Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve we went to Angie & Michael's for an Open House. I finally got to meet Lisa, my cousin Scott's fiance. She's a sweet and pretty in person as she is on Facebook! It's always good to get together with family and friends.

We stayed later than we had planned (that always happens!).


We had our camera, but never took any pictures! Sorry!


After getting the kids in bed, Kevin and I did some last minute wrapping and constructing. At 3am we fell into bed, the alarm set for 6:30 am so we'd be on time for breakfast at Granny's at 8:30.

Christmas preparations

Over the last few years we've made Gingerbread houses at Granny's. We had a great time decorating and eating and laughing. The kids really are creative (and we adults try very hard to not help too much!).

With the rising cost of real Christmas trees and the infestations of critters that has occurred from real trees (one year mom and dad had baby praying mantis all over their house, we've had spiders a few years in a row) and the needles and watering, we decided to purchase an artificial tree. Those of you who know Kevin and his tree perfectionist, I was surprised at how quickly he chose one (and it was on clearance the day after Thanksgiving!). I miss the fresh evergreen scent, but LOVE having the tree up so early and not sweeping up needles 5 times a day!

Visiting Santa

Megan has seen Santa from afar several times this season, however she really wanted to talk to him face to face. So, last night we decided to head to the mall to see Santa and then have dinner. It was pouring rain and cold so we thought that would reduce the crowd (LOL!! We waited about an hour and half and were very hungry by the time we got thru!)

They did a nice job with the set up. There's a station to write a letter to Santa, a Naughty or Nice Meter,
a chimney that blew snow, Santa's workshop with belts of Build A Bears going over head and wrapped packages falling into Santa's bag, a mailbox to mail your letter to Santa (when the kids opened the mail box snow blew out- very cute!) and of course Santa himself.

The wait was worth it. Meg was so happy. And she had to take her stuffed Santa to see the real one (I manged to keep her from bringing 3 Rudolphs and Clarice!)
Kel enjoying the sights

Trying to get pictures, aka mission impossible

We haven't made it to get studio pictures done this year. I thought that since Kev is a pretty good photographer we'd do some at home and include them in our Christmas cards.
Well, regardless of how good the photographer is if the subjects don't cooperate it's useless..



These 2 will likely challenge Kev's skill as a photographer and push his abilities with Photoshop (he has taken a head from one picture pasted it into another picture to get a good shot for someone else's Christmas card, maybe he can do that for us)
Or maybe those who receive our cards will have to imagine how the girls look- that will have to be better than what we have so far!