1 and 2

The Big Guy did come. He filled our stockings and even managed to lug in a new bike.

Much to Jimmy's chagrin, he also managed to bring some sweet Christmas church duds. That's what happens when you are churchin' it up on Christmas Day.

Most of our pictures of Jimmy on Christmas look like this:

Most of our pictures of Grace look like this:

I love Christmas-ing,

Evidently the children do too. There are no better facial expressions than this on Christmas morning. Do you agree???!

After tearing open up everything from the North Pole, a little biking was in order.

(or scootering, if you were so inclined).

Who can resist a manly man on pink wheels? Not I.

We paused on our Christmas Day and did some churching. Not only did Nate and I sing in the choir, I did a duet with another gal. Talk about sweating bullets.

We rushed home, changed into comfy-ness, and dived into gifting again.

Please note the young scientist and her blur of a brother.

It was a very Merry Day. Hope yours was too!

extras

Our lesson in reading the fine print: no omelette is worth that!

Christmas Eve

Our early Christmas Eve celebrations took place at Nate's parents home. It was full of festivities: Danish delights, a white elephant gift exchange (btw, I got some bumpits, totally), Christmas crafts, and also Nate decided to wear his oldest sweater - I think that has become a new Christmas tradition (if you can call it new as it is old, as in from early high school old).

Upon our arrival at home we discovered the Christmas Elves had visited us. Do they visit you? They come every year on Christmas Eve and bring us new pjs!

It turns out our elves were none other than Lanny and Wayne from Prep and Landing. See, they even left us some landing gear to play with.

They also decided to get mom and dad involved. You'll note I'm sure that Grace and I are darling in our kitten mitten pjs.

You'll also note how fabulously "Animal"-like Nate and Jimmy are.

We some how managed to get the kids to bed.

And then we waited for the big guy to show up!

walkin' in a winter wonderland

We decided to go and find some snow.

Turns out that just over 2 hours from the house,

there is plenty of ice-encrusted snow.

The children were more than delighted.

Nate was delighted to glimpse some wintery birds (who wouldn't be delighted at a prospect like that?!)

We spent Christmas Eve Eve in Prescott, AZ (which is called Arizona's Christmas City)

We got our Christmas on.

The next morning (Christmas Eve), we headed back up into the mountains. Lo and behold we found more snow.

The children helped finish a snowman.

It was dang cold. Like 32ish degrees.

Hats were employed.

Hogwarts scarves were also donned.

An attempt at angels were made; however, once the snow is ice-encrusted an angel is hard to come by.

We had to travel up this high:

But it was well worth it.

Stay tuned, more Christmas posts to come (including Nate's incredible Christmas sweater - YIKES!)

christmasing

So far we have dabbled in construction:


Cracking nuts:

I mean, the Nutcracker.

And saw some lovely, shimmery lights:



With some fun, lovely people:

Hope you are enjoying your Christmasing, too!

sing choirs of angels

the holidays

Jimmy told his teacher we celebrate Hanukkah. When asked why he chose to tell her this he replied, "I do not know why.*" Perhaps I should invest in a Menorah. (This one is lovely!)

*Did you know Jimmy cannot bring himself to use contractions??? Weird, but true.

its beginning to look a lot like christmas!

Today I treated myself to a delightful wait in the pick-up line: a chocolate-covered marshmallow snowman, accompanied by chilled Pellegrino and a little, light Agatha reading. The red sweater I donned really encapsulated the festive spirit right there in the minivan.

Our halls are decked (and really, the hall in the house has no real decoration, but most of the other rooms in the house do!) And our Grizwold tree tree is much more tame that I thought it would be (gratefully no squirrels have made an appearance yet!). In fact, I find it quite lovely.

I am attempting to roast a chicken for dinner tonight (along with roasted fingerling potatoes and a quintessential green bean casserole - I've been thinking about having that for WEEKS). The problem with the chicken is that it pretty much looks like too much of the head was left on. I like my meat fully butchered, and this one is lacking in that department. I need to gather my gumption and face the birdie.

I'm also still facing a Christmas card conundrum. We didn't take family pictures this year, the ones last year were fantastic and I didn't see the point in re-doing them (especially as no one has change much in appearance since then). My current favorite picture is the one where we are all wearing turkey hats, but I don't see that jiving with the whole Christmas-y theme. In other news, our digital address book has fully fried and I need to start from scratch!

So dear reader, if you want to remain on the "Nice or Naughty" Page Christmas card list, let me know would you? (and convey your address somehow, please - an email to stlpages at yahoo dot com would do nicely).

Too bad I can't send chocolate covered marshmallow snowmen instead.

date night

One night we went out to a very fancy dinner. We clean up pretty nicely, I think.

learning

In this picture Jimmy is modeling what has got to be my most favorite Kindergarten Thanksgiving themed headgear - Turkey Drumsticks. As with most things awesome from Kindergarten, they are constructed out of paper bags. I'm sorry the picture doesn't do them justice. He is also pointing to an exquisite portrait of our family.

The following are a few pieces of vital facts that he has come home from school and shared with me:

1. Culinary school is the worst kind of school ever. You can never see your parents; you sleep there, but only until 3 in the morning when they wake you up; your teacher can never, ever feed you; and you stay there forever.

Jimmy, maybe you mean boarding school? "Um, yeah, I guess. But its the worst kind of school EVER."

2. One of the biggest insults one can receive is being called "Eye Ball Lips." He is still taken aback that someone had the audacity to call him this. The person who offered him this indignity also happens to speak "salty."

3. Mice are good. Rats are EVIL.

4. One can determine the girl one will marry easily. Especially if the girl in question wears her Super Girl shirt on the same day you wear your Super Man shirt.

5. It is important to be diligent about writing your name on your paper each and every time. But it is especially awesome if every once and a while you give yourself a middle name on your paper - a middle name such as "Pherb." (The particular spelling of this name was intentionally done in honor of Phineas and Ferb, he decided to blend the PH and the -erb in honor of the two boys. I like his mini self-lesson in phonics).