White Christmas

As you can probably guess by the lack of posts, the last few weeks have been really busy, but busy with very fun things. We had some amazing snow the week before Christmas and everyone headed out to enjoy winter. Here is the snowman that these three made and it's still proudly standing a couple of weeks later.

Rachel and Ian had to really work to get through the deep snow, but they certainly won't complaining.

It started snowing again, but we couldn't get this girl inside. She convinced Justin to take her "sledding" which entailed him running around pulling her on the sled. It's reportedly a terrific workout and she had a blast.

We got the Christmas festivities in full swing by baking a ton of cookies. Rachel "assisted" by making sure the sugar tasted just right.

Next we decorated our gingerbread and this year our girl seriously pulled out the creativity. She spent a ton of time on her cookies and also tasted quite a few of the results.

She wasn't the only one who got some sugar in the process. Here is a picture of Ian choking...we mean decorating.

Yum!

Here are some of our finished products.

On Christmas Eve we had a delicious feast with this year's highlight being sushi. We then had some great performances, stories, and a little nativity with just our family. Here is Rachel as Mary and Ian as Joseph. At one point our Joseph was quickly riding on the "donkey" (rocking horse) after Mary had Jesus. It was very cute and will definitely become one of our annual traditions.

Here is everything untouched before the kids woke up.

He really brought it! Rachel could not have been more thrilled about her Ariel doll and pony and it took her a while to get to anything else because she was in awe.

Ian was pretty excited himself and with each new present he tried to simultaneously use it or wear it with everything else he was collecting through the morning.

We had one seriously happy boy on our hands.

Here is Rachel with some of her favorite presents from Christmas morning. She got some other great things too, but the princesses definitely ruled the day.

And what do we think is the best way to end a fun Christmas morning? Delicious crepes courtesy of Justin. This was the first year he had a little assistant. With a great attitude like this, our boy is surely headed for French culinary fame. Wouldn't you agree?