Christmas 2012

The boys love decorating for Christmas! As soon as Thanksgiving is over, they're asking to get out the decorations. Actually, what they love is tearing through the storage bins, throwing things everywhere, then playing Legos while I place it all. Despite the chaos, it's fun to see their excitement. 

Picking out the tree is always another chaotic adventure. The rows of neatly arranged trees look like a labyrinth that invites exploring. As soon as we enter, they begin chasing each other. To end the commotion before they crash into a person or tree, I quickly grab the closest one. This year I didn't realize until we got home that it had a distinct tilt to the right. 

The Leaning Tree of Christmas

This was a year when the Moehn side of the family got together for Christmas in Arizona. The boys were excited to see their cousins again and everyone got along well. They especially liked playing with the babies.

All the cousins. It was close to impossible to get them all still for this picture! (Cole, Luc, Sophia, Jay, and Noah.)

Cole and Noah snuggling.

Jay and Sophia dressed for dinner.

We went on a beautiful desert hike.

A big tarantula decided to say hello. He blended into the path so well that we almost stepped on him.

Christmas 2009

This Christmas we made our first gingerbread house. Unfortunately, Jayzilla broke the first one and we had to rebuild. (It was actually my fault--the house joints weren't quite dry and the frosting was across the table from him.) The replacement was delicious!

Jay also had fun wrapping the presents. Cousin Leo was the lucky recipient of this one:

Wrapping was so much fun, he just couldn't stop! (In case you can't tell, the taped-up object is his pair of scissors.)

The boys couldn't wait to see what was in this big box. It was the Geotrax airplane, which is a nice addition to our Geoland. Cole still loves his Geotrax.

Transformers were also big this year. Unfortunately, it wasn't clear online that there are different levels of difficulty and I bought the most difficult. Even an engineering background didn't help with this one. Santa must have seen Jay wrapping presents. He knew exactly what the boys needed.

Cole was very happy with his new Gears kit.