Pella Christmas

We went to Pella the weekend after Christmas-the kids had a blast!

The older boys took advantage of the fun snowfall

And they were joined by a neighbor friend. They played outside for quite some time.

Littlest to biggest

Christmas 2018

I'm on a bit of a delay right now. For one reason or another, I haven't been focusing on many pictures lately and even less on getting them from my camera to my computer so I can post them. So, here's some (late) Christmas photos from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. After church on Christmas Eve, we headed to my parents house for our annual tradition of eating cookies, singing Christmas carols, and reading the story "The Christmas That Almost Wasn't". The kids really look forward to this (and so do I). Christmas Day was at home and my parents and brother joined us in the afternoon for more presents and a meal. It was a great day. I didn't take tons of pictures, but here is what I have. :)

Christmas Eve

Singing carols

The funniest part was Asher holding his book pretending to read the words while he sang. So funny!

I later discovered that I had a smudge on my lens, which is why some of these pictures look foggy.

Uncle Abe and the kiddos

Dad's annual reading

Christmas morning

December Fun

Judah was invited to a gingerbread house party, and we decided to go. Apparently, this is an annual thing that has been happening for decades in our area, and we had no idea of the magnitude of this event until we arrived. I was thinking that we would make a small gingerbread house and be on our way. Oh no. There were tables of large cardboard house cut-outs of various shapes (and I believe they each had a name...I think ours was called the "Swiss Chalet"). Each table had jars of frosting and boxes of graham crackers to cover your house, and there were tables in the center that had all types of candy on it for you to decorate your house. Judah and I were there for a while, but I hadn't planned enough time for us to finish the back side of the house (you could easily spend many hours doing this). We had a great time, and Judah told me that he wants to go again next year! I didn't take any pictures while we were there, but Judah wanted me to take some after we brought the beast home. :)

 Eric and I also took Eden to the Nutcracker (performed by the Joffrey Ballet) again this year. She loved it so much last year, so we decided to do it again, and it did not disappoint! We took her out for a "fancy" dinner beforehand as well.

Eric's fancy soup