Merry Christmas

Our Family Christmas Eve 2010 - spent Christmas Eve at grandma and grandpa's where we got tons of fun stuff.

Santa visited overnight and also brought all sorts of things that we all asked for! Jack bought this puppy for Maddie all on his own from school. She liked it a lot and yelled "puppy" when she opened it up.

Here she is later on Christmas day at grandma's house. She got a new baby and a blankie for her baby. She was "rocking" her.

Sadly, our Christmas tree got taken down the day after Christmas this year. This was the end result after all the ornaments and lights were taken off of it. Hopefully by next Christmas we'll have all the needles from this tree vacuumed/swept/whatever outta here.

Cookie TIme!

We finished up our cookie making today. First Maddie and I finished up making our "green" cookies today (she surprised me by knowing what color it was, but when I started asking what color other things were she kept saying "geen" too, so maybe it was just a coincidence).

Jack has been wanting to make gingerbread men now for a long time, so after school he and I baked them and we let Maddie decorate one....and only one for good reasons.

Jack perfected his decorating skills by the time he was done.

The best part was tasting them after we were all done.

For our first attempt at them, it went really well!

2 very different opinions...

On Saturday we ventured out in the snow for our chance to go see Santa. Jack of course is totally into Santa, sort of. He pulled the "I'm shy" act when we got there, but knowing what's at stake, he warmed up pretty fast. Shortly after his picture was taken he whipped out his list and started to rattle things off....more than Santa could possibly even understand, but at least he got it all out there....

Then we have the little girl who has been infatuated with Santa for weeks. When she sees a picture she yells "Santa!!" On demand she can tell you santa says "ho, ho, ho" and sometimes not even on demand, just walking around.....but that was not the story on Saturday.
Even sitting on my lap and being this close to Santa ticked her off. She willingly gave him a high five and said "buh-bye" a little too enthusiastically, but we took the picture anyway and figured it will bring us laughs.

St. Nick's

We got up WAY early this morning to have plenty of time to play with anything that was put in our stockings. Maddie was less than thrilled.

St. Nick left a transformer for Jack - his first one!

Maddie got some sing along songs and a bottle, nuk, sippy cup and bib for her baby.

Tonight when feeling better and more awake she was loving her babies up with all their new "juice". For a little girl who would never take a nuk, she can't get enough of this one!

Oh Christmas Tree!

After Jack came home from basketball, we headed out to pick out our Christmas tree.

Maddie liked running through the Christmas trees and getting stuck in between all of them.

Jack picked out the perfect one for us.

Decorating was a challenge. As fast as they went on, there was a little girl who pulled them all right back off.

It was serious business!

The end result. It's pretty, but it's fairly obvious a 1 & 5 year old decorated. It's safe to say we won't have a "normal" tree for many years, but that's part of the fun!

Basketball Camp

On Saturday, Jack started his first of three mini-basketball camps. He is learning the basics this time and there will be no games, but he is really excited and enjoyed it.

He's a good dribbler!