Christmas Week!!!

Yahoooo! 

The week before Christmas we had a BLAST!

Matt took the entire week off, part of his vacation time, and we just partied the entire time.

It rocked.

There are a LOT of pictures, so try and keep up!

There was a lot of wrestling and playing with Daddy. Especially in the mornings, when Luke was surprised that Dad was even home.

 

 Luke loves being in all the pictures with Devin. Cute boys.
We have some cute Nativity puppets and Luke especially loves the baby Jesus (slides in Mary's arms). He really wanted a picture of his "two babies."
Also, notice his beanie? That's how he likes to wear it, it's so funny.

Monday was a more relaxing day. Matt did some last minute shopping, with Luke and while Devin napped and whipped up one too many goodies (divinity, fudge, gingerbread cookies and cakey cookies-Mmmmm) for our friends and neighbors). That night Luke went to a friends house and the rest of us went to a (weird) work party for Matt. 

Tuesday we took off to the Children's Museum. It just so happened to be "Free Father Figure Day" (funny huh), so Matt was free, which was nice. Luke loved showing Daddy the place (we have a pass). I think it's a pretty ghetto museum, compared to the others we've been to, but the kids love it.

Luke serving Daddy in the kitchen.
Matt is such a good sport.

Playing at the water table. Matt built a big waterfall thing that all the kids loved.

Grocery shopping...

Doctor's office. Luke enjoys giving us shots, since he's usually the one getting the shots.

And the coolest part was the huge sand box. The entire room is full of sand.

That night we had the missionaries and an investigator, Alex, over for dinner. Then we took Alex with us to a baptism in our ward, because he'd never been to one before. It turned out to be a great evening.

Wednesday we drove to down town, to Tower City to see Mr. Kringle's Inventionasium! Luke kept asking if we were at the North Pole. It was pretty fun, but I don't think we'd do it again.

You basically go on a tour, with Santa's elves through the workshop, building toys and making snow. And then you get 4 minutes with Mr. Kringle himself! It's quite the business they have going on down there. It's cute and fun for the kids though. The elves were a little wacky, a little too wacky for my liking.

And of course they don't let you take pictures with Santa. That's okay!

Afterward we saw Bruce, the talking tree, but he was "napping."

Luke standing in front of the massive Christmas tree. I thought these kids next to him were so cute.

Luke was amazed by the cool fountain in the middle of the mall.

We gave him some pennies to throw in and then he decided he wanted to get more, because it was so fun. Luckily he only snagged a few, and threw them back of course!

We had a yummy pretzel and Icee (my favorite!!!) and while we were snacking Luke really wanted a stuffed animal out of one of those claw-game machines. Matt was like, "Okay, we'll try it" and me being Mrs. Pestimistic said, "Oh, don't waste your money! You never win those!" So he agreed that he'd only try it once. And sure enough, he proved me wrong! He won!
Look how happy Luke is.

That night we had a little dessert night at our house with some friends. We had some delicious Sopapilla Cheesecake (hit here for the recipe) and other goodies! Then we watched A Christmas Story, since it is filmed here in Cleveland!

Thursday we went out to lunch at the famous Melt restaurant, that everyone raves about. I ordered one of the most deadly sandwiches, the Monte Cristo. I won't describe it or you might judge me and never be able to look at me the same! It was SO GOOD, but it nearly killed me! Matt and I felt so fat and sick after. The food is deep fried and extremely fatty. Later that night Matt and I (and Devin, who comes everywhere with us) went to a late night showing of Inception at the dollar theater. It was really good.

The next morning, on Christmas Eve, (I'm telling ya, this week was action packed!) we splurged and went to Tangled in 3D and it was AWESOME! It was our first 3D movie and we loved it. The movie was adorable too. It's been so long since we've been to a real movie theater, it felt like we were in DisneyLand or something, we were just in awe walking through the theater. Although, it was a really nice theater and was huge. I love how my boys look in these glasses too.

We came home, napped and cleaned for Christmas. We took goodies to our neighbors. And then started our very own Christmas Eve traditions. 

We had brinner for dinner (my favorite), french toast and eggs.
We read the nativity and then summarized it in puppet terms.
We sang Christmas songs, while Matt played the guitar.
We opened one present.
We played "Don't Eat Frosty" with m&m's.
Watched a short Christmas show.
Left goodies for Santa and his reindeer.
Read T'was the Night Before Christmas and The Polar Express.
And of course it took Luke like 3 hours to fall asleep.

The apple and carrots were Luke's idea.

After Santa came, I sneaked down to take a picture.

I could hardly sleep I was so excited! We didn't get up until 8:00 or so and then we set up our video camera and my camera, so we didn't miss a beat.

Here's Luke's surprised face when he sees all the presents.

He was so excited.

We opened our stockings first, ate breakfast and then opened the good stuff.
And it's official, there is NOTHING that will get Luke to eat food. Even when all of the presents are right in front of him, he still won't eat, or he'll take an eternity to eat! Ugh!

We opened one present at a time, which was really hard for Luke, but it helped the morning last longer.
The happy parents, who loved watching Luke open present after present.

Luke was so spoiled this year, by Santa, his parents and grandparents. 

He got this awesome band set (which mom and dad might already regret buying), an electric tooth brush, train set, t-ball set, cars pop-up tent, a hilarious hamster and lots of other fun toys, movies and games.

The aftermath.

I got these awesome speakers, for me to jam to music while I cook or clean on the main floor. They are small, but so loud, they are very nice! Santa also left me some mula for clothes. Yipee!

The man of the house got this nice air compressor, a nail gun, brad gun and stapler gun and accessories. He is very excited to put in a fence this spring!

Lastly, Santa left this fun treasure hunt for Luke. He is really into maps right now, so Santa left a map to help with the treasure hunt too.

At the end he got what he asked for, a Toy Story movie and game. Although, he was more excited about his map than toys.

Devin, a perfect boy as always, got an exersaucer and some little toys. He is getting to be so big and so drooly!

After a day of playing with toys, eating goodies and watching new movies, we found Luke giggling and Devin like this.

We had a wonderful Christmas. We really missed being with our families, those party animals. But it was really fun to have our very own, first Christmas, in our new house with our little family!

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!