Christmas and Beyond

I just realized that the only pictures I have from Christmas this year are all of Abe! He is just so cute. And plus I think I must have subconsciously felt bad for forgetting about him at the store that I had to make it up somehow!

Snuggling the puppy Hilary and Brittney gave him

Looking very pensive in Uncle Drew's arms

Getting gooshed by his Christmas bear

Getting attacked by his Christmas bear.
Jon and I couldn't resist this bear because it has the cutest overbite, and when we both saw it we immediately thought of Abe.

Oh, and I did get a pretty cute video of the kids on Christmas morning. I love it that the first thing Asher did, before checking for presents, was to see if Santa ate his cookies!

And I think Rose's favorite present was the "tinky bell" wand that Santa put in her stocking. She has carried it around for almost two weeks non-stop. She is really into Tinker Bell right now and is always making sure that everyone knows that she is "Tinky Bell". Whenever I make her food that she likes she always tells me, "Thanks mom, this is good tinky bell food."
It is pretty cute.

Plus it makes for some pretty exciting days to have Captain Hook and Tinker Bell at my house!

We also had a good New Years Eve. We invited some friends over but their kids ended up getting sick and so it was just the five of us, which was really fun.

We ended up roasting marshmallows and making s'mores in our fire place. The kids got really excited about going "camping" (which they equate with s'mores) and set up the tepee that Santa brought them for Christmas and filled with blankets and pillows.





We really had a good time.

Oh, and just so you know chewy chocolate chip Chips Ahoy cookies make GREAT alternatives to graham crackers and chocolate for s'mores. Really, they are awesome.

Oh, he is so cute!

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

Every Christmas Jon's family always re-enacts the Nativity story. This year we though we'd let Asher and Rose be the stars. It was quite the performance.

Here is Rose all dressed up as Mary. I think she looks so angelic.

We didn't really get a good picture of Asher because he was hyped on Christmas spirit. I'm impressed that their Uncle Aaron got them calmed down enough for this one.

I think this was the most lively and crazy Christmas pageant I've ever witnessed. The climax came when they gave Mary (aka. Rose) baby Jesus and she promptly snatched him out of the manger, snuggled him for about 1.5 seconds, threw him over he shoulder, and then started to climb into the manger herself. It was pretty hilarious.

We might need to work on her nurturing skills one day :)

I apologize for the blurry picture I was taking it on my phone in night mode, so it isn't the best but you can still see all the action.

The other best part was when Mary almost demolished the city of Bethlehem. Skip to second 50 if you can't stand the rest of the chaos.

What a great Christmas.