Joy to the World!

Merry Christmas one and all! We had a great Christmas Eve and day here at home. Clearly, the boys enjoyed being wise men in our nativity Christmas Eve. We danced through the house singing in Swedish and Sam asked me what are we doing? Why are we doing this! I missed my family a little, but it was nice to have a quiet (relatively) night at home together. The kids went to bed at normal times and we went to bed early, exhausted with colds. We did stay up the night before that to watch "A Christmas Carol" and wrap presents. Somehow it's so hard to stop and make time for that. We had to put it on the calendar!

Anna had duel roles in our nativity. She was both an angel and baby Jesus. She has such a glow about her that she was a perfect fit for them both.
Christmas morning the boys went downstairs without us. They turned on all the lights and the Christmas tree, and got a stool to reach their stockings and take them down. We came down and they opened one present each from Santa and played with them for an hour before Michael said, "I think we have even more presents!" They were so sweet.
Sam's At-At falls apart just as easily as Josh's did when he was a little boy. I guess the tradition carries on. Michael loves this fire truck set that actually squirts water (in the garage only!) at the flaming building.
Anna got her first doll who she smiled at and held. It made me cry a little. Next year we're really going to get some girl toys around here! Mostly she played with the wrapping paper.

For posterity, here is a picture of all of the Christmas crafts the boys made at preschool. Carefully recorded in this picture, I can now throw them all away and clean up my fridge door!
Anna also got a toy cell phone that plays songs and lights up. She loves it!
I saw this costume set a while ago and picked it up for Sam and Michael. They were almost Buzz and Woody for Halloween but I didn't find them in time for that.
"You've got a friend in me!"
I'm enjoying getting back into a routine and using my time for organizing the house. I'm extra behind on things because I threw out my back the week before Christmas and spent a couple of days in bed while the house got messier and messier. Yesterday we went to buy some toy bins and cleaned out the toy closet. There is a bag of baby toys Anna may enjoy soon and a bag for the trash and one to give away. The boys understand where everything goes and that if it's not cleaned up before bed time, it gets a time out for two weeks. If that doesn't work, we'll have to threaten giving the left out toys away. Yikes! We're so mean!

We hope everyone had Merry Christmases.