Welcome Christmas time!

Santa came very early to Stansbury Park's grocery store... before Thanksgiving, in fact. I asked the manager if he'd be visiting later during the actual Christmas season, but nope, that was it. And since I don't wait in long lines at malls, this was our chance. And it would have been wrong to post these pictures before the Thanksgiving pictures, so here they are. Let's pretend it happened in December. When I took the kids, they hadn't even thought about what they want for Christmas yet. Nolan quickly cooked up some ideas and wrote them down. He wanted an Xbox (I laughed in his face when I read that), a phone (yet more laughter), a bow and arrow, and stilts. Santa always asks if Nolan has a girlfriend.

Nolan is entering a phase where you say "smile" and this is what he does:

Ezra wrote that he wanted a blue video camera. 

And Lucy's experience with Santa was pure misery, as can be expected.

December brought the end of "No-shave November" or "Movember" for Justin. He had a full bear going and then he shaved it off in parts and took pictures. So glad he didn't go out like this. It screams child molester! Or '80's car salesman. 

 Nolan sang in a choir group for several months (we've since given it up) and they performed a couple times, once at the lighting ceremony at Benson Grist Mill and also at the local dance studio's performance of Nutcracker.

Bringing up the Christmas stuff from the storage room is always a hectic and messy day. I didn't even put as much out as normal but I'm so glad... there's always plenty of clutter! The kids were pretty excited to get it out though, especially because they could finally play with the Polar Express train!

 It's kind of tradition now that we take a picture of Lucy with "Rudy" the reindeer on her head.

 I took some pictures of Lucy for the Christmas card. She's a pretty cute little model. And Ezra was willing to pop into the pictures every now and then!

And here's our Christmas card for the year:

 Nolan wrote a great Christmas report. In case you can't read it, it says: "My favorite thing to do is build a snow fort. I also like to make ginger bread houses, drink hot chocolate. Santa has lots of elves. The three Christmas colors are (using ornaments as reference) white, green, and red. Santa gives out presents. The max of presents you'll get is 3. Christmas is on the 25th. I go skiing every year. Christmas is Jesus's birthday. There is lots of Christmas decorations. Ginger bread houses have lots of sugar. Santa has elves that help him make toys. We hang up decorations." Thought that was a pretty amusing Christmas report from him.

And here's a cute girl, just lovin' on her blankey.