I absolutely love Christmastime.  It seems to bring out the best in everyone.  I also love all the wonderful memories I have of Christmases when I was young.  It's so much fun to now have Katie feel the excitement and magic and happiness that Christmas holds.  Here are some pictures from our Christmas this year.

reading one of my favorite Christmas books, The Sweet Smell of Christmas 

making salt dough hand print ornaments

making a manger for baby Jesus

My parents were able to come again this year for almost two weeks.  It was great having them visit!

Of course we always do lots of baking!

goodies on Christmas Eve

Katie admiring her new ornament (she was quite obsessed with Rapunzel/Tangled this year).  The ornament spent more time in her hands than on the tree.

Christmas Eve dinner by candlelight

"directing" the music as we were singing Christmas carols

reading the nativity story

blurred on purpose 

(this is what it looks like with my glasses off, only the blur is even more) :)

cookies and milk for Santa

Katie woke up at 6:15 on Christmas day - not unusual for her, but we thought she might sleep a little longer.  We were excited for her, so it was okay.

favorite item in her stocking: fruit snacks :)

a gift from Santa: Snow White legos

We ate a little breakfast once my parents woke up and then it was time to open presents!  This was the first year Katie could open her presents unassisted.  She loved it. :)

Sorry for the blur - she's too fast for my phone camera. :)

playing a new game 

We had a little extra excitement after opening presents.  My dad was eating some mixed nuts and offered some to us.  Katie grabbed a Brazil nut, and before we knew it or could stop her, the nut was gone.  She came into the kitchen asking for a drink of water and whining a little.  We realized she must have swallowed the nut whole because we couldn't find it anywhere, and it would have taken her a long time to chew it.  She takes forever to chew almonds.  After she drank quite a bit of water, she immediately threw it back up (the water), so we knew she'd swallowed the nut.  She was also drooling a lot and crying and seemed really miserable.  We talked to Jacob's sister, Rachel, who's a PA, and said if Katie was still throwing up in a couple hours we should take her to the ER.  I felt horrible to see Katie feeling so sick.  We gave her some tylenol and let her watch a movie.  A little while later she said she was hungry so she ate a little food and it stayed down!  She also seemed to be a lot happier and wasn't complaining anymore.  So thankfully we avoided an ER crisis on Christmas day!  I was so happy she was ok!

everyone relaxing later in the day

The Kosters came over for dinner later and we enjoyed a delicious meal of turkey, ham, cheesy potatoes, salad, rolls, and dessert.

Katie got to open more presents from her cousins.  This Rapunzel doll was a huge hit.

She also loves her new stickers, but I didn't love finding them on my dresser!  Luckily they peeled off easily.

Merry Christmas!  Hope yours was wonderful!

We had our 4th annual Christmas party at the beginning of December.  We look forward to these parties all year now.  We love having our friends in our home.

setting up

the layered bean dip I make each year

delicious soft ginger cookies

sweet & saltines - so good!

everyone's here!

We played lots of games.

This is the "unwrap a hershey kiss with oven mitts on" game

This is where Matt ate the entire kiss including the foil.  He took one for the team because Jacob still beat him by taking the time to unwrap his. :)

Spoons, but with candy canes

Matt was the champion on this one.

We played several other games, ate way too much food, and laughed till our sides hurt.  I'd say it was a success!