Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! We've very much enjoyed our Christmas season so far. We've been eating a lot, playing with friends, and spending time as a family. It has been relaxing and enjoyable. We've been teaching the boys about the birth of Christ, and it's interesting to hear Micah's version of the story.

Yesterday we cooked breakfast with our friends and neighbors, Jered, Aimee and Juniper. We had bacon, oranges, pumpkin pancakes, and biscuits and gravy. The kids ran and played and the adults cooked and talked.

Luke was exhausted, so we spent the rest of the afternoon resting and playing. After both Mike and I ran and showered, we went driving around the neighborhoods looking at lights. Our neighborhood definitely has the most ...enthusiastic displays in the area. Micah and I are inspired to decorate next year.

After the boys' bath and requisite hyper nakey time, Mike read the Christmas story to them by the fire. Mike and I had curry for dinner and watched A Christmas Story. I think our very favorite part was wrapping presents for the boys and putting them in their stockings.

This morning Luke woke up and played in and around the bed. He and I were playing imitating each others' breaths when I realized there was another player - Micah had crawled in to snuggle beside Mike. So we all got up, some more energetically than others, for the daily yogurt eating. Micah noticed presents in the stockings (with a very sweet "oooh!"), so we built a fire and the boys opened their presents. We gave each of them a train and a set of cars (emily and the light up aquarium cars for Micah, and a freight train and mooing dairy cars for Luke).

The boys played while Mike and I exchanged presents. Mike gave me running clothes and cooking tools and I gave him Durham-themed presents. We had fun. Micah, like and I went shopping Thursday morning. Micah and I practiced keeping the presents a secret and NOT telling Dad what we got, but within 10 minutes of being home, Micah announced we got him a running hat and coffee mug. Mike pretended not to hear, and I laughed at Micah's sweet enthusiasm. Like his dad, he loves everything about presents.

Now I have a pumpkin spice cake in the oven. It is destined to receive a honey cream cheese frosting, then we'll take it to Eli, Alison, and Lili's house for dinner.