A few Christmas Pics

Dalton and Gunnar wearing their new new P.J.'s and their new cowboy hats.

Gunnar really got into opening his own presents this year, last year he was content to just let Dalton open them for him, but not this year!

Most of our Christmas pictures are still on the camera and Jake has the camera with him cuz he and Dalton went ice fishing with the Weston's on their annual New Year's Day ice fishing trip.

Christmas Eve we just stayed home and spent some quality time with our little family. There was a knock at the door and Dalton got it and there were presents for he and Gunnar from the little elf that's been watching them all year. I told Dalton about a year ago that one of Santa's elves was assigned to keep an eye on him and Gunnar at all times. It has been the best parenting aid ever! Whenever I catch one of them in a lie, or ask them who had the toy first all I have to say is, "do I need to ask the elf?" and Dalton will fess right up and tell me the truth. On Saturday mornings Dalton will be watching cartoons and they have all these toy commercials and every commercial you can hear him yelling, "I want that for Christmas elf!" Anyways, they were so excited to open their presents from their elf. He brought them new P.J.'s (which they changed into right then and there) and the book, "twas the night before Christmas." So we read their new book and then we read the Christmas story out of the Bible. We were explaining to the boys how Mary was riding on a donkey and Gunnar pipes up and says, "and Jesus was riding on a motorcycle!" Oh the insight a two year old can bring! Dalton had been invited over to Taylor's earlier that day to make cookies for Santa, which was a life saver for me! I had been so busy Christmas Eve day getting everything ready for Christmas day, my family was all coming over Christmas morning, that I ran out of time to make cookies. I told Dalton that we could leave Santa some leftover cake instead of cookies. He was ok with that idea but was way excited when Taylor called because Santa really should get cookies. He came home from Taylor's with a beautiful plate full of sugar cookies he'd decorated himself (thanks so much Alyson!) He was so proud to set them by the fireplace along with a cup of milk for Santa.

Christmas morning Dalton woke up first and came and got in bed with Jake and I. He was still pretty sleepy, I had to ask him: "do you think anyone came to our house last night?" He then got all excited and yelled,"Santa! I think I heard him during the night, he really came!" Christmas is so much fun seeing it through your kids' eyes and watching how excited they get! We told the boys they needed to wait in our room while Jake and I went to get the camera ready and turn on the lights in the family room. Of course the boys snuck down the stairs a little ways but they promised they couldn't see anything and weren't peeking. We finally told them they could come in the family room. We filled up the whole memory card on the camera with about fifteen minutes of video. We really need a video camera! We did manage to get a few pictures. Dalton was so cute, the first thing he did was check to see if Santa had ate his cookies and drank his milk. He got so excited and said, "he really was here! Look! He drank all his milk and ate his cookies!" And Santa brought both the boys the exact presents they had asked him for. Dalton got his crossbow and Gunnar got his white choo choo train!