Christmas Day

Our Christmas day at my parents' house progressed in its usual fashion. We all slept in, and then headed out together to see what was left in our stockings. Austin found a couple foam puzzles and a bath toy next to his stocking.

It took some encouragement to get him to look inside his stocking too, but he was happy with what he found there:

By the way, the sweater that Austin is wearing is one that used to be Nate's. Nate's grandparents brought it back from Europe for him.

I ended up making most of my gifts for people this year. I was super busy trying to finish as much as I could in time for Christmas. I didn't quite finish everything for everyone, but I did finish Austin's toys, with some much appreciated help from Nate. Nate thinks I am trying to get Austin to love animals like I do with the jungle puzzle and farm set I designed and created. I am not much of a sewer, but after a good long fight with it, I finally managed to get the cloth barn to work as well.

When opening the gift bag containing the farm set, Austin didn't initially recognize the barn as a toy. He pulled it out and threw it behind him just as he had the tissue paper. But he liked the tractor.

At least he enjoyed it until he got a new addition to his existing train set later that evening from his great grandparents and aunts. After all, that set came with new trucks that made noise and sang songs.

I also made Nate a miniature nativity set this year.

Much of the rest of our Christmas day was spent visiting other family, eating delicious food, and opening additional rounds of gifts that came with the additional family. There was also some time to relax and play games. We enjoyed the time together.

Just Before Christmas

I have great memories of the fun activities and excitement that always preceded Christmas while growing up. Austin was getting old enough to really start enjoying some of these things this year, so we tried to do some fun Christmas things with him. For example, we took him and his cousin Zach to see Santa. Austin told Santa that he wanted a "Christmas car" for Christmas this year. He also got to see the reindeer that were there.

We also took Austin to the dollar store to pick out gifts for people this year. He was very good at picking out things that looked interesting to him. For example, he ended up getting his dad this calendar:

 
As usual, we made lots of Christmas goodies to share with friends and neighbors, including sugar cookies. Austin was able to frost and decorate his own batch this year.

Austin also helped make a cardstock Christmas stocking to give to his grandparents. Then he drew a picture to put inside of it. It turned out to be a big hit on Christmas day.

We drove down to my parents' place the day before Christmas. We got there in time to go snowshoeing with my brother Ben. Unfortunately, when we reached the trail, we found that most of the snow had already melted away. There wasn't enough snow to even use our snowshoes, so we just went without them. We headed part way up the Shingle Mill trail.

Zipper came with us and was able to try out her little boots that she got last year for Christmas. Unfortunately, they didn't always stay on her feet, but they did do their job by preventing ice from building up in the grooves of her paws.

We also got to talk to Nate's brother Timothy that afternoon, who is currently serving his mission in Australia. And that evening ate a delicious dinner, read scriptures about Christ, and sang Christmas songs. It was a great day!