CHRISTMAS 2015

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We have really enjoyed the last few days of celebrating with family and friends. I am sad to see the holiday end, but I know that there are good things awaiting us in 2016! Here are some of the memories we made this Christmas:

We decorated sugar cookies with multi-colored frostings at the boys' friend Rylee's house :)

Rylee has an adorable homemade tee-pee that I'm dying to copy at our house.

 

One of the churches in our community put on a big Christmas event last Saturday. There was a walk-through Bethlehem, a free breakfast, and a meet-and-greet with Santa and Mrs. Clause. Ephraim has never let me pass him off to other people, and this time was no exception :) Nolan asked Santa for a "Cars" Mack trailer.

On Christmas Eve, we went to my mom and Don's house for dinner. We were spoiled with delicious ham, potatoes, Swedish rice pudding, and cranberry orange bundt cake. Then we exchanged gifts and the boys had time to play with their new toys and read their new books. Afterwards, we left for the candlelight service at church.

Steve's brother Phil and his family arrived on Christmas Eve to spend the night with us. On Christmas morning, we opened presents with the Zimm side. We are so blessed to have such generous families, that's all I can say!

At lunchtime, we took a road trip to Steve's mom's side of the family.

Steve's Aunt Debbie always has brilliant ideas for entertaining little ones at her house. She had made big felt Christmas trees and felt ornaments for the kids to decorate with glitter, sequins, and pompoms!

And the kids really loved her Hallmark dancing figurine collection :)

Steve's Grandma Olive is 98.5 years old! She saves the cute stuffed animals she wins at Bingo and passes them out to her great-grandchildren.

 

After the party, we spent the night at a hotel. Saturday morning, we drove out to the farm to celebrate Christmas with Steve's dad's side of the family.

Our nieces are obsessed with kitties! It's so cute how they sit and pet them for inordinate amounts of time.

A cousin piano duet :) I got a piece of this on video too, and they were being so sweet to each other!

 

We got home late Saturday night, and the boys have developed some colds because of all of the activity and traveling. It's been nice to be home and relax for the past two days without too much of a schedule. 

How was your Christmas?