Christmas Tidings

Merry Christmas! 

Jack got in on the preparation of our traditional Christmas Eve boullabaise (seafood stew.)

We gave Jack a camera. Expect to see some of his photographs up on the blog sometime soon. I'm hoping to teach him how to post blog updates so I can retire.

I'm still recovering from Christmas so I'm too tired to summarize all the wonderful festivities. Maybe some more Christmas photos will appear on here over the next month or so. But isn't our little Isaiah growing up? He's starting to get that big boy look about him.

Here's Patrick modeling his "tiger teeth" (a straw.)

Toys Shmoys

There are presents aplenty under the Christmas tree. And we, especially the boys, are all excited to open them. But sometimes I wonder if we really should have gotten them all those new toys. They really have the most fun with the most random items -

Such as goggles.

And paint sticks. Yes, it is a sword... tucked into his underwear.

Decorating cookies is almost always more fun than playing with toys.

The boys watched Davey Crocket for the first time last week. Those are cardboard hatchets and that is a "coon" skin hat on Jack's noggin. They've been having a blast with all sorts of tools and weapons fashioned out of the cardboard boxes their gifts were shipped in. 

And blanket forts are a big hit these days -

But I suppose we'll still give them their Christmas presents. I'm almost positive their tinkertoys set will be used primarily as swords and daggers. 

O Tannenbaum

We drove out into the wilderness on Saturday (which is not very far away, considering we're in Idaho) and found ourselves a nice little tree. 

 It was very cold (seasonally appropriate) but snowless (not seasonally appropriate.)

 Dan abandoned tradition this year and picked a white pine. I think it's rather cute.

And here's my Christmas decorating. Not much going on but for the train tracks all over the ground. Just keeping it real, folks.