Christmas 2010...

Here goes my last post for 2010.

So many times this past year I saw how lives can be changed in an instant, so in the past months I made a conscious effort to never take anything for granted & I found myself counting my blessings constantly throughout this whole holiday season.

So many things to be thankful for!
We had a great Christmas this year. It is so so fun with Ashton and Gunnar! I just love the magic of it and the excitement in the air all through December.
Christmas Eve we drove up to Hardware Ranch with our good friends the Hansons, then went out for a late lunch at Cafe Sabor before it was time to go home and get ready for Mass. Gunnar really should have had a nap that afternoon...he struggled through church (not happily!) After we got home we opened up our Christmas jammies and ornaments...

(have I ever mentioned that they LOVE pajamas?..ha!)Ashton and Gunnar got these pillows I made for them...Then we got our cookies ready to put out for Santa... (we had decorated them the day before with Aurora and her kids) & Ashton wrote him a note to go with them :) I think this was the first night all year that he begged to go to bed! So off to bed it was...

Christmas morning started early (like all mornings do at our house!) Gunnar was up by 6:30, then Ashton followed him not much later at 7:00. We made them wait a few minutes at the top of the stairs while we got the cameras ready...

(poor Ashton had horrible eczema on his face for weeks :(...it's finally cleared up now)...then they took off to see if Santa had come! Oh the excitement when Ashton saw that Santa had indeed come and DID bring us a Wii! Gunnar on the other hand was excited that Santa hadn't quite eaten all of the cookies we left out...he saved one for him! Really I think he could have just brought Gunnar chocolate and he'd have been happy!

He loved this air hockey table too :)

So they opened their Santa stuff and emptied their stockings, then we had our cinnamon rolls and played the wii while we waited for Grandma and Grandpa Harry and Aunt Kelli and Uncle Jordan to arrive.

After they showed up it was present time again. Gunnar pretty much had this reaction to every present he opened... I love it!

This was a pretty good reaction out of Ashton too...He took breaks from the wii to open the rest of his presents, but he pretty much spent the whole day playing. All he has talked about for 6-8 months is how bad he wanted a wii! So for those first couple days he played and played!

I think I liked this "Chatters" Cookie Monster of Gunnar's as much as or more than he did! He talks and he's hilarious!

Speaking of funny...Lars and I both got eachother popcorn poppers! I actually got one to give to him from the boys and he got one to give as a family gift. Oh well...we took one back!

After gifts we got our Christmas dinner ready and ate, then watched our traditional "Emmett Otter's Jugband Christmas". This was the first year in a REALLY long time that my sister, brother and I had been together on Christmas. It was a fun day!

I can't believe it's already come and gone again.

Happy New Year!