Christmas!

The kids were very excited for Christmas morning to arrive. Edison awoke about 4:00 AM and we had to kindly ask him to return to his bed and wait a couple more hours. Charlotte had lost a tooth on Christmas Eve, so we actually had visits from both Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy that night! What a treat! Santa had stuffed all of our stockings full of DVDs for the cabin and sweet treats.

 Santa also gave each of us some puzzle pieces. When we put them all together, it revealed a picture of Great Wolf Lodge, the water slide park / hotel 90 minutes from here. Santa got us a trip to Great Wolf Lodge this year! Yay!!!! We are so excited!

 Charlotte is ready to rock and roll in a new bike helmet.

 Reed is rocking on the ukelele.

 We had my mom's side of the family over for Christmas day: Bonnie, Kirstie and Peter, and Jennie and Pete and their three kids. Look at baby Roland - what a BIG smile on his first Christmas!

 A number of people were out of town, so it was a smaller than usual gathering and the kids had the good fortunate of not being stuck at the kiddie table. After the Christmas meal we went for a refreshing walk followed by the kids' presents (so many generous gifts from aunts and uncles and Nana), and the grown ups' gift exchange. This year the theme was glass and Eben ended up with a cool glass thermometer with the floating glass balls for different temperatures and I received a book about female astronomer assistants and mathematicians called the Glass Universe. What a lovely and relaxing day to spend with family. The guys capped off the night with a splash in the hot tub while we ladies played a marathon game of Sorry!