Christmas in Pictures

Josh was the first to find his stocking (no surprise there). He even found Ellie's. And Owen's.

I'm not sure Ellie was fully awake for the beginning of stocking opening. Josh had found her stocking about 10 minutes before and was just "waiting" anxiously for her to come downstairs. As soon as she did, he lead her right to it. "Ellie, maybe we should look on this couch under the pillow?" It took her just a minute though once she saw the shiny items just waiting to be unwrapped!

Here's Owen "opening" his stocking. He picked out his own stocking this year. How did he choose this one? It made noise. Jingle all the way!

A much needed stocking stuffer!

One of the best parts of this Christmas was seeing one of my sisters-in-law who has been living and teaching in South Korea. It was very precious time spent together as we caught up as much as we could over the long weekend. Here's the Hubs with his two sisters hamming it up.

Just the gals!

The guys made a snowman the first day we were there. When we woke up the next morning, the warmer weather had taken it's toll on the poor thing. But, it was not to go down without a fight. This well-packed snowman leaned almost perpendicular to the ground for at least 2 days before it finally took a header into the snow. But even then, in a last act of strength, it held itself together and fell intact into the snow.

Here's the Hubs speeding away on the snowmobile with Ellie! Ellie loved the snowmobile and you could hear her screaming with glee as they speed past! She was always the first one to volunteer for a ride!

Josh and Ellie had a ton of fun on the sled which was pulled behind a four-wheeler through the snow. The kids went up and down small hills, along the fields, all the while singing "Jingle Bells!"

Do these kids love each other or what?

I even got into the action on the four wheeler!

"Snow Love!"

Owen LOVED ripping the paper. He would tear off a piece and go to town on that one piece until he had the smallest fuzz left. Of course, in the mean time he had totally forgotten about the lovely present he had yet to unravel!

Ellie and her cousin, Kyra got the same toy (thankfully!) We had given this lovely Little Pon*y Tea Mansion to Kyra. Before it was wrapped, Ellie would eye it longingly. One time we even caught her sneaking off with it ("I was just going to open it and look at it.") After explaining to her that it was not hers, we quickly wrapped it so there wouldn't be any "accidental" openings. Ellie was ok with that but she made sure that we knew, "OK, you can wrap it, but Kyra will share with me when she open it." So, she was ecstatic when she opened her own, soon after Kyra opened hers. Kyra was kind enough to share and they played for a long time!

Even Owen had to get in on the action!

The snowfall made these moments extra fun!

All in all, it was such a wonderful Christmas season for us. We did so many things it would way too much time to explain here. Spending time with kids, making traditions and eating tons of amazing food made for a very memorable last couple weeks of 2007!