Christmas Celebrations

We had a lot of fun leading up to Christmas, enjoying some of our favorite family traditions.  We went to The Barn to visit Santa again this year.  He is the best Santa!  When we got there Ethan was acting really shy, so Santa suggested we walked around the store for a few minutes to let them warm up to the place.  When we got back (there was no one else there yet) he spent about 10 minutes just talking to the boys and helping them feel comfortable.

 After a little talking, Ethan was ready to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what he wanted for Christmas this year:  a car ornament for the Christmas tree.

 Afterward, Ethan sat in the special chair and got his candy cane and toothbrush!

 This was the best we could get of both boys...the joys of multiple children!

 Carter did great, too.  No crying at all!

 We also built gingerbread houses.  This year we had a Snoopy set, so each of us had our own little dog house to build and decorate.

 We broke in the Christmas jammies for sure!

 We also put up the tree and put the lights on it.

 We had traditional ham dinner before Christmas, because my parents had invited us to have Christmas dinner with them.  Tristan was serious about his carving!

 Back to decorating!  Time for ornaments.  Carter did really well with the ornaments this year.  He loved to pull them off, but we had no major issues.

 Ethan hanging his favorite dump truck ornament

 Putting the star on top!  After we got it up there we found out it was broken!  I was hoping to find one on clearance the day after Christmas, but no such luck. So next year we will have to buy a new one.

And then the plague hit our home.  About a week and a half before Christmas Carter, then Ethan, then I caught a horrible stomach flu that was going around.  The poor kids were sick and throwing up for more than a week.  Luckily, I was only really sick for a few days.  Tristan was spared and was taking care of all of us through the nights of being sick.  He was wonderful and I was so grateful he was here to take care of us.  I can't imagine what I would have done if I had been on my own.  January kind of slipped through our fingers because we were just recovering, so we laid low a lot.  But despite being sick (even still on Christmas day) we still enjoyed celebrating the birth of our Savior and giving to others.