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My kids crack me up.  I taught Emma the song “the 12 days of Christmas”, which she thought was hilarious because who wants a partridge in a pear tree for a present.  We sang it so much Zach caught on to the idea of “days of Christmas” – he thinks that you get as many days of Christmas as you are old.  So he wasn’t sad when Christmas day was over… he had 4 more.  But poor Carter, he didn’t get any.  And he said to me today, “Don’t worry, Mom – you still have 30 days of Christmas.”  Here are a few pictures from our first day of Christmas.  From Zach diving under the sheet hung in the hallway to get the first peek at the stuff from Santa and proclaiming each present “the best I’ve ever gotten!”, Emma hearing Santa’s sleigh bells and rejoicing over the box of balloons he left her, and Carter enjoying eating the wrapping paper more than any present, it was a happy, memorable day. Here’s to 30 more, apparently starting tomorrow.

If you want to play baseball in Minnesota in the winter… put up a dome.  And if you want to go to  a waterpark in the winter… move it inside!  3 cheers for whoever thought that up.  Since being here in the frozen tundra we have made it a tradition to go around Christmas time to one of the indoor waterparks.  This time we ventured to the indoor waterpark capital of America… and it was bigger and better than ever.  Nate and Zach even went on a rollercoaster tube slide. where the tubes had roll bars – (apparently Zach kept screaming "I think I'm getting scared…")  Emma loved the lazy river with the "spitting ladies", and would go down slides for hours on end even when she was shivering and her lips were turning purple.  Carter loved the cool wooden chairs and hated the waterpark – so Nate and I took turns freezing with Zach and Emma on the slides and holding the warm, snuggly baby.  In retrospect, both were fun – although when we were shivering in the water we sure wanted baby duty!  Other highlights for the kids included jumping on the hotel beds, Dad letting them eat in the hotel beds, and their prizes from winning tickets at the little arcade.  I should have taken more pictures at the waterpark, but we were too wet and having too much fun.  Definitely a tradition worth keeping!  

We spent the Christmas season listening to Peter Brineholt's Christmas album, which I love.  It has a rendition of "I saw 3 ships" that has an Irish sound to it, and it makes a great dancing song – so the kids and I also spent the season dancing whenever it came on.  I'd hold Carter and dance around and he'd grin and squeal – he loved it.  This particular day he was asleep, but as soon as the "dancing song" came on, Emma had to run grab her baby and dance it around.  With holding the baby and her kicking style of dancing it actually looked a lot like celtic dance, which even matched the music!  Being imitated truly is the ultimate form of flattery (although I am sure I don't dance that good.)  

The day after Christmas was warm enough to get out and build a snowman – finally!  Emma was so excited – and so was I!  The snow had melted enough so that it was perfect snowman snow… and our snowballs got so big so fast that we couldn't lift them alone and had to call Nate out to help.  Carter got his first time sitting out in the snow – and loved it!  Gotta love that 35* is warm enough to go without mittens… 

Daddy. Cheeseball.

We got a big snowstorm Thursday/Friday – enough that Zach’s Christmas vacation from school started a day early!  And Nate’s vacation started after his exam that afternoon (not cancelled, of course), making for a fun, snowy afternoon that included lots runs down the sledding hill in our front yard and some snow football.
 

Zach, upon arriving home from school on Thursday:  "Logan O. said, 'I hope you get poop for Christmas.'   I said, 'I hope you get poop for Christmas, too.'  That's what friends do."  (Later I found out that he really meant "that's what friends do, make jokes with each other like that".   Oh.) 

It is our family tradition to take the kids to pick out toys for Toys for Tots and then eat dinner at the mall and visit Santa.  This year, when we got to the mall, Santa was out feeding his reindeer.    We opted to eat dinner first instead of be the first in line… we may have opted wrong.  When we returned to the Santa line, it was huge… and at the end of the line was a lady with two dogs.  (Emma is terrified of dogs.)  One of the dogs was a lab, and I think to myself that maybe she is training them to be service dogs and she is getting them used to lots of children.  Then I look up and realize there are as many dogs in line to see Santa as kids.  (Did I mention Emma is TERRIFIED of dogs?)  I guess it was beneficial in that Emma was much more scared of the dogs than she was of Santa.  We actually even got everyone to sit on his lap… although my picture isn't very good because they had a big sign that said if you weren't buying the ridiculously expensive Santa photos from them you could only take 2 pictures with your own camera and I had taken 3.  Sometimes I hate being such a rule-abider by nature and wish I would have just leisurely taken 8 pictures – really, would they have asked me to stop?  Maybe I'll get brave enough to find out next year, when Carter has gotten smarter and is screaming his head off.  Merry Christmas and happy pet night!  

This is what we woke up to on Monday…windchills of 35 below zero… and so instead of going to the grocery store, this is what we did:  
As always, each side of the gingerbread house reflects the personality of it's creator. Thanks, Grandma, for the fun, inside tradition!