Better Late Than Never

Ok, It's finally time to start posting some of our Christmas stuff! It has been so busy and/or tiring here, but we have had fun holidays so far.

Here is our tree. We love all of the ornaments, and tell the stories behind them each year as they are put on the tree. The tree itself is just a small, cheap, fake one that we got for the apartment we had a couple of years ago. We were considering getting a new one in the post-holiday sales, but then when it snowed, Nutmeg started chewing on the branches (as a substitute for eating grass?). So, as long as we have a strange dog who eats artificial trees, no need to spend money on a new one!

Blake thought it would be great to make our gingerbread house from scratch this year. So, when I went shopping the day after Thanksgiving, I bought a kit, because making it from scratch seemed like a lot of work, and difficult, too. We finally completed it on December 23, and the final results show that we are not ready to make one from scratch. Here is what it looked like on the box:

We have named ours "The Gingerbread House of Horrors". Blake thought that the icing I made was too thick (it was). So I told him to make the next batch. Too thin. Way too thin. Everything just dripped off. Blake added the final touch by putting the disembodied gingerbread man's head by the only semi-cute part.

We celebrated Christmas at our house on the 24th. Santa was so great to make a special trip a day early to fill our stockings and bring James a new tricycle!

Then on the 25th, we drove to KC (and back in the evening) to celebrate with Blake's family. First with everyone at his grandparent's house, then at his parent's house. I am still trying to figure out where to put all of James' new toys (I'm not even going to try to post pictures of them all). He LOVES his new train set from Granddad Larry and Grandma Debbie. And we love the DVD player from Grandma Janice, which made our trip much more pleasant!

Our holidays aren't over yet: my mom comes up on Sunday for a few days, and I'm looking forward to her visit.

We really have had a good season, even though we haven't done a lot of the fun things we'd planned. Blake has had a sinus infection for the past week, and James and I were sick before. So that has been frustrating. BUT, I really enjoyed going to Columbia to see my friends, Blake went to his work party, and we all had a good time in Kansas City. And the lights at the zoo, the Santas in St. Charles, etc. will all be there for us next year!