Christmas 2013

Christmas morning Nathan slept in until 9am. We must have really tired him out the night before. Since the rest of us were up by 7 we impatiently waited for the sleeping boy. Finally when he was awake we all headed out to the tree to see what Santa brought. And both the boys were excited to started. working right away. I love that my boys love helping out around the house, and Brady's new vacuum is perfect. He spent most of that day pushing it all over the house. And Nathan was happy to get a realy "cool" tool set that included safety goggles. We spent the rest of the morning exchanging gifts and enjoying some sour cream twist for breakfast.

 Dave really spoiled me this year and got me two new lenses for my camera. A 50mm and a telephoto lens.
I tested out the 50mm the rest of the morning. Now I just need some more practice and time to really learn how to use it. The rest of the pictures below are from the 50.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was great this year. We were able to spend some time with both families. My Mom's Family came over just after 2pm and we had fun playing games, eating soup, and enjoying all the goodies. Our group  has gotten pretty small, this year we just had My uncle Dave and family and my Aunt Margaret and family.

                                       Playing Christmas Bingo.

 We left around 4:30 to head to Grandma and Grandpa Dickson's for for appetizers, the nativity, and fish pond. I didn't get any good pictures of the Kids acting out the nativity because I only had my phone on me. Nathan decided that this year he wanted to be a Wise man. After the Nativity we all participated in grandma's annual fish pond. Everyone gets to "go fishing" for their present.

Then everyone gets to open Christmas jammies and we head home to get ready for Santa to come.

                         Checking with NORAD to see where Santa was.

                                                       Hanging up our stockings.

Gingerbread Houses

On the Monday before Christmas we finally got around to decorating Gingerbread houses. Nathan actually requested to make one earlier the week before and when he mentioned it to Grandma she was more then willing to cook up a batch of gingerbread.
Nathan really wanted to do all the work himself but he had a hard time getting the frosting to work, so I helped him with the frosting and had him place the candy.

  Brady decided to climb right on to the table and help himself to some candy.

The most wonderful part of the season!

When it comes to Christmas treats I just can't resist. Last weekend we finally got around to making some of our favorite Christmas treats.
My dad made some of his sugar cookies and the boys had a great time "helping" him. haha! Everything with little ones take twice as long when they are helping.

Sunday we spent some time decorating the cookies. Which at first mostly consisted of me trying to keep Brady from eating all the frosting.

later that evening after the boys went to bed I finished making my new favorite treat, Oreo truffles! seriously they are the best.

Next on the list: Gingerbread houses. Nathan actually requested making a gingerbread house and luckily his grandma makes the best gingerbread so we will be working on those on Monday.