Christmas in Goshen

We ventured to Goshen for a week over Christmas this year to be with Phil's family. We enjoyed spending time with Phil's brothers' families, his parents, and also had a chance to catch up with my extended family still living there and some friends. Jack did great on his first plane ride hardly making a peep the whole time. As you can imagine, it is pretty wild when all the little cousins are together at the same time.

The three oldest cousins at a little birthday celebration for Mary.

We drove down to Indy one day to go to the Children's Museum and to our favorite Brazillian Steakhouse chain restaurant that we never get to go to anymore. Sasha dug all the juicy steak on spears brought to our table--she takes after her parents I'm afraid.

We had a really nice lunch at Greencroft with my Grandma Gingerich and a couple of my aunts and cousins the day we left.

Christmas in Santa Fe

Since we left for Indiana on Christmas Eve, Santa Claus knew to come early to our house on the weekend before Christmas. It was so fun to set our alarm for 10 minutes before Sasha comes out of her room (we have this kids alarm clock that guarantees she stays in her room until 7 am--get one if you don't have it!) and wait to see Sasha's reaction when she walked into the room with stockings stuffed, gifts under the tree, and cookies and milk all gone. Her expression above says it all.

We spent all morning enjoying each other's company and the new toys, books, and games.

The picture doesn't quite capture how big the full moon looked at dusk the week before Chirstmas. It was breathtaking.

My favorite photo of Jack to date.

Happy Jack

Since we don't have Christmas pictures downloaded yet, but I have a moment to post something I'll post a couple of my favorites from early December. I can't quite explain how in love with this little man I am. Maybe it's because at this point I think he is the last little baby we will have in our family so I'm cherishing every moment. Maybe it's because he truly is one of the happiest, good-natured babies I've been around. Whatever the reason, he has been such a wonderful addition to our family. Above is the Jack's first time in the swing.

Christmas Preparations

We picked out our tree the first weekend in December, tied it to the top of our station wagon, and spent the day trimming the tree and putting up Christmas decorations. Sasha was a great little helper and loved each and every ornament we pulled out of the box.

It's impossible to get a good picture where both kids are smiling for the Christmas card.

We had a x-mas cookie baking extravaganza at our house with my mom, sister, and aunt mid-December. There were 9 different kinds of cookies at the end of the day. Sasha went to her first movie in a theater that same day with a friend and her friend's mom no less, and got in on the tail end of the cookie decorating. We capped off the day with a cheese fondue birthday meal for Megan--30 years old!