We celebrated New Year's Day in Madison opening Christmas gifts and watching bulldawg football with the Days(Daddy Day, Gran and Aunt Maggie)Although we were all still recovering from our "Christmas colds" the babies didn't miss a beat! They LOVE opening "prizes."

Mahlon and Sara Beth searching for gifts in Daddy Days toy bag!
...and still searching!


Mahlon's new favorite...MR Potatoe head!

Trying on her new princess shoes!

Wii!

Wesley got a Wii for Christmas so he spent a lot of his Christmas vacation playing! Mahlon and Sara Beth LOVE to play Super Mario cart. We let them choose who they want to be(Sara Beth is always the princess) and then they choose the vehicle and Wesley and I race! They love it!! They think they are driving or they sit and cheer go mommy go daddy! Too funny!

New Year New Bed!

We couldn't put it off any longer...we converted the cribs to toddler beds! The first night was pretty rough, they kept running to the door and opening and closing it, turning lights on and off, switching beds...I think it took 1 1/2 hours to get them to stay in their beds! The second night only took about a 1/2 hour! Things are much easier now...occasionally we'll go in to check on them and someone will be asleep in the floor or they will have switched blankets and pillows...they are a mess!! The next challenge is rearranging our house to make room for "real" beds. Mahlon is already too long for his toddler bed...at least he sleeps all curled up in a ball!

I have very few pictures without Sara Beth in some sort of Princess outfit. She wakes up every morning wanting to be a different princess! So here is Snow White giving bye-bye hugs and kisses to Aunt Lani and Un Brian


We ended up having 2 sick babies on Christmas day and for 9 days following that so I don't have very many pictures with happy smiling faces. There was a whole lot of lying around in Soso Christmas weekend...it did actually snow on the day after Christmas...not enough to stick, but it was fun to watch! The poor babies couldn't even go outside to see the cows because they were so pitiful and sick! We just had lots of cuddle time while we read and watched Christmas movies (and Snow White!)

Merry Christmas in Soso!

We had a wonderful Christmas day lunch with my family and after a short nap it was time for more presents!! The babies had so much fun opening all kinds of new toys and games!



With 8 people opening gifts the babies and puppy dogs were buried!


Sara Beth's favorite is her new Snow White dress and movie...we watched it more times than I can count!!

Our first Christmas morning in our house was so much fun! The babies knew it was Christmas morning, but hadn't quite grasped the entire concept of running out to see what Santa left them...think this is will be our last year of waking them up on Christmas morning! Next year they'll be the ones up at 5am!!Once they saw all of their surprises they lit up!



Mahlon ran over to his train table and yelled "Is this for me????" He was so excited!!

Sara Beth loved her new baby, diaper bag and stroller from Santa!



Wesley was thrilled to open his new Wii with the help of a little princess!
We had such a fun morning, and then packed up and headed to Soso!

This year was our first Christmas Eve in our own house! And we had a busy day! We woke up and decorated our first gingerbread house! What a MESS! But we sure had fun! I didn't read the directions that you were supposed to wait 3 hours after putting the house together before adding the rest of the icing and decorating...so we had a hard time keeping our house together with 4 little hands and 2 pounds of candy on the roof!! I did manage to snap a few pictures before it collapsed, then we had to rebuild it!!




After our first Christmas Eve service at Madison Heights we headed home to bake cookies for Santa and watch Christmas movies! Sara Beth was a big help rolling out the dough and cutting out the star cookie shapes.


Mahlon's favorite part was decorating with sprinkles and eating icing!! And we couldn't forget about Rudolf and friends...we left a little bowl of water and some carrots next to the cookies!

On the 23rd we headed to Canton to see the city of lights! It was a lot colder than we thought, but we had fun as long as we could stand it! We rode on a carousel, a choo-choo train, ate dinner and looked at lots and lots of lights! Something we look forward to every year!

Giving Santa a big kiss!
Riding our horses!
On the Choo-Choo!

We had fun decorating a rice krispie house from our friend Anna. I put on a little icing and let them do the rest!Sara Beth tried to squeeze out the icing, but really enjoyed licking the sugar off of the gum drops! Mahlon really concentrates on anything artistic!

The finished product! They were so proud!

On December 19th the babies were in their first Christmas musical at Madison Heights...though they didn't sing, they were supposed to ring the jingle bells in 2 songs. Sara Beth sat on stage in my lap most of the time and Mahlon stood in total shock...needless to say there was very little bell ringing, but we looked cute!