Christmas

Hanging with the Hesses

...hmm...can you tell they are siblings? I've never seen so many people look so alike!

Christmas at Lehnardt's. My sister Julie and her family made a last-minute visit from Missouri! I was totally surprised - aparently I was the only one out of my family and Sean's family who didn't know until Christmas Day! Who knew they could all keep a secret so well? I'm very impressed.

Jackson is full of Christmas Spirit

I can't believe it's already over! Christmas always seems to come and go so fast. But this year I thoroughly enjoyed it. We spent time with both of our families who live close by. We played games, relaxed, and ate too many treats :) It was a really nice Christmas.

I took a tip from my friend Georgia and got all my Christmas shopping done before Thanksgiving, so I feel like that contributed a lot to my satisfaction. It was nice to be able to focus more on Christ and on the people I love instead of having to worry about presents.

But....speaking of presents...Sean got me an awesome new camera!!! I was so surprised and excited. I've been taking a lot of pictures and trying to figure out all the buttons and settings. What an amazing husband I have - he must be psychic because I've been wanting a new camera for a long time (ever since our other one died in the Provo river..I still need to share that story.)

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas too!

it's christmas time!

i realized that most of my pics are of jackson. he is usually sitting still and smiling while peter is running around the house being slightly grumpy (i hope it's a phase!). my phone camera has no flash, so most pics of peter are blurry because he is always moving. i have so much fun with my two little boys! they are so sweet and make me laugh every day.

jackson and the tree

peter and andrew dancing at opa's house

jackson and cousin teis all dressed up! aren't they handsome?!
jackson bundled up and ready for an outing

some plants are still beautiful in the winter. i saw this a couple days ago and the red berries made me very happy. now this tree is probably covered in 6 inches of snow!


mr. balloon meets jackson. peter was sad to find out that mr. balloon only had a 2 day life span
we discovered a big box of legos in storage and it has been a favorite at our house all week. peter plays with it the entire day. i love toys like that!

Remembering Christmas

I am always amazed at how quickly the Christmas Season passes after so much anticipation and preparation. Has it already been two weeks since that day filled with smiles, gift giving, relaxation and yummy food? I'm not ready for Christmas to be over yet. But I will say that this year it was full of wonderful memories. Caroling in the snow with our families, hosting my family's German tradition of Advent, amazing amounts of snow, Sean's family's Christmas Eve dinner and evening together, opening our stockings filled with random goodies, and seeing Peter's eyes light up at all the festivities were just a few of my favorite things this Christmas.


We took Peter to see Santa Clause at the mall, but he was on dinner break. So Peter had a good time playing in the Fun Bus instead. I'm sure he would have been miserable sitting on a strange old man's lap anyway!Sean and I have a tradition of filling each other's stockings. Usually the contents are just silly random toys and each other's favorite candies, but it is always really fun to see what odd treasures we find in our stockings.

Oma and Opa (my mom and dad) brought Peter his own little mini La-Z-Boy recliner! It was such a fun surprise and Peter totally loves it. It's such a cute little piece of furniture - perfect for reading the evening news and sipping a bottle of whole milk.

And of course, my favorite part of Christmas was how much I got to focus on the birth of Jesus Christ. I really tried hard to not get caught up in the chaos that seems to plague people during the holiday rush of shopping and planning. Thanks to my family traditions which got me thinking of Christ's birth a month before Christmas and my unwillingness to brave the crowds at the shopping mall, I think the true meaning of Christmas was impressed more deeply on me this year.
I am amazed at Mary's humility and willingness to have the responsibility of bringing the Son of God into the world. I am thankful that our Heavenly Father loves us enough to send us a Savior. I love that Christ came in such a simple and humble way. And most of all, I am so thankful for Jesus Christ and his life, teachings, atonement and resurrection. That is the best gift of all.

It's Christmastime!

We've been having a lot of fun this holiday season. It has been snowing for the past few days and now we have several inches to play in. Peter was in awe when he first saw it, and we had loads of fun watching him discover what it was.

The snow really has made it seem like winter is actually here. Hopefully it will stick around for the next couple weeks at least!

Peter is our favorite little Christmas Elf! Actually, he hated that I was trying to make him wear a Santa hat and sit by the tree and smile, but I managed to get a picture of him in which he looks relatively happy.

We got a real live Christmas tree this year. It was cut in our very own mountains by some friends of ours. It's kind of scrawny and sparse, but it has a lot of character. I'm just glad the skinny little branches are able to hold up our ornaments! Peter and Olive (our cat) love the tree, so we've had to teach both of them that it isn't just a big toy.

Only one week left before Christmas! Hopefully you all have had success in your shopping adventures. I get so anti-shopping during the mad rush craziness of holiday gift buying, so I did all my shopping online in order to avoid the chaos in the stores. I still have a few things to get though, so I guess I'll have to face the madness soon. Maybe it won't be that bad if I go early in the morning.

Merry Christmas Everyone!