Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night!!

We love Christmas! What a blessed time of year this is. There is so much to be grateful for and so much that brings joy.

This is our biggest Christmas tree to date, standing at just over 11' tall and more than 5' wide!

(I had to post two pics so you could see Sis in front, to have a reference point. She looks superimposed to me and she is too adorable to be real.)

Elder K and the kids reading C&H, drinking root beer in the morning and playing with my iPhone.

We were blessed this Christmas to have the missionaries over for the day, Elders K and B. We love these Elders! Sadly, Elder B was sick with a bad fever for most of the day. We were also blessed to have two other families join us for Christmas dinner. For this being our first Christmas away from family, we sure felt blessed and experienced so much peace.

Elder B and Et reading Calvin and Hobbes. Et got the Complete  Collection. It was a big hit!
Esther with her jewelry box. Jon had a friend make special boxes for the kids. Et's was a secret compartmented puzzle box. He got really fast at opening it.
Book 1 of the Series. I think this was almost better than a Lego set to him... almost.
Esther had been wanting a camera for awhile. She must have been on the nice list.
He is growing up so fast and becoming so witty, so much fun and so tall. I love to see him with the missionaries. He'll be there before we can imagine! He's really such a terrific kid!
Esther is becoming so beautiful and is getting sweeter everyday. She loved her bear from Jon's parents and named her Shirley Temple.
Jack was content to chase wrapping paper and tear it to shreds. He got a new rope to chew on.

Mega-wattage on 34th Street

We had heard about Baltimore's own "Miracle on 34th Street". It's in the papers, to-do books and people on campus told Jon we had to go... You see, around Christmas it is something special. This little street of rowhouses really comes to life during the holidays.
Hundreds of thousands of lights set this street ablaze the entire holiday season. Serious mega-wattage going on here.
Street vendors come out to sell unwanted things at unheard-of prices (hot dogs, glow sticks, pony rides - you get the gist).

Some of the residents even invite people into their homes to look at art and drink cocoa.
One resident dressed as Santa every night and passed out goodies to anyone who came by.
We had to go down the street twice to get these pictures. We actually waited longer to get on the street than it took to drive down it. Oddly enough, it was really fun - not the waiting necessarily, but the whole experience.
If there is a competition between the residence, (which I'm sure there is)this guy's got my vote. It was insane how bright it was. Have you ever seen the movie, Christmas with the Kranks? That street has nothing on this one.
If you're ever in Baltimore during the holidays, I highly recommend this detour. We'll see you there next year.

He said... She said

I know most people record what their little people say, but stop when they get to be, say four. My kids are still saying things that crack me up, so I decided to make a list for the blog. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.