Christmas

Our family had a pretty low key Christmas this year.  Since I had my hip surgery, my parents and brother were up in Steamboat, and my sister is in North Dakota we spent Christmas Eve with just us and the kids.  Then we went over to Frank and Cathy's to celebrate Christmas.  Aunt Pat joined us at the Schmidt's and we had a wonderful Christmas dinner.  Here are some pictures of our Christmas celebration:

For some reason the kids thought it would be fun to play Halloween on Christmas Eve.  They tried on a bunch of different costumes:

Cate as "pillow head" and Ashton as "mister pumpkin"

After playing dress up we had the kids open their Christmas Eve presents (a tradition that we have is that they open one present on Christmas Eve).  I made them each "movie watching" blankets to have for our movie nights.  

Then we put out cookies and egg nog for Santa and sugar cubes and carrots for the reindeer

Here is what the living room looked like after Santa came

Cate asked Santa for slippers and he brought her Cinderella ones

Ashton asked for Hot Wheels cars from Santa

The kids were very helpful opening Mommy and Daddy's presents

Eric and I gave the kids new bikes.  They really enjoyed them and since it snowed outside they rode them all around our kitchen and front hall.

My parents gave Eric a long board

Eric gave the kids a ride on the new long board

Riding bikes in the kitchen (Daddy moved the kitchen table to give them more room)

When we got to Grandma and Grandpa's house the kids started by opening presents

After all the presents and playing for a while we had a wonderful Christmas dinner.  This Christmas was so wonderful and we are looking forward to the new year ahead.