White Christmas

Plenty of snow in Utah this year - at least for us out of towners.

We drove up to Erik's parents' house on Christmas Eve day -

we were blessed to have the kids sleep most of the way.

The kids (and Erik) did a little Christmas Eve

decorating of gingerbread cookies.

Since Grandpa made it a contest, there was a lot of

concentrated effort going on.

Rebekah even mastered her Dad's signature Swedish flag design.

James was quite generous with all of the frosting that Farmor made.

(See cookies below).

Christmas morning came bright and early (3 a.m. to be exact)

with all the kids awake and giggling (except for Christine the teenager,

who stayed fast asleep). We shooed the kids out of our room,

so they retreated to the boys' room for an hour's worth of giggling

and game playing (they couldn't go upstairs because Aunt Serianna

was on the couch, guarding the Christmas tree).

Somehow they managed to fall back asleep,

and didn't wake back up until it was nearly 9 a.m.

Santa somehow found us, and the kids seem thrilled with what they got.

It always cracks me up to see what the younger kids are thrilled with;

James for instance, is proudly showing off his instructions.

We actually celebrated Christmas a little early,

so that we didn't have to lug everything up to Utah.

We spent some time with Grandma Sandy, Danielle & Lauren

before heading over to my parents' house for a pre-Christmas dinner.

The kids were all excited to go to Utah for Christmas,

but weren't too keen on missing Grandma's Christmas Day dinner.

Thanks Mom, for humoring us, and having us over before we left.

The kids were pretty excited about opening some of their Christmas presents early.

Lots of smiles and bright red punch mustaches.

It was 2 Merry Christmases indeed.