Christmas

On Christmas morning, Ashlyn woke up at her regular time. While I changed her diaper, Allen went downstairs to turn on the Christmas "la-lights," as Ashlyn calls them. I brought her downstairs, and she immediately went to her table and chairs and sat down. Allen started helping her open her stocking. As soon as she saw the play-doh, she could have stopped opening gifts for the day. How do you ever get kids to open all of their presents, when they want to play with the toys that are already open? We let her play with the play-doh, as Allen opened her presents and said, "look what Santa brought."

We opened a few more gifts, then had breakfast, before opening the rest of the gifts. Ashlyn received a few Little People sets, the zoo, Noah's ark, and the farm. I think she would have been more excited about them, if it wasn't so darn hard to get the things out of their boxes. At this point, her favorite gifts are still the table, play-doh, and tea set. She likes to rearrange the chairs and move from one to another. She also likes to pretend to eat from her dishes. Allen and I really liked her TMX Elmo from Uncle Bill and Aunt Amy, and we are the ones tickling him. I received a nice telephoto lens for my camera from Allen that I haven't really had the chance to use yet, since I haven't needed to take pictures of anything far away.

Allen was playing with my camera with the telephoto lens.

Allen received a few months membership to Netflix from his dad, so he spent Christmas Eve (that was his present to open that evening) choosing his movies rather than helping me bake. He also received a Bose docking station for his ipod, so now I have to listen to his music, too.

Another beautiful gift from Allen

Candy cane fun

Christmas Temper Tantrum 2006

Christmas morning nap (this was probably while Ashlyn was throwing her fit.)

Later that day, we went to the Krabbenhoft's for Christmas dinner. All of the food was yummy, and it was great to have all of the kids playing together. Allen was the one who divided up leftovers, which wasn't good. I made the turkey, but didn't get any of the leftovers. He did manage to eat the leftover dessert in an order that kept me from eating the good stuff. It made me kind of grumpy, but saved me from eating all of that.

Ashlyn enjoys hearing her voice. Takes after her daddy.

The day after Christmas, we decide we must take the tree down. It is so dry here, plus the only place to put the tree is by the heater, which further dries it out. The tree was very, very dead before it was even Christmas. It almost makes me wish for a fake tree. So, now, all of the Christmas stuff is put away. No more la-lights. It was a great holiday, though, and wonderful to be together.

She hates to wear a hat outside at -20, but will wear this new one in the house.

She also insisted on wearing her new boots, over her footed pajamas.

Now that Christmas is over, we still have a million things to do, including selling our house and moving to another country. Each one of those items contains its own very long to-do list. Right now, I am working on Ashlyn's passport application, plus trying to figure out exactly what shots the animals need for Germany.