Merry Christmas!

We had such a wonderful Christmas. I hope we have started a new Christmas Eve tradition. I asked Nick to help me clean the house - I remember being told when I was a child that Santa did not come to a dirty house (I suppose it was to motivate us) and that is what I told Nick and Ellie all day. Well, when Nick cleans he really cleans - he scrubbed the bathroom from top to bottom, pulled out the fridge to vacuum out all the dust bunnies and scrubbed the grout. I've come to the conclusion that I would clean just as well if I didn't have two little ones to keep up with. Or maybe I'm just trying to convince myself...

Anyway, later that evening we made gingerbread cookies to leave our for Santa:

On Christmas morning we went out to the tree after trying to convince Ellie to keep her Christmas pajamas on. She insisted that she get dressed. Ellie got a new three-wheeled scooter and we asked her if she wanted to ride it. She didn't want to and to prove her point, threw herself on the floor and threw a fit. Merry Christmas to us! That was all in the first fifteen minutes. The rest of our morning was happy, and fit-free though, thankfully. We had a fun time opening presents, and the kids were very pleased with what Santa brought them.

Here Maren is enjoying her new jumperoo:
Ellie got a bunch of furniture for her dollhouse. The dollhouse itself was mine when I was a child, but the furniture I had has gone the way of all lost and abandoned toys. This new furniture is pretty detailed, but still kid-friendly. Except for the teeny tiny little accessories that go with it (like the spoon which is about a 1 1/2 cm tall - those got put away for another day).

Maren enjoyed the wrapping paper the best:

I got a new coat, scarf, and hat (among other fun things, like a hair straightener). Nick got a breadmaker, which he has already made some delicious creations with. We had our traditional aebleskivers for breakfast and then were planning on going to my parent's house, but it was snowing, and we decided to postpone that trip. We did go to my brother's house and had a delicious lunch there. Later that evening we went to Nick's parent's house for a Christmas steak dinner and then opened presents with the family.

Ellie and Seth got lots of fun stuff. Here they are reading their books:
Maren and Grandpa.

Here's Maren and Maybe. This photo turned out a little fuzzy, but I thought their faces were just too cute. I sure hope these two grow up to be good pals.

Here is our family, green and red all over. My sweet girls.
Ellie's photo pose.
On Friday we went to my parent's house. Dennis and his family were there too and the girls had fun sledding together (for as long as it lasted - Ellie was done after about 10 minutes).

And now we are enjoying post-holiday activities like playing with all our new toys and cutting down boxes for recycling. The best part is just having Nick home from work and enjoying some time together as a family.