Christmas -- Part 2

We had a very small change of plans in our Christmas day.  Uncle Brett came down with the stomach flu late Christmas Eve night.  (After proposing to aunt Jaime on Christmas Eve night during the candelight church service singing Silent Night.... poor guy.)  So instead of having Christmas lunch at Pam and Steve's house, they brought lunch to our house and we enjoyed a small, intimate holiday meal together.

After lunch, we headed to Tracy's house for a Peterson family gathering.  And guess who showed up... SANTA!!  The boys did great with him -- especially since he came bearing gifts! :)  After an adult gift exchange, we had to take the boys home for nap time.  Maybe Mommy and Daddy needed a nap too.

Later that night, Oma and Doodah came over for cards.  It was the perfect way to end a great Christmas day.

Christmas Morning -- Santa Visited!

I can't even describe how excited Ledger was for Santa to come visit.  We baked cookies.  We tracked Santa on the Google tracker.  We even called him and left a message for him on his answering machine. (What's Santa's phone number?  1-951-262-3062)  So when we tucked him in tight for the night, he couldn't stay in bed.  He bounced around like a crazy kid for about an hour until he finally fell asleep around 10:30 p.m.  Mommy and Daddy had a lot of wrapping to do, so we were up late trying to finish some last-minute wrapping and assembling.  After all of that, Chris and I finally got to sleep around 2 a.m.  But Ledger just couldn't stay in bed.  I heard his door open about 3:30 a.m. and he went out into the living room to see if Santa had already come.  He had, of course.  So Ledger saw all of his presents and checked that the cookies were eaten and then snuck back into his room.  And then he was AWAKE and bouncing around his room in the wee hours of the morning.  It took about an hour to get him back to sleep, but he did finally sleep.  Until 7 a.m. when he just couldn't be contained any longer.  We took video of him coming into the living room for his big Santa present reveal... but since he had already seen his presents, we didn't get the reaction we wanted.  Oh well, he still LOVED the giant pirate ships that Santa brought him.  Santa brought Locke a Plasmacar and as soon as he saw it, he hopped right on and started riding around the living room!  I think Santa did well.  After a few minutes of play time, the boys opened their stockings and the presents from Mommy and Daddy.  I think that everyone was very happy with their gifts.  And Chris surprised me with an extra gift -- a Hogwarts prop letter used in the first Harry Potter movie!  I loved it and was truly surprised. We had a wonderful family Christmas morning leading into a very nice Christmas Day.  (Click to continue on to Christmas day...)

This is the closest I could get to getting a picture with the boys together.

Ledger loves The Little Mermaid.

Daddy surprised Mommy with an additional gift -- a REAL Hogwarts letter used as a movie prop.

Locke got this inflatable pirate ship as a ball-pit and the boys love playing in it.

Michel Family Christmas Eve

True to tradition, we spent Christmas Eve with the Michel family.  We were especially happy to get to spend time with Jaime and Brett.  We had an absolutely wonderful family lunch and then opened family presents. Ledger was an old pro with helping pass out packages, but Locke was a little overwhelmed by trying to wait his turn to open his presents.  As usual, we were all so happy with our Christmas gifts -- I was especially happy to get a new laptop, which has allowed me to catch up on my blogging. :)  Merry Christmas to me!

Papa read the Christmas story.

Locke was a little overwhelmed by all of the packages.

Caught Jaime and Brett kissing on Christmas. :)

One of Mommy's favorite Christmas presents.

Locke kept taking the bows off of packages and putting them on his head.  Silly kid.

Papa gets a little silly when he's waiting his turn to open presents.

LOVE this picture.  Locke loves his aunt Jaime.

Ledger wasted no time tackling his tower of presents.

Everyone wants on Mommy's lap.

WHITE Christmas

So the snow just kept coming and coming.  We got about 15" in Salina.  When we came home from Lindsborg, Ledger and I spent an hour scooping the driveway (and playing in the snow) just to get our car INTO the garage.  I don't know why, but I found it very humorous that we had to scoop our way IN to the driveway.  Ledger loved playing in the front yard while I worked.  He even sledded off of the piles of snow I was scooping.  He caught snowflakes on his tongue and made snow angels.  We had a great time.

This is how much snow we got.  He is BURIED from the waist down.

It was too cold for Locke to play outside, so we brought him a cup of snow to eat and play.

The Reason for the Season

In this very busy time of the year, it is easy for families to get caught up in the "machine" of Christmas and forget that Jesus is the true Reason for a Season.  We are blessed to have a great Christian based preschool that helps Ledger learn Christian Christmas songs.  But we also make sure we talk about Jesus at home and why we really celebrate.  After one of these "Jesus birthday" discussions, Ledger demanded that we need to make a birthday cake for Jesus -- because at birthday parties, there's always cake.  I couldn't really argue with this logic, so we made a birthday cake for Jesus.  Ledger did ALL of the baking and mixing and I did the frosting.  (The kids licked the frosting spatulas to "help" clean up.)  I think this will probably become a new Michel family tradition and look forward to making a Jesus birthday cake for many years to come.

Hensley Christmas

Our second family Christmas was celebrated in Lindsborg with Oma and Doodah and the Perkins family. The kids just love being together, even when Locke and Kinley spend most of their time arguing over whose turn with the toy it is.  Us adults love to spend time together playing games (after the kiddos go to bed).  On Saturday, it started to snow and ended up dumping 12-18" of dry snow over central Kansas.  So Sunday morning, we all woke up and opened stockings and presents together.  Of course, the kids wanted to go play in the snow -- so we got bundled up and went outside int the snow.  That didn't last too long because it was just too darn cold.  

How cute is this kid?  Seriously.

Ledger and Kinley cuddling.  Followed immediately by wrestling.

Oma and Doodah have their hands full.

The rocking horse was very popular with the kids.

This rubber snake is in the toy box at Oma's house.  Weird.

Perkins family.

That baby in her tummy is my future nephew. :)

Frolicking in the snow.

Crazy Chris, Oma, and Josh went out into the snow to make snow angels!

Ledger got a whole handful of Lego figures -- he especially loves the Avenger figures.

Snow cousins.

This might be too cold for me Mommy...