Christmas Day

This has been the best Christmas ever. I am not even kidding. We all received a healthy showering of gifts and we spent tons of time together. I scored the most with a sweet GPS, an industrial laminator, an Al-clad pan, and other amazing stuff for my "grown up" kitchen. You can see the pictures of the boys as they relish the Christmas morning excitement. I also uploaded videos of the morning to our screencast.com site.

We love our little family and we have so much fun together.

Brando's Graduation

I was lucky enough to travel to Arizona for 5 days in December to see by little brother graduate from ASU with a degree in Art Education. I took a few short videos of him and his convocation ceremony. (You can download them from the screencast.com link I included above)

I am so proud of that boy. He is a great art teacher because first he is a great artist. I love talking to him about art ed and the projects he is doing with his students. Here he is getting ready to leave for the ceremony.

Christmas Eve

I think this picture is hilarious. Jacob in his santa suit is entertaining enough, but he has this mature look on his face that is like "really? 10:30 at night and we are still partying?"

We spent the evening with our friends the Heiselts. We ate great food, played Settlers of Catan game with a huge expansion pack, watched Muppet Christmas Carol, and reinacted the Nativity scene. I was Mary, Jacob was baby Jesus, Alex was a wiseman, Aaron chose to watch instead of be in it. The Heiselt family members were the other parts. It was pretty precious. Jacob just looked up at us and smiled.

A classroom full of elves!

Chris' mom Sharon made personalized aprons for each child and teacher in Alex and Aaron's classes. Aren't they adorable! The kids loved them so much. Sharon is one amazing Grandma.

The love between two brothers

Aaron and Jacob are best friends. Seriously, they love each other so much. Aaron will make silly faces, crazy noises, and shake toys right in front of Jacob's face and he eats it up. Here he put a beanie baby spider on Jacob's belly, which of course, he loved.

I love watching Jacob stare at Aaron just waiting to see what he will do next.

Jacob makes the cutest little sounds. Here he is making his sweet cooing sound. I think this boy is part angel.

Shopping for a Christmas Tree

We loved going to Tanenbaum Farms this year to cut down our very own Christmas tree. Chris and the boys got to take a tractor/wagon ride out to the forest, cut down a tree, and bring it back. Jacob and I stayed in the car with the camera which yeilded some cute pictures. It was a fun (and extremely cold) day.