Lingering in Limbo: Finally! A Brief Review and a Few Photos of Christmas

Our Christmas trees:

This tree is decorated with all of the ornaments that the kids have made in school and the ornaments that my parents give them every year:

So you probably figured out from my New Beginnings post that I have been able to get my computer functioning to the point that I can post photos again. Unfortunately, Vista doesn't like our camera software so I still have to load the photos on the old computer and then save them on a memory stick. So when our old computer dies completely, I will be out of luck again.

We had a wonderful Christmas. Niles was able to take quite a bit of time off work and we enjoyed a whole lot of sleeping in and doing nothing but playing with the kids. It would have been nearly perfect except that Santa inadvertently hurt one child's feelings by giving another child something that they had begged for a few years ago and never received. Frankly, Santa is forgetful and didn't even remember that said child had begged for this item a few years ago. I was actually surprised that Santa agreed to this second child's request this year as I thought he was dead set against it and would never change his mind no matter what. I think he was influenced by the fact that we have a bigger house now so there is more room, and also because after searching high and low he couldn't find anything else that this child had asked for or that he thought she'd like. So with Christmas looming just one week away, he caved in to the pressure.

Enough rambling. Here's a few photos:

We went to my parent's house for Christmas Eve. Mom & I made dinner and we opened our presents to each other.

Grandma made Jumble a Jazz blanket. (You can see my parent's fabulous Christmas Village behind her.)

Grandma made some beautiful dresses for Minnie's American Girl doll (out of cloth scraps she already had) and they also got her a really cool children's cookbook.

Jet received a Star Wars transformer. (That boy is all about Star Wars!)

And Atom got this really cool violin toy. We all love this thing! You can move the bow across a certain part of the strings and it plays programmed classical tunes (about 18 different choices!)but at the tempo you move the bow. It makes you feel like you are really playing the violin.

Christmas morning:

Jumble wanted a Bands of America sweatshirt.

Jumble and Minnie get acquainted with Minnie's new hampster.

Jet plays air hockey with dad.

Atom checks out his stocking.

Niles surprised me with shelves for my pantry (hallelujah!) And we got some gifts of necessity: a computer and a snow blower (the snow blower arrived early.) O.K., so both are not technically necessities but our computer was very old and dying and computers sure feel like a necessity these days! And the snow blower was prompted not only by the desire to blow rather than shovel, but by one of Nile's families that he home teaches that live on a corner (LOTS of sidewalk) and is an older couple with the husband in a wheelchair. They need someone to clear their walks and driveway for them which is difficult on snowy mornings when you are supposed to be at work in Salt Lake City. Niles is showing our gratitude for the snow blower by clearing our neighbor's walks and drives as well. The weather cooperated so Niles got to use his new snowblower on Christmas morning!

Hint: When you are using the snowblower you have to remember that the electrical cord for the outdoor Christmas lights is hiding under all that snow! Our cord got eaten by the snowblower (thankfully the lights weren't plugged in at the time so Niles didn't get electrocuted) so that was the end of our outside Christmas lights for this year.