Christmas Day

 Opening a few gifts at home, before Mass.

 The tree at Nana's.

 Waiting to go open their presents (and the only good shot I have of their Christmas outfits!).

 Oh my gosh, look at all those presents!

 With her new Tangled doll.

 Getting in the ATV for the first time.  

The bike she had been asking for since her birthday.  It does NOT have training wheels (she can do everything but start on her own) but it does have a doll seat.

Overall, it was a nice day surrounded by family.  The kids had fun, ate mostly cookies, and were worn out pretty early.  

Jesse Tree

Ok, so I have been saving this one to share for a while.  Way back in the summer, I organized 23 other moms to do an ornament swap so that we could all have a complete Jesse tree set for the 24 countdown days (of december) to Christmas.  Here is some info on a Jesse Tree.  Anyway, each mom/family made 24 of the same ornament, sent them to me, and I reorganized them into 24 complete sets and sent that back. 

Each ornament has a bible verse to go with it.  The kids really enjoyed the middle stories, but had a harder time relating to the O Antiphons at the end.  Regardless, they enjoyed hanging the ornaments everyday.

A little holiday fun!

So these pics are from my cell and aren't the clearest, but you get the idea.  Back in pre-kid era, my office had a holiday door decorating contest.  My officemate and I came up with this Mr.Potatohead style gingerbread cookie idea.  We laminated all the pieces and stuck them on the door with a roll of tape.  People would come by and rearrange the pieces all the time.  We won the contest, but even better, I got to keep the pieces.  I finally broke it out this year, and the kids had a blast. I used painters tape and stuck all the pieces on the backside of this post.  They got pretty goofy with some of the arrangements, but Rose was pretty much a stickler for keeping it pretty orthodox.

Holiday Cheer

Tiny Tots Concert

 She really got in to it!

 They let them see how the instruments worked after the concert.

I have been taking the kids to the Tiny Tots Concert at the high school Dan and I graduated from since Rose was born.  But this was the first year Rose was actually excited to see all the costumed people coming around.  The highlight might have been getting to hug them after the concert!  James on the other hand was slightly afraid of them and had to be dragged around after his sister, hiding behind me the whole time.