Here's some photos of our "at home" Christmas. We began our celebration by finishing up our advent calendar. We have an advent
calendar that includes reading the Christmas story and placing one "character" under the stable every day. We decided Elsie would place Baby Jesus in the manger this year (this avoided whining from Weston and Grace).
The advent calendar is one of the highlights of our Christmas and helps the kids grasp the significance of the our Savior's birth. They became very good at playing "Mary and Joseph" over the month of December. They would stuff a doll up Grace's shirt and she would ride the little plastic scooter (this was the pretend donkey). They would arrive at the stable (under the kitchen table) where Jesus was born. Usually it was during the day that they would play so I was the only one there to be the angel, shepherds, wise men, and innkeeper. This game is especially a favorite of Grace.
After the advent calendar we sang some Christmas carols which included "Hark the Herald Angels Sing". We sang this song at least once a day during the month of December so Mike and I are quite good. Grace belts this one out very well and even opens her mouth very wide to form all the words just like people in real choirs :)
We finally moved on to our stockings, which are always fun, and then on to our presents.
It ended up being a wonderful evening and left Mike and I feeling very blessed and thankful.
We are so thankful that God sent His Son to be born as a man and to die to pay for our sins!
A gift that none of us deserve yet He gives to us freely!
Weston and Grace each got their very own box of fruit snacks!
Whoo-
hoo!
The kids' big gift was a mini-trampoline. They love to jump their energy out and I love it too!
Here's the kids with their stockings. Elsie's was empty but she didn't mind ;)
Elsie loved the bright colors and the big boxes.
My brother sent Weston real army camo paint, flight patches, and an army hat from South Korea. 
You always have to do a bow on the baby's head.
One package was mismarked so that Weston opened Grace's pink poodle puppet from John and Shirley.
Tim graced us with this sweater all day on Christmas. The best thing about the sweater is that all the polar bears on the sweater are wearing Christmas sweaters too!
This is Grace with her new Aunt Christi. Eric and Christi also live in Spokane and were married in October. 
The kids' big gift was a mini-trampoline. They love to jump their energy out and I love it too!
Snot!
Here we're wrapping up the rolling, cutting, and baking .
Grace loved the messy flour part. After this photo I went into the kitchen to make the frosting and Grace stayed on the chair playing with the leftover pile of flour for 10 minutes (she also loves to make a mess with her food; a bad habit I'm trying to discontinue ;)
Weston's green Christmas tree with lots and lots of green sprinkles.
Here's a few photos of Grace and her friend Laelie (daughter of Dave and Julie with whom we bought the duplex). I tucked their shirts into their big girl panties and pull-up :) Their two year-old knock-knees are very cute!
Here's a few photos of Elsie doing her squishy face on the pack 'n play mesh. She thinks she is so funny when we laugh at her.
This was our very last photo taken after two nights of trying to get a nice Christmas photo for our Christmas cards. Mike and I are behind the camera but we had the same look on our faces as Elsie has on hers. This experience was a unique kind of torture ;)
The expression on all their faces is hilarious. You would think they were about to die from their suffering.
This is what Elsie kept trying to do when we wanted her to sit in one place. Weston and Grace weren't helping us out!
Elsie's expression is saying, "Why are you doing this to me? How could you be so cruel?"
Elsie likes to talk to her food when she eats so we told Weston and Grace to pretend they were Elsie talking to her pizza. 
Meltdown!
Little Monkey!
This is the end of the first night's photo shoot. Can you believe we actually tried it again!?!
