Merry Christmas!

What a fun holiday season this was. It went way too fast, but it was packed full of fun. Having kids truly makes the holidays so much fun. Here are some pictures of what we've been up to.

Christmas cookie decorating party at Gma Bates's.

The kids had such a good time: eating sprinkles by the handful and frosting by the spoonful. Oh yeah, and decorating some cookies. :)

Then we had a gingerbread house decorating party with the Mayo group.

Again, eating decorations by the handful. 

Impromptu Christmas Eve lunch-on-a-box.

Corinne helped me make Christmas Eve gingerbread. As you can see, she really liked the molasses....

 We've decided that she will be the next Rachel Ray. Her favorite thing in the world to do right now is cook (followed closely by taking a bath and playing sleeping games). If I tell her I'm going to bake something, she comes a runnin' and gets her stool ready and immediately opens the drawer and starts pulling out the measuring cups and spoons and a whisk or two.

Christmas Eve I tried very unsuccessfully to get a decent picture of cousins in their Pixie Elf pjs. Here are 4 of the 30 or so I took. As you can see, not once do I have everyone looking at me or at least looking somewhere with pleasant looks on their faces.

Either way, Christmas morning came, and what a fun morning it was. The kids were overjoyed and excited and it was super fun to see them.

Window markers. I might be kicking myself real soon. The kids think they are awesome though.

Tyler got a bunch of new stuff for the acquarium he his building and a shop vac, and I got super nice new speakers for the computer (where I listen to all my music from--the neighbors can probably hear me rocking out now) and a super fun to lens for my camera. Yea! It has a really shallow depth of field so you get that nice artistic effect as you can see here:

All-in-all a pretty stellar Christmas season. We played and baked and sang and crafted and spent time with family. And in the end, the kids (well, Ashtyn) still knows the reason for the season and can sing you a very precious rendition of O Holy Night. It's sweet to me that while she loves the roudy kids Christmas songs, what she really loves are the pretty songs like Silent Night.

Here's a cute video of the girls singing one afternoon, which will probably hurt your musical ear but should endear them to you forever. :)

Hope you had a Merry Christmas too!