A White Christmas

This Christmas was our first Christmas by ourselves and only our second at home (though does the first one really count if I can't remember it much due to having brain surgery just before it, and I didn't even post about it?)  I couldn't wait for the break to start! Charlie would be out of school and Keith would be off of work... it was going to be great.

I absolutely LOVE decorating Christmas cookies. I made them a couple of days before so when Charlie got out of school Friday we could decorate them. It was a great start to our Christmas break.

A sampling of our creations.

It snowed!!! Both on the day before Christmas Eve and Christmas day! It was so fun and beautiful!

I never tire of seeing Cardinals in the snow.

Both kids enjoy helping when I make rolls, but especially Jane. I made rolls before church on Christmas Eve so we could have them with dinner Christmas day. I love my messy-haired girl, even if I secretly re-did most of her rolls...

Christmas and fires in fireplaces just go together so well. Everything about the above picture makes me smile.

We had my family's traditional Christmas Eve dinner (pirogis and mushroom soup), read the Christmas story, tucked the kids in bed, explained for the 20th time why they are strictly forbidden from entering the living room without us in the morning, and got down to Santa business.


Christmas morning was great. It always is with little kids.We opened presents, video chatted with my folks in Ghana, and played with games and toys that Santa brought and  the gifts we gave each other.


They get so excited with little things. You should have seen Charlie's face when he found green olives in his stocking (his favorite)! It has been tradition to put olives in stockings but it has always been black, never green. Charlie looked as if he was going to burst with excitement and exclaimed "Santa knows me REALLY well!"




Santa even put a few things in Molly's stocking. :)

And I took more pictures of Cardinals in the snow.