Christmas 2012

Sorry it's been so long again. Steve left for Liberia at the beginning of January, so my free time is gone. Avery also started at her new, fun preschool (only 3 days a week for 2 1/2 hours....but it takes us 40 min. to get there and we can't go home in between), so it's been crazy around here! In a good way, though. Time is going by quickly, but, needless to say, it's still always really tough when Steve is away. On all of us. 

I've mostly been taking pictures with my Iphone lately and posting them on Instagram. Follow me if you want to see all of those pictures! I take tons with my Iphone. Not so many with the nice camera these days. I'm just happy I was able to write frequently this past year, even if the posts will slow down some. I like to save the nice camera for big, new things, and lately we've been going to the same places over and over. We are having a Valentine's Day Tea Party at our house this Tuesday so I'll be sure to take nice pictures there. 

Anyway, here's some pictures from this past Christmas:

Movies from the grandparents

I hung up Avery's Christmas artwork from last year.

Little decorations...can you find "The Elf on the Shelf?"

Jesus in the manger! Made at church school.

Special ornaments in the china cabinet.

our tree. Much better than last years!

Some christmas crafts:

The kids made these cute snowflakes out of blank puzzle pieces and glitter glue. They looked so pretty hanging from the window.

Playdough fun.

They also made candy cane reindeer.

 New stocking this year. I want to somehow put the first letter of each of our names on them for next year.

 Garland along the tv and Christmas trees the kids painted and I framed.

 A few of our Christmas cards on the bulletin board by the front door.

Steve's battalion's Christmas party. They actually did a really good job with it!

 Noah went right up to Santa. He wasn't scared at all. Avery got a mermaid barbie and Noah got a lego car thing from him.

 Our dining room during christmas time.

Photo shoot with the kids in their adorable PJ's. Still learning to camera! Especially in low light.

Love our new wooden Santa from the gift shop (from Hong Kong I believe!):

All lit up and full of gifts. Santa was too lazy to wrap this year (long story, but it has to do with missing our flight home from Tokyo, and postponing Christmas yadda yadda...). The kids seriously did not care at all, so this may happen every year. I dislike wrapping anyway and am terrible at it.

Christmas morning...yep, forgot to put them in their cute PJ's the night before hence the photo shoot later on.

Christmas morning brunch on our patio. I made pumpkin french toast again, but it didn't turn out too great. Oh well. I scenery was nice.

 We had a polar express movie night which is definitely a new tradition. We fell asleep right there on the floor after the movie. The kids loved it!