Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Christmas!

This was the first Christmas that the boys (well at least Jake) have been able to understand a bit of what Christmas is all about. Since they both know what a birthday means (cake, ice cream, and presents!) they were able to make the connection that Christmas is Jesus' birthday and because God gave us the best gift of all, Jesus, we give presents on Christmas to celebrate His birthday. What an exciting time! Here are some pictures of our Christmas season. Hope you enjoy!
Gramps, Bugga, and our family kicked off the holiday fun by heading downtown to hear the drumcore. What a fun experience! The boys were enamored with the "toy soldiers" playing drums and enjoyed the fake snow.
We also hit up the Botanical Gardens to see all the Christmas lights. It was tough to get a good picture of this in the dark. Below is our family at the gardens.

What is Christmas without a little snow?
Ben and Jake picked out our tree this year. The Ikea special!
And they helped decorate too!
Ben was tough to get a normal facial expression out of. I wish I could put all the pictures of him on the blog. It was one funny face after another!
Here it is! The completed tree. Nothing too special but I figure there will be plenty of years to come where we can fancy it up a bit.
Christmas morning Bugga and Gramps came over for Coffee Cake, eggs, and stockings.
Our big pile of presents...despite the fact that we tried not to have too many. Mike and I didn't have to get the boys anything and still look at the big pile!
The boys got "wifebeaters" in their stockings like dad wears. Aren't they cute in their new undershirts!? They had a great time opening presents. We opened all day long because they enjoyed playing with each toy before moving to the next present to open. That's the way it should be!

Here is mom helping put together a new toy.
What Christmas dinner would be complete without a handful of olives?
And after all was said and done, the boys and mom relaxed on the couch and watched a movie. Life couldn't be better then this!