Christmas 2012

I know it has been almost  six months, but I finally uploaded my pictures from Christmas....but I figure better late (really late) then never.  We were going to be going to Utah to spend Christmas as a family for the first time in 3 years, but we wanted to have our own little Christmas at home first.  This way we wouldn't have to take any presents on the airplane.  We wrote a letter to Santa and asked him to come to our house a little early-which he did!  We did all of our same Christmas traditions.  We ate Chinese food on Christmas Eve, then went out to see the lights, then read a Christmas story, and then we set out carrots and cookies for Santa and his reindeer. 

 A couple of days before Thanksgiving, we got out the Christmas tree to decorate it for FHE.  We let the kids do a lot of the decortating themselves.  They loved it but when they went to bed I had to "fix" it because all of the ornaments were exactly child height.  It was really cute and they had a lot of fun.

 This year we started a new tradition for reading a Christmas story every night.  I wrapped up 25 Christmas stories and each night, Ainsley or Sam got to pick one out of the basket, unwrap it, and we would read it for the bedtime story.  They loved it!

 My dad had served his mission in the Netherlands and so when I was growing up, it was my family's tradition to set out wooden shoes for Sinter Klaus (the Dutch Santa).  He would always bring us Dutch Candy  and chocolate letters on Dec. 5.  This year we set out our own wooden shoes for him.  He brought a combination of Dutch\, Swiss,Austrian,  and German candies.  They were all of our favorites from living in Europe.  Manner cookies from Austria, Haribo gummies, wafer cookies and Kinder Eggs from Germany, mentos from Holland, and Toblerone from Switzerland.

 Racetrack from Aunt Annie

 We went to our first "ugly sweater party"

 Ainsley got a new bike, porcelin dolls, a puzzle, books, clothes, snow boots, play kitchen pots and pans, and small toys for Christmas.  She was so excited to test out her new bike!

 Sam got a bike seat, shoes, clothes, a set of 6 tonka trucks, magnetdoodle, Little People race track, golf clubs, and small toys for Christmas