Christmas

Rolling out the dough!

Meltdown #1 of the holiday weekend!

Our 2nd annual Gingerbread House

Christmas Eve at my parents

Skyping with the cousins

Meltdown #2--unfortunately this is the ONLY family pic we have from the entire holiday weekend!

Sprinkling reindeer food on the lawn

Added the last most important piece to the nativity scene--baby Jesus!!

New Christmas jammies

Cookies for Santa

Christmas morning

New DS!

Jack's present that he made for us at preschool

Playing with his new Leapster

He loved his new Spiderman jammies

Ice skating at Con Agra with Uncle Paul

1st time ice skating

Go Karts--so fun!

Despite a few meltdowns by a spunky 7 yr old and a 3 yr old our Christmas was wonderful!! We enjoyed having my brother home for a week and spent lots of time at my parents house with him. This was the first time in the 25 yrs that my sister Chris has been married that that they have not come to Omaha for Christmas so it was a little sad to not have her and her family here or my sister Linda who was with her husband's family in Philadelphia. But despite missing all of them we managed to have a great time and make some new memories! Christmas Eve day the kids and I decorated cookies and we also made our annual Gingerbread House--so much fun! Christmas Eve we went to my parents church for their children's mass and then headed back to their house for appetizers and present opening! We tried skyping with Chris and my nieces during the night but it got a little chaotic with the kids opening presents, etc. But it was fun to see their faces :) We came home and the kids opened their annual new jammies and we put cookies and carrots and reindeer food out for Santa and the reindeer. We read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and fell into bed! Christmas morning the kids got up and we opened presents from Santa. Ellie was excited to get her DS and Jack was excited to open his Leapster. We had a relaxing morning and Dave made green and red pancakes for breakfast! We headed over to Dave's brother and sis in law for a late lunch and more present opening with his family. Then back to my parents for dinner! The kids did great and were very tired by the end but didn't fall apart too bad! We had fun with my brother for the few remaining days that he was here. We went to the ConAgra ice rink and Jack ice skated for the first time! Ellie is becoming an old pro at it and says she wants to take ice skating lessons--yikes! We also tried to go bowling but it was so crazy busy that we ended up just playing in the arcade and the kids did Go Karts which they loved---kind of crazy for the adults but we made it! Ellie got the game "Sorry" for Christmas so we had fun playing that with Paul a few nights. Brought back lots of memories from playing it as a kid! Overall a great weekend was had by all and new memories were made and traditions were continued. We wished our whole family would have been here but know that next year we will definitely be together! We're enjoying the few remaining lazy days of Christmas vacation before the "rat race"of school begins again next week! Looking forward to New Year's and cheering on the Huskers in their bowl game on Jan 2nd!!!