All About Christmas

Like everyone else, we have been busy getting ready for Christmas. We picked out our tree at the Boy Scout lot near our house and then came home to decorate it. Ben, of course, loves the Christmas tree and wants to have the lights on at all times. He especially loves the star on top. He has really done surprisingly well as far as leaving the tree alone -- though there are more than a couple of ornaments that have now been glued back together, in some cases more than once.

By the way, this is Ben's "smile" for the camera. We are going to have to work on a natural smile!

Sweet big brother loves baby sister.

The next weekend we headed to the mall to see Santa. My sweet little girl ready to go.

Ben was excited to see Santa pretty much the entire time we waited in line. That is until we got close enough to actually see what was happening. He then wanted absolutely nothing to do with Santa (or "tanta cwaus"). Clare, on the other hand, was happy to oblige me and have her picture taken.

The morning was not lost for Ben, however, as the mall has a train running throughout the holiday season. He was in heaven.

That night we went to our friends Stewart's and Allison's house for their annual Christmas party. Ben with his Christmas murse. He had trains, trucks, and Buzz and Woody. He was ready for fun.

Our friend Amy hanging with Clare.

Ben and Clare with their friend Anna.

And with friends Spencer, Alden, and Anna. Ben tends to cover his eyes for pictures these days as he does not like the flash in his eyes. I believe this comes from me telling him to put his hands in front of his eyes when he complains of the sun in the car.

Yesterday, Matt braved the mall with Clare so that I could have some time with just Ben to make Christmas cookies. There probably aren't too many dads who would take an eight week old to the mall all by themselves the weekend before Christmas so kudos to Matt. (And I mean that sincerely. Matt always complains I never give him any credit on my blog for being a good husband and/or father. And I was pretty impressed that he was willing to take Clare yesterday. Less so tonight when I was going to go to Church for the 5:00 service by myself (there is no nursery for Ben on Sunday nights) and Matt vetoed it saying "how am I going to cook dinner, feed Clare, and watch Ben?" Ummm, ok.

Anyway, I was totally impressed with Ben's cookie making skills and we had lots of fun making our surprisingly tasty cookies!

Though his pace slowed considerably when he realized the sprinkles were edible (he did not realize, fortunately, that the dough was too). He no longer wanted to waste sprinkles on the cookies!








Eating the finished product:

Daddy's girl.

After several friends have had better luck with Santa on the second or third try, we decided to try it again as well. After another week of talking about Santa, reading books about Santa, etc. (and finally understanding that Santa brings "presents, a choo choo train"), Ben was willing to sit on Santa's lap today! Yay!! Even if he did look extremely worried the entire time!