the Merriest Christmas

We had such a great Christmas. We put up with some really long, long work days for Ben, but thankfully he was here on Christmas! We spent most of the day at home opening and playing with gifts and webcaming with our far away family. We did an evening Christmas dinner so we wouldn't feel rushed to get everything done. Our families do an amazing job at making Christmas special for us, so a special thanks goes out to them for spending all that money on shipping!

Mostly Santa loot. He stayed up late sewing up little "snowballs" to go with the igloo tent. It was worth it, because the "snowball fights" were a big hit.
Jumping his little heart out. We LOVE how it wears him out!
Dumping the snowballs

We took a break to enjoy a traditional German holiday bread. It's called stollen. We bought a loaf last year and never even cut into it (really long and disappointing story), but we decided to splurge (it's not cheap) again this year and really give it a try. We all loved it, especially Rhone. It's really good with some "Christmas milk" aka eggnog. As long as we live by the German bakery we're gonna stick with it for our Christmas breakfast....mmmm.
Stocking dumping time. Rhone got a bag of old school cowboy and indians. I think the parents were more impressed than Rhone, but there were enough other things to make up for it.

Everyone in their new Christmas jammies. Rhone's on the move :)
Rhone with his 2010 Christmas ornament. It's snoopy from Charlie Brown, but Rhone calls him "pump dog" as in the great pumpkin episode. Rhone loves the music and watching him dance.
This post wouldn't be complete without a picture of the most controversial gift. That's right, Rhone got a baby and he likes her.

Ben with his handmade gift wrap from Rhone (who couldn't stop playing for a picture).


Can't wait to use "Ben's" new beach umbrella this summer!

I had one surprise for Ben this year. I didn't know if he'd play along, but luckily he did. We all loaded into the car jammies and all and traipsed over to our friends house (after a lot of detours, Ben's sense of direction is good). I had stashed a brand new stainless steel grill for Ben in their garage. It was a bit of work to keep the whole thing a surprise, but it was worth it. The surprise grill picture is too dark, so this is what ya get.
Christmas dinner and desserts were YUMMY. It was my first turkey ever. Ben carved it up before we took a picture. We also had little root deer card holders that I thought were cute. Hope your Christmas was as merry as ours!