who’s that handsome fellow?

Carter is a new member of the four-eyed club!  Isn’t he handsome?!?!

He went in last Monday for an eye exam after his teacher noticed he wasn’t able to read things off the board.  No big surprise, he wasn’t seeing perfectly anymore.  We’ve been warning him forever, since he was toddler grabbing at our glasses, that he’d be getting his own glasses someday.  And that day has arrived!  We are glad we were able to pick them up today to give him a chance to get used to them before he heads back to school on Thursday.  What a handsome fellow!

Now if I could only get him to agree to a haircut…

 

those elves are really REALLY awesome!

The kiddos had a great Christmas!  Penelope was especially impressed with her gift of a stuffed unicorn from Santa (that’s her quote above).  She’s been asking for a unicorn for quite some time, even wrote about it last night in their letter to Santa, and she was so excited to have her wish come true.

Our celebrating started a week-and-a-half ago.  The Sunday school kids put on their Christmas program on the 15th.  Each child had a line or two to memorize and a song to sing with their age group.  Everyone did a great job!  But you really can’t go wrong with kids singing about bringing presents to baby Jesus.  We have it on video, and once we remember how to get videos on here, we will share that with you.  That same afternoon, Penelope received an early Christmas gift: a trip to see the Nutcracker ballet.  She was totally awed by the ballerinas.  I’ve never seen the Nutcracker ballet before, but I thought the ballerinas were pretty incredible too.  It was a special afternoon for us to share together, thanks to Grandma Jean and Grandpa John.

This past Sunday, we celebrated Christmas with Aaron’s parents.  Grandma Harriet cooked us a lovely Advent dinner, then we exchanged gifts.  The kids loved opening new things, and they got their gift-fix to tide them over for a few days until the big show Christmas morning.

too much Christmas fun!

We stuck to our goofy traditions for Christmas Eve.  In Dawson, we started having Christmas corn dogs to celebrate Jesus’ birthday, because it was quick to cook after church.  Now the kids expect it, and it does help us remind them what Christmas is really about.  So goofy, but useful?  And of course we made our snowman cake, because what birthday party is complete without cake?  After our birthday supper, the kids got a plate of treats ready for Santa and the reindeer and took them downstairs by our Christmas tree.  We added a new tradition to our Christmas Eve line up this year.  We decided we’ll get the kids a new ornament each year to reflect their current favorite thing.  When they are older, they’ll have a small collection that’s all their own, to look back on and remember these crazy times known as their childhood.

This morning, the kids were very eager to find out if Santa had visited.  Carter was up first, and Aaron held him off until 7 before waking up Penelope and the rest of us.  They practically bounced down the stairs to see what Santa had brought.  Penelope found her unicorn, Carter found Legos, and Graham found a bunch of airplanes.  Graham was really excited about unwrapping the gifts this year.  He would open something, play for a minute, then realize there was something more to open.  So we actually got through all the opening fairly quickly because he wanted to open, open, open.  The kids found so many treasures!  Clothes, crafts, puzzles, cars, Legos, princesses, games… they kept busy all day long with their new things.

After a yummy Christmas dinner, we all headed to the movie theater.  I get nervous taking these kids to the movies after our Despicable Me 2 debacle, but they did great at the movie Frozen.  It was such a good movie, so I’m glad the kids were able to enjoy it too.  We were able to chat with all of our family members at different points during the day and wish them a Merry Christmas.

So the elves were pretty good to us, but as Carter told us, the best part of Christmas was spending time together as a family.  We had a great day enjoying our silly kiddos.  Next year will be even more exciting with an 8-month-old tearing everything up!  Merry Christmas everyone!  We hope you had a fabulous day with your families.