about as close as this little girl will get.  Thankfully, she seems to be more than happy with this arrangement. After we opened presents, Mikayla decorated cookies with all of the “womenfolk.”  We did something similar to this last year and I must say that I really like this little tradition.  It is a nice time spent with one another. 

Well, that is our Christmas recap.  It was busy and crazy, but I wouldn't have it any other way.   I love all of these people and I can’t imagine not spending the holidays with them.  I feel so blessed to live close to both sides of our family so that we don’t have to choose who we get to see.  I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas, too!