A Very Merry Christmas

Well, Jennon and I both decided tonight over dinner that Christmas is so much more fun when you have little ones who are just in awe with the season. Our Christmas fun continued with the building and decorating of a ginger bread house. Cooper loved sampling the candy that we used to decorate. We also made and decorated sugar cookies with cousin William. We made a trip downtown to the Macy's Life of an Elf display. I think the highlight for Cooper was the candy cane he got at the end. Drew slept through most of the trip ; ) Cooper also had a blast playing in some large cardboard boxes at Nana and Gumpa's house. Uncle Danny and Gumpa spent a couple of days building him an awesome cardboard airplane. Unfortunately, Cooper still seemed to prefer the plain cardboard box that he liked to call his club house.
My favorite Christmas memory thus far was the look on Cooper's sweet face while the candle light was shining on him and we were singing Silent Night at the candle light service on Christmas Eve. Once the song was done Cooper turned to Gumpa and said, "Now are we going to sing Happy Birthday?!" We had been talking to Cooper about how we celebrate Christmas because it is Jesus' birthday. We had, "birthday cake," (coffee cake) Christmas morning and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus. Cooper even got to blow out the candle. He now calls coffeecake "Jesus Cake."
Cooper couldn't believe that Santa ate all the cookies he left out for him. Even the following day out of the blue he commented on Santa eating his cookies.
Cooper had a blast playing with his Caruth cousins on Christmas Day and Monday. Cooper was playing so hard he was literally dripping with sweat. Needless to say, he took a great nap on Monday afternoon.
Drew and William celebrated their 4 month and 5 month birthdays together. I am just in love with the pictures of them together, such sweet little buddies. They were so cute together, would just stare at each other in complete awe and would chat up a storm. It really was a wonderful Christmas and I am already looking forward to next year.

Christmas Fun in Duluth

We had such a fun-filled weekend! Started off by celebrating our buddy Bryson's 3rd birthday on Saturday morning, then headed to Duluth with Joel, Kelly, Owen and Gavin for some Christmas fun. We stayed in a condo right on Lake Superior and had beautiful views of a huge ship coming in. Late Saturday afternoon we boarded the Polar Express and took about a 10 minute train ride to a Train Museum, "The North Pole," where we were able to see a lot of neat trains, play at some train tables, hear the story of The Polar Express, and meet Santa! The boys each got a bell after the story was told and all did a great job chatting with Santa and letting him know what they want for Christmas. Cooper kept a bit of a distance when sitting on Santa's bench, but let him know he would like some cars for Christmas this year. Sunday morning the boys enjoyed "swimming," in the jacuzzi in our room. The boys just had a blast playing together and the adults had a great time too. Definitely something we are hoping to do next year as well.