Christmas Day!

Here are McKay and Makenna with a treasure box that Daddy and Connor made for them. I asked Brett to make this for them and I am amazed at how real it looks. He did an incredible job. That man knows how to build things! The twins absolutely LOVE it and have been playing with it almost non-stop!





McKay with his "Chloe dog". This is McKay's 2nd Chloe dog. He had one for a long time and then lost it. We looked, and looked and looked for months. But no sign of Chloe. We are convinced that she is in that 'black hole' that all lost toys end up in. Anyway, Santa brought a new Chloe for McKay and he couldn't be happier.



Connor with his wand made by Grandpa Bell. He was casting spells all day!



This castle was assembled by McKay with some help from Mommy. McKay received this gift from Makenna and was so happy to have something creative and artsy. He is our artist. McKay loves to color, paint, glue, and create anything. It's fun to have a child that is so into arts and crafts.



This is the gift that everyone was most excited about! My younger brother, Matt, gave the kids his old Game Cube! It took a lot of covincing on my and Brett's part, but we finally relized that this thing could be used for good in our home, and boy, has it already started working! Growing up we never had a Nintendo, but all our friends did. Instead of playing at our house, we'd always be over at the friend's that had the Nintendo. Brett and I have already seen this with Connor. So, we thought if we had the games then we'd be able to control the time spent playing, the games played, etc. Also, it would only be played after jobs were done and if the piano is practiced- with a happy attitude. Since Christmas, Connor has practiced everyday and had hugged me after every time I help him. Funny how that works, isn't it?



I just had to post a picture of our tree. This is a new tree for us this year. The day after Thanksgiving we went to get our Christmas decorations out and realized that we had thrown our tree away last year because it was beyond using. Branches were falling off, about 1/2 the lights didn't work and they were multi-colored. (Sorry for all you who have multi-colored christmas lights. I am a white-light girl--if I can be picky and choosy.) So we went through the debate of buying a new pre-lit, fake tree (at full price, of course) or buying a real tree, the stand and the lights. Brett has always puts the lights on our tree if it wasn't a pre-lit, so I let him decide. We went with the pre-lit fake one and I couldn't be happier. We found this awesome one from Costco. It is 7.5 feet tall and has 1500 white lights. I love it! We had so much fun decorating! Thanks, sweetie for choosing this one!