During Christmas time we......

baked cookies at Grandma's house,
made our Mr. Hankey collection (Christmas tradition),
opened presents from Grandma and Papa Hatcher on Christmas Eve,
got some crazy musical shirts from Uncle Ryan,
got a very unnecessary beer holster,
put out cookies for Santa,
waited for Santa to come (and boy did he),
opened lots of gifts from Santa,
made a Geo Trax and Littlest Pet Shop city,
played chess,
took family pictures,
and more family pictures,
hung spoons from our noses,
and celebrated with friends and family!!!

WOW! It was a fun, action-packed couple of days. Ben didn't get much time off this year so we crammed all of our celebrating in. The highlight for me was watching the kids. They remembered a lot about Christmas from last year and it's just getting better as the get a little older. Now I just need to continue getting the house back in order. It may take until mid February or whenever it is that our basement gets done!

Christmas Celebration in Stevensville

Audrey loved feeding Carraig his bottles and his baby food.
Cousins
Check out Audrey's expression. Now check out the horse that is behind her.
Spartan carousel horse
Carraig loves his giraffe toy so this was perfect for him

Sawyer's garbage truck from Aunt Emily and Uncle Rod. He loves it.

We celebrated Christmas with Ben's side of the family in Stevensville a couple weeks ago. Audrey and Sawyer had fun playing with their newly interactive cousin. Carraig got a smile whenever he saw the kids. It was like he knew they were little people just like him and that in a couple years they'd be making all sorts of trouble together.

We visited the carousel at Silver Beach. The carousel had the biggest variety of animals I've ever seen. Audrey rode on a mermaid. The Spartan horse was a favorite of course. I like the flamingo but decided not to ride so I could take pictures. Sawyer decided to be his stubborn self and not ride at all, oh well, his loss.

On Saturday afternoon we opened presents and made sure all the kids were thoroughly spoiled. Let the toys begin! In the evening we had a great dinner and just hung out. The women stuck to one dinner but the guys had to have dinner part 2 at 11:30, Long John Silvers, GROSS! It is becoming a Christmas tradition. A little strange but kind of funny.

It's been a while....

I haven't updated since late November! Things have been very busy doing all the usual Christamas preparations. We also had some kind of stomach bug/flu that took over our house for the past week making me even more behind. It was BAD!

The first couple pictures are Audrey's dance recital. They danced to an old New Kids On The Block Christmas song. It was very cute and nostalgic, for me at least. We got to sit in the 3rd row so we really could see Audrey's great facial expressions. She has the cutest smile on the stage, maybe not the best dance moves, but definitely the cutest smile!

Ben decided to let Santa make an early appearance at our house to deliver our LEGO train. Santa brought us the engine, coal car and passenger car. We are going to start a LEGO train village under our tree. Each year we'll add a piece or two. I'm not sure who had more fun building, Ben or the kids.

We went to Ahrend's for our annual tree cutting adventure. We got a good one this year! The kids are both into decorating. Sawyer has certain ornaments that he DOES NOT want on the tree, he'd rather play with them. The had to relocate to the top of the tree.

Other news from the Rapp house is the construction of our basement. It's a work in progress. So far it's framed and about half of the electrical is done. We're hoping to have the dry waller out just after Christmas. You know we'll need it with all the new toys that will be arriving over the next couple weeks!!