Christmas Activities 2009

Happy New Year! (Almost)

Christmas has been a blast this year. Here's some of what has happened:

Ginger Bread Houses!

This year my mom and brothers decided to go all out with the ginger bread houses and they built a castle! Matt and I built little houses to create the village and all together we had a very enjoyable little scene. It was pretty amazing how my mom was able to bake all those pieces. Here are some pics:

This is the 'Over All' shot. The four houses in front and the one back toward the 'gate' are the ones that Matt and I crafted.

These two above are my favorite. You can see the third last house in the background of the picture below.

The pic above highlights the castle: note the windows. My mom actually put candy in to melt into windows. Pretty cool effect! The pic below highlights some of my brother's creativity. The marshmellows on gumdrops are supposed to be cannons and the candy cane baracade is supposed 'caltrops' (or inother words, pointy logs that keep evil people out).

Chrismas Eve

Christmas Eve we finished our Advent Nativity set. Emmaline loved putting this together through December and it was fun to have such an interactive way to tell the story of Jesus' birth to Emmaline several times. Of all the Christma pictures that Matt took this week I love this one of our tree the most. Somehow the lighting of the tree and the room behind us made this picture so beautiful.

Snow!!

Somehow every Christmas its snowed I've been out of town so I've always missed the 'white Christmas' that everyone can fondly remember. This year (I was sad about moving to Guam where the chance of snow at Christmas is literally 0%) it happened to snow about 4 inches! I was happy! Well, when we weren't driving in it cause we did slide twice- once almost into a busy intersection and the second time almost into the back of another car. Luckily both times Matt was amazing and was able to gain control of the vehicle!

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning was a blast! Matt and I woke up around 5:30 (I guess even as an adult we can't get the excitement of the magical day to go away enough to sleep in!). When Emmaline finally woke up we were excited to show her that Santa came! She loved opening her presents and we enjoyed watching her. This year both the wrapping paper and the gifts were appealing rather than just the packaging!

Here is what Emmaline got: Chapstick (probably a mistake), baretts, stickers, play jewelry, princess shoes (they sparkle!), books, board games and a helmet and a scooter! The scooter is her favorite, of course.

(I must comment: This picture was taken on Christmas morning. See snow? Nope. I woke up and was sad there was NO snow on the ground. Within an hour of this picture there was an inch of snow. Also note her princess shoes).

Matt got: A calendar with pictures of our family to take with him to Korea, a jar full of 80+ things I love about him, letters to read while in korea (see a theme?), games for his PSP and a camera so when he is in Korea he can take pictures to share with the family!

Britta got: beautiful jewelry from Matt, a few movies from the fam, and a new set of silverware! I was very excited for the silverware because mine has been bending and rusting for a while now and a new set has been on my wants list for about a year!

Christmas Sales

After Christmas we went furniture shopping. Emmaline needs a new bed before baby comes and we decided to hit the sales. We found a bed we both like that was definately under our budget. Happy! The bonus to this bed is that the lower bunk can be stored until we need it in a few years. The dresser, shelves and desk are all built in so we have tons more room in the room- which is important with two little girls in a small space. (The bed is supposed to be delivered today but its snowing again... we'll see if it actually gets here.)

Pregnancy Pictures

And finally: I feel like a beached whale already. I'm now 22.5 weeks along and feeling baby kick all the time. Some days I just feel fat but others I can definately feel pregnant. Here is a pic of my big belly: