Christmas 2015

We had a busy Christmas season.  Early December, we got our tree and started decorating.  Kevin actually helped decorate the whole tree.  Usually he comes out and puts up one ornament so that I can get a picture to put on the blog, but this year, he had fun!

Caroline always loves helping get the house ready for Christmas.

In Kevin's class this year, they celebrated the holidays by making gingerbread houses/trains/villages.  He loved it, and actually asked to help make the cookies for Santa.  Usually he just makes the one cookie for the picture and then moves on to something more his speed.  I loved that he wanted to help, although it was a much more messy year.

Uncle Patrick and Aunt Monica came to spend a few days with us before Christmas.  We made cutout snowflakes to decorate the back doors.

Caroline had fun beating Uncle Patrick in Don't Spill the Beans.

Everyone had fun playing HORSE.  Uncle Patrick introduced some awkward "between the legs" moves that had us all laughing.

After the cookie dough had chilled, it was time to make the cutouts.

Uncle Patrick is showing Caroline how to get it done!

At night there was a stressful game of Jenga.  Easy does it!

The kids' favorite part - Presents!!!

Time to frost the cookies.  Uncle Patrick is always the trouble maker.  First he got Monica...

Then he got Caroline with the icing.

Now, back to the business at hand.

When it came to the frosting, Kevin was only interested in doing the one cookie he was going to leave for Santa.  He left the rest to us.

After Patrick and Monica left, Andrew came to see us for Christmas.  Kevin tried to take Andrew down.  There is a bit of a height difference here, but somehow Kevin managed to eek out a win!

Don't the kids look so nice, dressed for Christmas Mass!

On Christmas Eve, the kids opened their first gift - pj's!

They were excited to wake up Christmas morning to see that Santa did come for them.  We weren't sure if he was going to visit Kevin this year.  I guess he pulled it out at the end.

It was a special year for all of us.  We are very fortunate and thankful.

I love Florida winters.  We were outside in shorts on Christmas day playing an epic game of CATERPILLAR (HORSE wasn't long enough this day!)  Merry Christmas everyone!