birthday, christmas, excitement- oh my....

we are home now from a great trip to texas to spend some much needed time with my family. i will get to that adventure shortly but i must revisit some of the exciting things that happened during december.

henry did officially turn 6! he awoke on his birthday morning to the singing of "happy birthday to you" and some special gifts from his family.
on henry's birthday we decided to go to swenson's for a special dinner and ice cream before heading over to school for the carol program. grandma and papa joined us for a fun time of celebrating henry's 6th year. they sure do love our boy!

all the kindergartners at school dressed as angels or shepherds and sang away in a manger for their christmas program. it sure was sweet.


in our preparations for christmas we decorated a couple of gingerbread houses. this year i didn't get nearly as worked up about perfection as i did last year. in fact i thought, "God you must be changing me." i tend to want the perfect little hansel and gretel gingerbread house but this year we had far better! we had masterpieces! though we had already done one house we had the memory making opportunity to have daph's best friend, ellie over to do one more. i am with my friend jennifer- if you want a great gingerbread house then buy the kit at costco. it is the same price as all the other places but you get so much more candy to decorate with. we actually threw away a ton of candy that was left after we finished.

another tradition that has been going on in our little family the last couple of years is inviting grandma and papa over to make christmas candy. this year we decided that our family would take candies to our neighbors and carol on their doorsteps. this was one of the highlights of our celebrations this year. the kids sang away in a manger and we wish you a merry christmas and then handed our neighbors a tin full of homemade candy.

the candy making is such a treasure for me. i love watching the kids helping grandma cover the cherries with chocolate or lick a beater. this year henry was at school when we made the candy and i sure missed him. next year we will be sure to wait and make candy when he is home. daphne had a great time though.

another fun thing we did this year was to get the kids matching pjs. when we came home from the christmas eve service they each opened a gift ( of course we chose which one). they loved their new penguin pajamas. in fact last night they each put them on without the other knowing. they thought that was so cool!

christmas morning proved to be great fun for the kids. i remember the anticipation i had as a child as we would go over to get our grandparents and then return home to our stockings. i am seeing that the same excitement i had is there in the faces of my babies.
other exciting things that have been going on in our family...
anna has finally started walking!! the week before christmas anna decided it was time to take off. she hasn't stopped since. in fact she refuses to crawl anymore. if she falls she just pops right up and then she goes again. fun times in our house!

we are also expecting baby #4, the final edition to our family. i am 14 weeks and baby seems to be doing well thus far. we will have an ultrasound in mid february but do not plan to find out what baby is this time around.

i have much to share about the trip to texas but this post has been long enough. i will save the texas post for another day.

belated merry christmas and happy new year!!