Merry Christmas to all.....

Oh my gosh, is it ever so much fun to see how exciting Christmas morning can be for little ones?!  We don't have a chimney, so our stockings hang on these little hooks in our entryway.  When Henry saw a semi-truck sticking out of his stocking, in his loud voice of course, "get it down, Daddy, get it down!"  

Then he noticed that his reindeer food was open and somebody had taken a bite out of the cookie he had left :)

Oh what a fun morning!   

We packed up and went over to the Krump's to celebrate Christmas for the day with the Gillespie's and Oma & Opa. Thank goodness for that Greta - boy was still not feeling well, and therefore was pretty much clinging onto me and whining ALL DAY.....that is until Greta arrived, then he perked right up and couldn't stop playing!  He loves that Greta sooooo much (he told her a million times).  Once again, opening gifts pretty much makes a kid feel better.  Henry's kitchen will be stocked full now (plus the pots & pans and dishes too)!

Christmas jammies really are the cutest!

.....and to all a good night!

Christmas Eve

We had a nice Christmas Eve at our place with my parents and sister, Sonja.  Henry was feeling absolutely rotten after his nap, so he got to skip out on church.  Funny how it works - as soon as we started opening gifts, he sure did forget about being sick :)

Trucks, trucks, and more trucks!

"Thank you all my Christmas presents, Papa."

So, Henry asked for a "gooter" (scooter) when we saw them in the Fleet Farm toy catalog a few months ago.  This will be a lot fun when all that pesky snow melts outside.  At least we'll be able to practice in the basement this winter!

Go Sioux!

We made sure to check up on Santa before we went to bed for the evening, and yep, thank goodness he made it to Switzerland to see Kathryn & Matthias!

Preparations

We were busy around here finishing up some last minute Christmas projects before the big day arrived.  Helper Elf ended up spending his last day with us in the Christmas tree!  

He left us with this sweet good-bye letter :)

Unfortunately, poor Henry has been under the weather with a yucky cold for a few days.  Anybody who knows this kid knows that you don't see this very often.....yep, snuggling on the couch and watching some tv.

Thank goodness for some live Pearl Jam videos on the iPad too, because that'll always cheer the boy right up!  Apparently, he's become a fan of Nirvana now as well.

Our final preparation - making treats for Santa and his reindeer.  He picked out one green cookie for Santa (but had to take a bite off of the Hershey kiss first) and here he is mixing together his reindeer treats - oatmeal, sugar, and sprinkles!  

  

Now, I think we're ready!

Brrr!

19 degrees was the high here today, but it certainly didn't stop us from getting our sled on this afternoon!  We managed about a half hour out there, and then we promised Henry some popcorn and hot cocoa when we were done.

Minnesotans do love their Hockey!  So far, there are 3 rinks up (and counting) on our little lake.  One of them even had the flood lights out the other night!

Henry's Happenings

We've just been gearing up for Christmas around here - doing lots of projects, playing with friends, and eating lots of cookies too!  Here's our week in review.....

...having Christmas treats with Rohit and Diya...

...working on puzzles with baby Owen...

...getting festive with the Santa hat on...

 ...keeping an eye on that Helper Elf... 

(Henry was NOT happy when he busted that elf in our pantry with his hand in the bag of marshmallows, "Mommy go buy MORE marshmallows!")

...and visiting SANTA again with his friends Owen and Grace!

(he actually sat by himself right next to Santa this time and had a good conversation about trucks and cars with him as well; the boy is sure set on asking for trucks this year)

Santaland

We made our annual trip to Santaland at Macy's yesterday.  Henry (aka big talker) could NOT stop talking about it before we got there - I GO SEE SAAANNNTTTAA! 

Once we got going, it was fun to see how interested he was in the 'A Day in the Life of an Elf' display this year.

Here he is, SANTA!  This Santa was absolutely adorable.  He asked Henry what he wanted for Christmas, and Henry told him "trucks" and then Santa wanted to clarify what kind of trucks, you know, just to make sure he and his elves were on the same page.  Henry definitely was not going to sit next to him, but he did better than I thought he was going to do.  He actually sat with Phil right next to Santa.  Pretty sure there wasn't a single smile on his face while we were in there, though.  Of course, he still can't stop talking about his visit with Santa today!

We made sure to bring Henry's letter too, that got sent off to the North Pole!

Snow!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!  I'm tellin' ya, 35 degrees is simply beautiful outside to be playing in the snow these past couple days.  Thank goodness that Henry's construction vehicles double as snow toys too!  I can't seem to figure out how to keep the snow out of the boy's mouth, though, ugh.

He could have transported snow balls back and forth down the sidewalk all day yesterday :)

One of our "Christmas projects" this week was decorating trees.  He was absolutely wild afterwards, as you can see - none of the marshmallows seemed to make it past his mouth and onto the trees.  Once again, let it snow (with coconut, that is)!

Have you ever seen such an intense face of concentration?

California

Philip and Henry held down the fort here at home (with some lovely help from Henry's Oma, thank you again), so I (along with my lovely Aunt Jackie) could go visit my sister and her family in the valley for a few days, Imperial Valley, that is.  It was like a summer vacation, at 68 degrees, but that's winter to them!

I couldn't get enough of this little guy, Jack Christopher Darcy, born on November 25th.  I honestly forgot he was there at times, he was so stinkin quiet!  What a good little babe! 

Riley kept us busy.....dancing, playing with her new Barbie and Hungry Hippo, making cookies, looking for her Elfie, reading, and so on and so on.

My brother-in-law, Chris, works for the Border Patrol down there.  Here she is, the border!  I learned so much about how it all works, very interesting stuff.

I had to sneak in lunch at In-N-Out, Phil's favorite burger joint! 

When I left home, the grass was still green/brown.  When I returned, there was no more grass.  16 inches of snow, bummer I missed it all :)

Thank you for a great vaca, Steph - loved it!

Christmas, Christmas, Christmas

Our Advent Calendar activity the other day was to write a letter to Santa and send it to the North Pole.  I asked Henry what he wanted to say to say to Santa?  This is what I got - "Ho Ho Ho."  Anything else?  "Hello Santa."  Anything else?  "Bye-bye Santa."  "Santa really like black" - as you can see by the coloring - too funny!

My Aunt Jackie was here to visit the other day, and brought her favorite little almond cookie recipe - delicious!

She also brought Henry a musical snowman - his hat opens up and another snowman pops out, boy loves it, can't stop giggling!  

Christmas Party!

We hit up Blaine's Winter Holiday Celebration at City Hall the other night with Oma.  It was a good time, filled with plenty of sweet treats, "projects", singing, a sleigh (aka hay) ride (Dan and Duke were the names of the 2 reindeer that pulled us), and of course, a Santa sighting.  We decided that Henry is getting quite tough with his Santa talking.  Before we went, he told me he was going to give Santa a hug and a kiss. Well, when it came down to it, he couldn't crawl up into my arms (and away from Santa) fast enough!  Wouldn't even give the big man a high-five!  Then, when we left, he said his favorite part of the whole party was seeing Santa!

Roasting (or not really roasting, just sort of warming) our marshmallows for the s'mores.

Mmmm, marshmallows!  He did tell me before we went that he was most excited to eat BIG marshmallows and he was going to eat 3 of them!

Santa got his letter from Henry, sent by Priority Mail straight to the North Pole!

His favorite song of the night was "Jingle, Jingle Bells" by a lady who was sitting near the Christmas tree, strumming her guitar.

We do love our Christmas parties!