Christmas Eve & Christmas

4 weeks old - handsome boy

Helping Mommymake cookies for Santa

"I have to test these out for Santa...I think he'll like them!"

Playing in the snow while Mommy shoveled

Making friends with Aunt Bebe's cat, Smokey.

Durbin grandkids minus 3

Santa was here!

Ethans' first Christmas

" Thanks for the toothbrush Santa - I love it so much, I need to chew on it while I play with me toys."

Chef Isabelle

Looking festive over at Aunt Cynthia's

Tutus were a big hit with the little girls.

Christmas Eve day was perfect. It was snowing. We made cookies for Santa. We played in the snow. We listened to Christmas music. Well, almost perfect. Isabelle burned her hand. I had a cookie sheet sitting on the table and was making room for more cookies on the cooling rack when she reached up to climb up on to her high chair. I felt horrible!! It had to have hurt so bad!! But she's pretty tough, she cried for a while, we ran cold water over it and that was it..she was over it. She never let on that it hurt after that. There was a small blister but it didn't seem to bother her. She's so tough.

We stayed in town this year for Christmas and celebrated with the Durbin side. Christmas Eve was spent at Daniel's sister's house with good food and good converstaion. And lots of little kids! There are 7 kids under the age of 5 on Daniel's side. Add the 8 yr old and 3 teenagers = 11 grandkids total. (The oldest grandkid and 2 others weren't able to make it but still - lots of kids.)Always makes for a fun (and loud) time!

This year was our first Christmas morning at home with kids. We weren't sure if Isabelle understood the whole Santa coming and leaving presents thing. But Christmas morning, she came into our bedroom and woke us up saying, "Santa presents." Something must have clicked about it. She had a good time opening her presents - only took one present to figure out she was supposed to rip them open. But then she just wanted to play with whatever she opened so it took a while to get them all open. And being the big sister, she opened Ethan's gifts too. What a helper!

After we opened all our presents and got everyone and everything rounded up (took us til almost noon) we headed over to Aunt Cynthia's house where everyone else was at. We spent the afternoon opening gifts and playing with all the cousins. Isabelle had a great time and crashed before we left for home. Good thing we brought her new jammies.