Home for Christmas!

 Since all of our family visited us for Nathan's birth/baptism, this was the first Christmas break in our married life that we just stayed home for Christmas. We loved having so much family time! Our break was a good mix of relaxing, working, playing, napping, and just enjoying being together. :)

The break started by attending Ian's Christmas party. It was fun to get to know some of Ian's classmates and to observe his interactions with them. Ryan was thrilled to do some of the activities with the big kids, including eating snacks. Kim was proud successfully complete her first true outing with three kiddos (even through rain coming and going!). It helped that Nathan was asleep pretty much the whole time in his Moby Wrap.

saying the pledge

gift exchange game

eating snacks!

 We took time to accomplish some tasks over the break, like designing Nathan's birth announcement, writing our Christmas letter, and even hammering on new chair slides. :)

 The boys kept up with all of our Advent calendars. Ian loved helping Ryan know where the stickers went on one of them.

The boys took turns opening our Advent boxes, too. One of the boxes included a note promising what turned out to be one of our most fun outings over the break ... a trip to Santa's Wonderland near College Station, TX. The boys wore their cute matching jackets from Grandma and Grandpa.

 We took a hay ride through their amazing display of Christmas lights.

 Ryan was especially enchanted by the lights.

 Both older boys loved the fake (soap bubble) snow that fell each time the country band played a Christmas carol.

 Nathan was a trooper and spent most of the time sleeping happily in the Moby Wrap.

We lit a fire in the fireplace many of the evenings during break . Even Nathan seemed to enjoy it! :)

 We played with a lot of new toys. Ian was able to build much of his new Lego train without help! He was so proud!

 Ryan liked hammering nails in an empty cardboard box while Ian was building.

 Our family enjoyed attending Trinity's Christmas Eve service for the first time! How wonderful to celebrate Jesus' birthday complete with a full orchestra!

 Nathan was definitely in the Christmas spirit.

We spent quite a bit of time with Jon and Chelsea over break! We played some games and even spent most of Christmas Day together. Jon and Chelsea even babysat our boys one morning so Matt and I could go to watch Annie  in the theater and get lunch together. (Once again, Nathan was a cooperative companion! :)) On Christmas Day, Jon helped Ian get a little farther on building the Lego train set.

 On another day, Matt and Ian played around with one of Ian's cool new toys: Snap Circuits.

 We had Uncle Jon over for his birthday on December 30. We made a yummy gluten-free chocolate cake (with chickpeas!).

 We also just had fun being silly together. The boys wanted to wear their warm hats one day while playing outside, but first they wanted to make up a silly song about the "snowballs" on their heads. :)

All in all, a wonderful break!