Peek-a-Boo

I just adore this shot of K looking through her dollhouse door.

Enjoyable Holidays!

I need to reflect that this Christmas was so much more fun and relaxed that Christmas' past. We spent most of the holiday as a simple family of 5....by choice. We had time to enjoy the holiday, no rushing, comfy clothes (lots of pj's) and just being together.

We also cut out making Christmas cookies. This I missed, but we just didn't have the time and I didn't want to squish it in (though we did try out hand at chocolate covered pretzels). I didn't do Christmas cards. I would like to get back to doing these things, but this year I just wasn't into it.

The kids and I did go visit my family after dinner Christmas night which was nice, though we missed Tim. Tim's allergy has put many things into perspective for us and no matter how things fall out in 2009, we will be making changes to our future holiday plans. More fun, more relaxing, more friends, and playing with our Christmas toys!

Things happen for a reason.....maybe it was so we could see that while family is important at the holidays, so is change. It may just be time to change the way we do things at the holidays.....maybe bowling with the family!

Christmas part 2

Andrew hiding in the corner (to keep them safe from K) putting his lego sets together. He actually put both of them together in one day.

Playing Wii bowling!

Opening the big gift from us....the Wii! I wrapped it in Steven's paper, then put it in a bigger box and wrapped it in Andrew's paper under the tree. I did that for several presents to add some more fun to our Christmas morning, it caused quite a bit of laughs and they requested a new surprise for next year....no pressure!

Merry Christmas!

Darn blogger loaded the pictures backwards....

Here is Steven with is pile from Santa. Playmobil and Indiana Jones.

Kendyl went right to her dollhouse from HoHo.

Andrew got the lego sets he wanted (well 2 of the 125 anyway!)

Here are the kids waiting on the stairs for the ok to go see the goodies from Santa!

Our tree before Santa arrives.

Christmas Eve

This Christmas Eve, we went bowling! It was so much fun, and may soon be a tradition! We played 2 games, and shut the place down. Lots of laughs and good times.
Kendyl was so good. She loved helping us bowl and next year will probably will be doing it herself. She walked/crawled around the next lane and watched us have fun.

In the morning the kids opened up the gifts from their Winn cousins. In the evening, they opened up gifts to each other.

Thanks Uncle Chuck, Aunt Rina, Kyle, Jason and Alex!

Kendyl enjoyed her gift so much, she tried to get IN it!

Sweet Lights!

We like to try different Christmas displays as much as we can, and I actually found one for this year, but it was very cold this weekend, and Tim and Kendyl were both getting over illnesses, so we decided that was not the best idea. We had to do something, so Hershey it is! We didn't do Candylane (rides and all), but went to Chocolate World (did the ride twice, Kendyl loved it!), saw Santa, went to dinner at the outlets, then the fabulous drive-though display....Sweet Lights.Kendyl was dancing along with the music with the ride. So sweet.

Steven sporting his fancy glasses which make the lights into snowflakes.

Since Kendyl is still rear-facing, I took her out of her seat and sat her on my lap (in the back seat) to see the lights).

Andrew's treat from the advent calendar was to "sleep anywhere he wanted" so he slept on the couch in the playroom, making a bed for the elves. Tweety made herself at home (she always starts the night off with Andrew).

Oh, they woke up in the morning looking for the elves, and instead, found all of our presents missing from under the tree. Yes all of our presents were gone. The elves had relocated them to the smaller tree we have in the dining room and mixed them all up! We usually have them in stacks according to each person as each child has their own wrapping paper and it looks nice. Well, we decided the elves had a good idea and have left it all messed up, but did put them back in the family room.

Gingerbread Sculptures!

Andrew's House (there is a hot tub out back!)

Steven's tree

Tim and Heather's creation!