Its Valentine's Day so . . .

. . . it must be time to post the Christmas pictures!



We had a lovely Christmas waking up in our own beds and later visiting with family. The kids had a blast decorating the Christmas tree and I made no attempts to even it out. I found some cool metallic red, green, gold and silver wrapping paper and bows at Joann's so our gifts were quite color coordinated this year, which I thought was pretty fun. It also made Santa's gifts very recognizable since they had reindeer and snowmen on them.

Here are the highlights:

Shaun models his Japanese hanten which is a replacement for the hanten he brought home from his mission about 12 years ago, and unfortunately had a short life due to close encounter with the washing machine. (These are DRY CLEAN ONLY and they are not kidding!) In Japan, its traditionally worn by the working class as a outdoor work coat, but they make a wonderful warm house coat/robe thing because they are short and don't get in the way of doing stuff. (Wish I could get one in my size, but they seem to run very big, since they are an outer coat in their native land.)
He was very bummed when his original met an untimely demise, and I promised him when we could afford it I would replace it for him. He of course had long forgotten and was totally surprised to see a box shipped from Japan for his Christmas present. I hate surprises myself, but I do like to surprise others.

Ben made quite a list for Santa out of the Steve Spangler Science catalog and the Discovery catalog, including prices and page numbers for Santa's quick reference. He had no idea what lucky item would be waiting for him under the tree. Santa must have been aware of the sudden fascination with metal detectors Ben gained after watching some metal detector enthusiasts scan the sand volleyball pit at the park last summer. Ben can't wait for the thaw to find the buried treasure that must be in the back pasture.




Erik's heart's desire came true when he discovered a blue and green "big boy" bike under the tree for him with a big red bow. The bike has been displayed in his room, with the fancy bow and tag signed by Santa himself still taped on, until just recently when we finally convinced him to let us put it in the shed until the snow melts.



Alex has seemed very pleased with his activity table complete with all the obligatory lights and music that young babies seem to need as part of a balanced diet. His big brothers have also gotten plenty of use out of it, as two of the activities are a "laptop" and a phone with lots of buttons. The laptop especially has served as the command center for several important and intense missions carried out by Ben and Erik, including the national weather service tornado and hurricane watch center, (overheard: "Erik! Its heading towards Cedar City! Sound the alarm!") and various other rockets and time machines.

I received a storage ottoman that matches our couch we got this fall from IKEA in Salt Lake. (I must do a post sometime to explain my deep affection for IKEA.) And I got a new sewing machine! Hooray! I will have to finally finish my post about my homemade Halloween costumes from last year to explain that one as well.

Anyway, it was a wonderful and meaningful Christmas season around here, and we hope it was for all of you as well.