WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS Except for the excitement driving Zach to act like a grumpy 2 year old at bedtime, we had a wonderful Christmas. We finally got around to making and frosting sugar cookies, and Jared's artwork has grown in leaps and bounds this year. His cookies were awesome, and showed a lot of creativity.
It snowed on Christmas Eve while we made graham cracker houses (we cheated with a glue gun to make it go faster) and ate hoagies, dream salad, and potato chips with onion dip (my favorite meal!). Then we scrounged for shepherd costumes to reenact the Christmas story while Ryan narrated. The boys thought it was great fun to tie their blankies on their heads.
Then the boys opened one gift and we read The Night Before Christmas (the boys have half of it memorized) and tucked them in bed.
In the middle of the night, the snow turned to rain, which made a lot of our snow disappear.
Then a Christmas miracle occurred. The boys slept until 8:30!!! The grown ups actually woke up first!
We found our stockings full of candy and small gifts, then marveled at all the gifts everyone had sent us, and that Santa had left us. Ryan gave me a card table and chairs (now we can have lots of people over for dinner! But he said it's mostly for puzzles and crafts :) a 3-month subscription to Club Digital at Digital Scrapbook Place (it's a bunch of scrapbooking supplies I'll get to download every month), and a coupon good for lots of painting supplies to paint our new house.
I gave him a laptop (he actually got it a few weeks ago) and a few other things he seemed to like, but that aren't too interesting for you to hear about.
The boys were spoiled by Mom, Dad, Santa, and of course their grandparents! And boy oh boy did they get fun dinosaurs from their cousins. There were lots of dinosaurs this Christmas! Zach went ballistic when he saw all the Lightening McQueen shirts Grandma Lancaster sent him, and Jared's eyes were about to pop out of his head when he saw that Nana & Babu sent him a Smithsonian build-a-Volcano set. WOW!
Then we stuffed ourselves with a big breakfast of sausage, eggs, and cinnamon rolls and headed for the Green Belt. It wasn't plowed, and the stroller didn't do so well in the snow. We only walked about a quarter of a mile, having a snowball fight the entire way! We saw lots of animal tracks in the snow, but could only identify Canada Geese tracks for sure.
On the way home, we drove around Boise a bit, which is beautiful all covered in thick white. We probably would have had 18 inches of snow on the ground if it hadn't rained last night. It's not a typical Boise winter, that's for sure!
Today we have also marveled at the bountiful blessings we've received this year, mostly right at the end! We are so thankful for a big, beautiful house, Susie's new designing opportunity, Ryan's passing the PE exam, and enough means to provide a nice Christmas for our little family. We have everything we need, and so much more. We are truly blessed, and hope you can pause to recognize the Lord's blessings in your lives as well.

If you'd like to see our photos from the past 2 days, they begin here.