Pre-Christmas fun

Well, we had a pretty exciting Christmastime around here, probably like most households with little kids with wild Christmas blood in them. Or maybe it is wild Christmas sugar. WE were lucky and had my mom here for almost a month. Besides being a free babysitter/cleaner/chef and someone to talk to during the day, she spoiled the kids and introduced them to the art of making Christmas candies. Ava had a blast dipping pretzels, and then dipping her own fingers. And licking them. Yum. We also had a very very white Christmas, with lots of snow. See how Ally's head is also the head of the snowmen. My children are so clever.

After getting chilly in the snow, we needed to get cozy with some hot chocolate by the fire. Ava never made it out that day, but needed to be cozy nevertheless.

Luke was a shepherd in his preschool Christmas program. I wish I could post how he sang the very loudest (and I mean LOUDEST!!!) for the songs they sand to the old folks. I'm sure even the hardest of hearing among them could hear that day. I was laughing so hard I couldn;t video straight, but he was pretty cute.

We had a fun night with curly (my mom) at the mall while Josh was travelling. There were guys making balloon swords and puppies, we rode the escalator many times (the absolute highlight), got a butterscotch sucker at See's candy, patted the puppies at the pet store and got a pretzel while the kids tried out the rides that take quarters. they even got to put money in one this time (thanks grandma). Ava couldn;t quite make it onto Santa's lap, I should have a picture of me holding her at a safe distance while she sucked her two favorite fingers and rubbed her worn out bellybutton.

And Santa did make it to our house, I will post Christmas pictures later. This is progress for me to get these up, so just enjoy them for now.