First, here’s the finished Gingerbread House of the year:

Saturday, we really enjoyed digging out of the snow and seeing Dad & Karen at Auntie Kate’s house.  We were sad that so many family members weren’t able to make it, but we had a great time visiting with those that came.

When we got home, we had a small mountain of gifts to open.  The kids were SO excited.

I think these blankets were the biggest hits.  The kids stayed wrapped in them all evening and have been using them every night.

Alyson has figured out the ‘See what I got’ pose 🙂

Christian’s Nerf gun and target were big hits.

Playdough was a bit hit too.

Alyson made snakes using only the girl colors of playdough.  Then she decided the snakes were spaghetti.

We’ve all been enjoying BJ’s Boom Blox Wii game.  It’s a lot more fun than I expected.

BJ got a little crazy around the Playdough.

Sunday, we enjoyed our church’s annual birthday party for Jesus.  It’s my favorite sunday school hour of the year because it’s fun to sing carols around the Christmas tree.  Alyson is so grown up this year.  She went around in the inner circle without us parents.

We still have one more Christmas celebration this coming weekend, but in the meantime, Happy New Year!

This is totally off the normal topic… kids… but I had to share.  I’ve subscribed to various magazines over the years and dropped all of them except one.  All You is wonderful because it includes practical tips, fashions that can actually be found at reasonable prices, coupons that are worth clipping… I could go on, but I won’t.

I signed up over a year ago to be one of their Reality Checkers.  I fill out occasional surveys and sometimes they send products to test and send feedback on.  This afternoon I received a lovely surprise, a goody bag filled with a bunch of various things from their sponsors.  Some of the items included?  A bag of chocolate chips (wow do they ever know how to make me happy), a bottle of perfume, some skin care samples, and a good sized baby formula sample that arrived in perfect time to go to the food bank.  It’s always fun to receive free stuff in the mail, and free useful stuff is even better.

Have a wonderful day!