It's Christmas!

We've had a great time celebrating Christmas the last few days. On Christmas eve day it snowed and since John had the day off work he was able to take the kids out and build this fantastic snow man while I got to be lazy and stay inside and keep warm. The three of them played outside for quite a while and had fun while the snow lasted. Unfortunately the snowman only stayed upright for a few hours, but what fun. (Notice Owen's scowly face. That is the face we get when we get out the camera and say "smile"!)
I spent the day mostly cooking and getting ready for our Italian feast! My parents and Syd and Merel came to our house this year for dinner. We decided to bag the traditional Christmas meal and we had all sorts of good Italian food. I made bruschetta, chicken and eggplant Parmesan, chocolate oreo cake (I'm sure that's Italian), and spinach salad. On top of that my mom brought over lasagna, bread, and two kinds of tortellini with 2 kinds of sauce. We ate until we were sick...it was wonderful. And even in the midst of all my cooking I still had time to take a nap. Ains and John were nice enough to cover me up so I wouldn't get cold.
After dinner the kids opened the traditional Christmas eve present, which always seems to be new PJ's.
Don't you just love John's holiday sweater! He pulls out his most festive sweater a couple of times a year for special occasions.
Every year Syd comes up with some sort of game to play. Last year it was Christmas Karaoke. This year it was a version of Singing bee. Since we made them come to our house this year and we don't have a piano Syd had to bring her flute to give us our hints. Ains ended up being awesome at this game and even came up with some lyrics to "Walkin in a Winter Wonderland" that no one else could.
Christmas morning we ended up having to wake up Ains at 7:30 because Owen had woken up early, seen the toys, and was not interested in waiting for his sister any longer. He is still sick and was a bit grumpy but we still had a good morning. For some reason We shot a TON of video and got very few still shots. This one of the kids in their capes was one of the few we took that morning.

Later in the day on Christmas we headed over to my parents to talk to Micheal (my brother on his mission) and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening playing their wii. It was a lot of fun. Even Ains got into it. She even beat John in a game of boxing.
I must admit that I am awesome at the wii. Here is a lovely shot of me boxing my dad. Awesome action shot huh?? By the way...I won! I also hold the current family record in bowling. I'm amazing!!! The saddest thing about the wii is that I think every one in my family had sore muscles somewhere on their body after playing. Sad, but true.
Owen spend most most of his day coughing and this picture proves it.
Isn't Ains cute as an elf???

Hope you all had a great Christmas too!!!