Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everybody! We hope you all have a great holiday and a wonderful time with friends and family. God's blessing and peace be with you as you celebrate this special time of year!

what we've been up to . .

Life has been going well. Last Friday we got a snowstorm. Jeremiah went to work for an hour and than came home and spent the rest of the day here. I think we got about a foot of snow. It was beautiful. Other than shoveling snow and staying warm, we haven't done to much. The shopping is done, the presents are wrapped and Ethan is excited:) Yesterday we spent the morning with Jeremiah's family and tomorrow they will be spending the day here. Friday we will head down to PA and spend several days with my family. It will be a good vacation!

Our snow Saturday morning. 

"Christmas Dance"

Ethan in the midst of telling me a story about a squirrel in the woods who heard a noise, but it was ok because it was just a tree chipper. 

Hans and his cave

Building a snow man this morning.

 

Such a happy snowman!

latest and greatest

Just some new pictures, that is all today.

The view from my kitchen window Saturday morning.

Brrrr!

Umm, Ethan was letting Hans eat his toes. Yeah, no further comment.

Christmas-ness

The other day Earon mentioned that our house is very "Christmas-y" and it is true! There is something about our house that just wants to be decorated and home-y for Christmas. It is really nice. The whole downstairs just feels so welcoming and jolly now that we have it all decorated for Christmas. 

(I don't remember what Ethan was talking about)

Our tree, which has now been "adjusted" after the death of 2 Christmas ornaments at the hands of Hans. All breakable ornaments are now (hopefully) out of his reach. 

Licking the Christmas cookie icing beaters. IS it possible to smile for the camera and eat icing off a beater? 

Don't ask, I don't remember:)

trimming the tree

I filled this past week with decorating, cleaning and cooking. We had a "department Christmas dinner" for the guys that work for Jeremiah on Friday night. It was fun. They came, we fed them steak, they stayed:) As I looked around the table at three 20-something guys I realized that my table will look a lot like this in 15 years or so. It was a comforting thought. We all enjoyed the evening. 

We got our Christmas tree on Wednesday. It was fun to take the boys along to pick it out. Children make the holidays fun. It reminds us of the joy to be found in simple things like bright lights and surprises and secrets and special things that only come out once a year. Hans says "what's that!" to every new piece of Christmas decoration he sees. Ethan was so excited about putting the tree up he was literally bouncing! We had so much fun and the tree was almost complete and needed very little tweaking when Ethan went to bed. 

no, this isn't Christmas morning, but it almost looks like it, doesn't it?:)

Hans did have to learn that the ornaments are not for eating!

Thanksgiving

Hello one and all! We had a great Thanksgiving. We spent Thanksgiving day with Jeremiah's family and then traveled to spend the weekend with my family. Now we are all looking forward to Christmas and enjoying all of the fun that goes with it. 

Ethan trying out the winter garb.

And who is that coming out of the cupboard?

Ethan pretending to repair telephone wires. This is the outfit of a telephone line repair man. 

Hans reveling in his new found skill of crawling up on chairs.

While we were down for Thanksgiving, Dad got out one of his old Christmas presents to show the boys. When is turned on there are pistons that move up and down, a fan that spins and lights that come on. Hans was enthralled. 

but how does it taste?!?

Grandpa and Hans

This was a familiar view all weekend long. Hans would find Dad and tug on his finger to go for a walk and they would walk around and around and around the house.