Christmas 2016

We headed back to Nebraska for Christmas. We left eight days before Christmas, so had a lot of festive time to spend before Christmas. The kids LOVED the Christmas tree (or mostly the candy canes my parents had sprinkled on it). I had to remove them shortly after we got there because it was getting a bit out of control. Especially since Grace just bites and chews hers up and is done in about 30 seconds. Caiden takes his time and sucks on it and makes it into a little point. Either way they were trying to eat candy canes one after another.

My parents surprised us and bought a shuffle board table -it is awesome! It's such a fun activity to have at the house...especially when it's 20 degrees BELOW zero. It was COLD when we got there.  The minute we stepped out of the airport and the wind hit the kids Grace started crying and Caiden immediately turned back around and went inside the airport. I had to coax him out and tell him to run fast to the truck.

After a few days the weather started reaching into the 30's and we were able to go outside for minutes at a time. My Dad and Marc took Caiden up the goose blind behind my parents house for the first time. Unfortunately they didn't see any geese the few times they went up so I think Caiden still thinks you just go up there to pick up the shot gun shells off the floor and play with the dump truck my Dad put in the blind. And Caiden's favorite part was when my Dad let him "drive" the truck. He thought it was so cool and always made sure that was going to be a part of the adventure.

Marc and I went out to dinner with Mickey and Bill and they came over with their twins a few times as well. Love them!

On Christmas Eve Santa came to visit and all the kids just ate it up. They all followed him around until he sat down and all wanted to sit on his lap. Caiden and Grace each got light-up shoes they've been wanting (Grace didn't take them off for days...you can see in the Christmas morning picture below -she put them on immediately after waking up and wore them all day long).

On a side note. Caiden commented this year, "There are a lot of different Santas".  I guess I should tone it down on the visiting of different Santa's each year. This year he probably met six different Santas...I'm surprised the cat wasn't out of the bag with that boy.

On Christmas morning everyone slept in until about 10am so it was a late start. Caiden ran to the Christmas tree and just couldn't wait to open the presents. He immediately started asking who's was who's and handing them out. I loved watching his excitement! Grace is still trying to understand what is going on. She kind of just does whatever Caiden does but still doesn't care too much about opening gifts.

After ten days in Nebraska Marc and I got out of town -we went to Vegas! We saw a show, gambled (and won!), went to some amazing restaurants and just had fun! Thanks Mom, Dad, Sara and Dustin for hanging with the kiddos while we regained our sanity!