Merry Christmas!

Brad and Andrew came to visit us the 2 days before Christmas.  The kids were so excited and acted like no one ever talks to them or plays with them.  I don't think Kevin stopped talking a single second he was awake while they were here.  They opened one present and Andrew helped Kevin put it together.  Little did Andrew know that his hard work would be destroyed about 2 hours after it was assembled.  On the upside, that's about 1 hour and 55 minutes longer than they usually stay put together in their original form!

Before they left we went out back and took a family picture.  I'd like you to note that every single one of these Rice's have a nice smile on their face.  Amazing!!! Usually someone has eyes partially closed or refuse to smile.

On Christmas Eve we finally made our cookies for Santa.  We cut it a bit close this year.  Look how nicely Caroline is working to ice her cookies.  Kevin would slop one little tiny bit of icing down and then dump sprinkles all over it.  I don't know how many times I told him that he had to cover the cookie with icing in order to get the sprinkles to stick.

This is what I looked up most of the time to see.  Caroline working nicely with my overly drippy icing and Kevin eating sprinkles.

At the Christmas Eve Mass, Caroline was invited to sing in the choir.  She sang beautifully (I assume. I couldn't hear her specifically).  They all got their own music stands and Caroline and Jenna shared a microphone.

Christmas morning, the kids were good enough to let us sleep until 7.  Here are the kids listening as Tom reads the letter Santa left for them.

Caroline was most excited to get Kanani, her 2nd American girl doll, from Grandma.

Kevin loved his stash of Legos and Lego related paraphernalia.

He took the time to arrange the boxes in different ways.

This is the first set he chose to put together.  The Ninjago Rise of the Snakes helicopter. "Look into my eyes"

And fell asleep with all of his unopened Lego sets.

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!