Christmas 2012 - Monster post. Just warning you.

As I mentioned before, Christmas was wonderful!

We flew to Virginia on Friday, December 21. This was the first time Afton had her own seat.

Don't they look alike?

Sam was excited to fly so he could have "snacky snacks." He never calls them that, but whatever. Snacky snacks it was. He was a great traveler. Can't say the same for Afton. She was crying, whining, all over the place, on my lap, Dan's lap, etc. But we survived. We got to Virginia in the afternoon and relaxed the rest of the day.

Saturday Dan and I went out to do a little last-minute shopping and we stopped by Charlottesville's best bagel restaurant - Bodo's. That was the first of three trips we'd make in like 6 days. I should mention that Kirk and Gretchen and clan were already in VA and Ryan and Teresa and clan came on Saturday. That afternoon we went on an "adventure" through the woods.

 

That hat is all that remains of her Toy Story alien toy costume from last Halloween. In case you're wondering. The ears fell off.

And I took some pictures of Carter and his stitches goatee.

Sunday Sam woke up sick and barfed all day. I went to church w/ Afton while Dan took care of Sam. Poor kid. He was back to his usual self the next day. Candice and Craig and clan came Sunday and I got to meet my newest niece - Millie!

She is adorable.

We also spent a lot of time in my parents' basement playing. We decorated the Christmas tree and the kids painted ornaments.

 

Monday (Christmas Eve) we did our annual-if-we're-all-together name swap where we draw someone's name and get them a present at the Ruckersville Wal-mart. Dan's Christmas wish came true that day - it snowed! Our kids saw snow for the first time that they can remember.

We also cooked a lot of food for our Christmas Eve dinner, opened a pre-dinner present (socks all around!), and had a special Christmas family home evening.

 

 First attempt at a family picture.

Much better.

 

Christmas morning! All the kids came down to see what Grandma Santa had brought.

 

 

 

I have to finish the rest in another post b/c for some reason it's not allowing me to add more pictures... Stay tuned.



Improptu photoshoot

We went to Virginia for Christmas and it was awesome! I'll write more about that later, but for now I wanted to put up some pictures I took of Afton at my parents' home. The lighting was great.

December thus far

Our community had its annual winter festival a few weekends ago. We rode a train.

And a camel. Poor camel.

We also took a "sleigh" ride.

 The kids got balloon objects made - Afton a dog and Sam a sword. Afton's dog quickly got messed up (see above) and we called it a giraffe. Then the giraffe morphed even more so Dan fashioned a hat for her.

Dan had his 31st birthday.

 He requested tacos for dinner and a yellow cake with chocolate frosting. As you, my faithful readers, know I like to decorate the cake in some way so his request made it a little tricky. I decided to make a rock wall on the cake with Dan climbing up. Ghetto, I know. But I think he liked it anyway.

We also started the advent calendar.

And we took a preschool fieldtrip to a "Festival of Trees" at a senior center.

 We finally took all 150 blankets that we collected with our blanket drive out of our bedroom.

 And into the van. We fit them all! We took them down and dropped them off. It was really quick, but nice to see how a little thing can help others. Houston has a lot of homeless people.

It was a little sunny.

Yesterday was our church Christmas "Breakfast with Santa." Sam was excited to tell Santa that he wants a transformer. Santa better get on that...

 When I asked Afton if she was excited to see Santa, this is the face she made:

 But I told Dan to put her on his lap anyway. I feel bad about it now. Poor girl. Her crying weirded out Sam, too, who up until that point had been just fine.

Another installment of: Pictures from the kids' camera

Once again Sam's camera's memory card was full so I downloaded all 800 pictures, deleted 600 pictures of blackness, whiteness, the floor and blurred randomness, and here are a few of what's left.

First, we've got a lot of close-ups of the picture takers.

Afton:

 Sam:

But Sam doesn't take too many self-portraits anymore. He's discovered the funny faces you can make and tends to use those a lot more:

The camera also has built-in frames you can use.

Here are some from a trip to the Houston Temple.

 That's a cricket below.

Afton took some of her doll.

Sam captured our Christmas lights perfectly.

Other randoms:

 Ghost in the kitchen.