Playing Outside

It's been so nice to have a break from work. A whole week off to enjoy with my family! WOOHOO! We've been playing like crazy - it's fun to have lots of new toys from Christmas and tons of time to do everything we want. Yesterday, we decided to play outside together. (Note: Ryan had a blue sucker right before playing outside. He isn't really that cold.)

Chelsey's Favorite Christmas Moments

Emily's Favorite Christmas Moments

Ryan's Favorite Christmas Moments

Christmas Morning 2009

Christmas Eve dumped over a foot of snow on Omaha. Normally, this would be a wonderful thing for a beautiful white Christmas, except for the fact that I was at the hospital when it happened and Omaha has not been very proactive about keeping the roads clear. Luckily, the resident that was on call on Christmas let me leave early so I could get home. It took over an hour and a lot of praying and some helpful neighbors, but I made it home for Christmas.

Our snowman drowning in the new snow

Our deck is now nearly completely buried

Amy hung sheets in the entryways so the kids couldn't see what Santa had brought until I got home from work

Luckily, Santa did come, ate his treats, and left a note and some presents!

Christmas Eve 2009

Chatting with Daddy who had to work in the NICU on Christmas Eve

Three kids who are very excited for Santa to come

Putting out treats for Santa and his reindeer

Christmas Letter 2009

Making Cookies for Santa

Delicious gingerbread!

Chelsey's favorite part was squeezing the icing onto the cookie.

Emily's favorite part was manhandling every M&M.

Ryan's favorite part was, of course, eating the finished product!

(and proof that Ryan can do the famous "raise one eyebrow" look!)

Come hungry, Santa, because you are going to be treated to the best cookies ever!

Grandma Merrill's Package Came!

I call this sequence, "The Joy of Styrofoam Peanuts!"

Thanks, Denise, for a fun afternoon had by all!

Annual Hymas Christmas Party

We had our annual Christmas party this last week. We invited our close pediatric resident friends for soup and a party, and what a party it was!

Good times were had by all....

Well, at least the kids had a blast!

(And that's what matters, right?)

A package from Grandpa and Grandma Lofgran

We got a fun package in the mail this week from Amy's parents. There were some gifts to put under our tree, but also some delicious holiday goodies to enjoy immediately. This little sequence of photos pretty much speaks for itself:

Thanks for the yummy treats Grandpa and Grandma!

Gingerbread

Every year, the Mormon Trail Center in Florence, NE has an event where they display gingerbread houses and other things made by people in the area. It was so fun to take the kids and see the amazing variety of creations on display!

They had a really fun scavenger hunt of things to find that Chelsey thoroughly enjoyed. She found everything on the list quite quickly and was very proud of herself.

Emily liked this life-size gingerbread house the best and spent most of the evening playing in it.

Being quite well-aquainted with Ryan after almost two years, we were smart enough to keep him in the stroller for the majority of the night. If not, this is what generally happened. (He may look like he's just pointing, but he's actually about to take down a pretzel fence.)

This display was my favorite. Gingerbread Noah's Ark complete with a pair of every animal.

Cookies!

Our friends the Forbushes invited us over to decorate cookies with them. We had a lot of fun and pretty much destroyed their kitchen. Thanks guys!

Emily was really excited (actually, she really was. This is just the only picture I have of her).

Let's just say Ryan didn't get a whole lot of decorating done.

Chelsey thought since everyone thought Ryan's messy face was so funny, it might work for her too.

Ward Christmas Party

Our church had a Christmas breakfast on Saturday - such a good idea! Instead of trying to pick a night to get everyone come to the church during the busy holidays, they have a breakfast instead. It was delicious - so many different breakfast foods. Yum!

After breakfast, the Primary children put on a little program where they sang about the Nativity. It was cute and Chelsey and Emily enjoyed dressing up. Chelsey's greatest dream was realized when she got to be Mary. Emily had to settle for an angel, which she wasn't happy about, but was willing to choose when offered the possibility of being a goat.

After the program, we had a special visitor. Since Chelsey was the only one brave enough to sit on his lap, she gets two pictures on the blog. Emily and Ryan screamed so loud that we had to leave immediately following the taking of said pictures... ah parenthood.