Christmas

And a good time was had by all! What a great holiday. It was so relaxing compared to last year. Last year we were "homeless" in between Germany and California. It was nice because we got to spend some time with family, but hard because we had so much to do in such a small time, plus so many presents to cart around!

This year, we couldn't afford to go home. Turns out that was probably a good thing, because due to the blizzard in Denver, we probably wouldn't have gotten to go anyway! We stayed here and the kids had a great time. We visited with friends, went to church, and opened lots of presents. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, and Santa dutifully came through with all the gifts that we didn't manage to (or refused to supply) get for the kids. They were all extremely excited. At one point, R. was opening some stuff and was so excited about it, his voice got so high that I have NO IDEA what he was saying!

Anyway--they got lots of stuff to play with outside, and a few indoor things. N. is getting old enough now that he has some "technical" stuff--IDog, speakers for the IPod, games for the gameboy, etc. We must be transitioning into a new phase of childhood, because I don't really know where to put everything. Even though we took about 3 LARGE moving boxes worth of stuff out of the various toy boxes. We'll figure it out eventually. Probably when the kids go back to school and I get ONE MOMENT'S PEACE around here!!

Anyway--here are a few photos of Christmas at our house (note that the things surrounding the kids are all the gifts--not just the stuff from us and Santa--it is important to the kids that I be SURE the family all knows that they know EXACTLY who sent them all of their "awesomely awesome presents"):