Christmas All Together

Christmas was wonderful this year. It was so good to have Luca home with us. That is the only present I needed. He loved opening his gifts. He received lots of gifts with buttons and that make noise (just what he asked for from Santa and family). Nico was amazed at the gifts under the tree. He woke us at 7:30am and said, "WOW! We must have been good. You should see all the presents under the tree!" (I guess he thought he wasn't that good....but he was). Brian was delighted as well. He still gets so excited for his gifts. I, myself, did great with a new GPS, slippers, gift cards, a hairbrush (thanks Santa, I needed that one badly!), and my season 4 of "Lost".

The family all made it over admidst all the ice. Going home they were not so happy as some didn't heed my warning of taking a run at the icey hill to get back out. I think we have decided that I will give up hosting Christmas and stick with the summer holidays/events due to the uncertainty of winter weather in Missouri. My nephew was home from overseas. He is in the Marines. He had several pictures he shared with us and I was able to copy them to my computer. I am so glad to have these photos of this part of his life. I was able to get a picture of my mom and dad with all the grandkids - AMAZING.

I am excited to be off work New Year's Eve this year. My brother just moved into a new house and we are heading there on Wedensday evening. We have several new board games from Santa and will be playing those. Our family has always played board games and we love it. New ones are always great.

I thought I had copied the photos to my external drive and went to load pics and they are not there. I guess I didn't copy them yet. I'll do that today and post the rest of the photos.

I let the boys each open one gift on Christmas Eve. This year they opened the gifts from Grandma Karen (Mike's mom). She visited us in November so knew just what the boys liked. Here's Nico with his snake book. He looks through it every day!Here is Luca opening his new jacket! It is a perfect fit. While it wasn't warm enough for Christmas day, it was great to wear the day after when it was 65F. (Midwest weather!)

I never did post the photos from our Troy Homeschool Christmas Tea. Here are some of the photos. The kids all decorated the tables. We then got spiffied up and had a wonderful tea. The kids also sang a few Christmas songs. The boys table theme was Star Wars. The boys all made gingerbread houses and the girls made horse dioramas. They were all great.

Brian's "Farm" gingerbread house with a silo too.

Trying to get a picture where they all looked great was next to impossible. This is as good as it gets. But this is them,,,,silly all the way!
Mom and her boys. Again, hard to get one where we all looked perfect. We are far from perfect, so that is to be expected.

The Choir

The boys table with the Star Wars decorations.