
This is the first year we celebrated Christmas in Kansas City. Even though we haven't celebrated the holidays here before, we found that most of our same traditions worked just as well here as anywhere else. As you can see, we had lots of help wrapping presents from Santa's little elves.
Another tradition our elves like to help with is making Christmas cookies, especially with Pop
Pop. Aspen made sure to keep an eye on the cookies while they were baking. That is our new stove she is staring at - Dave's Christmas present to Melissa. Okay, okay, Dave didn't really buy the stove
for Melissa. Our stove died on Dec 22nd
, with family coming to visit the next day! Thank-you
Lowes for delivering so close to Christmas
.

Anyway, back to the cookies. Melissa and Dave enjoyed a nice dinner out while the kids frosted cookies with Grandma and Pop Pop. At least we
think they managed to frost cookies instead of frosting each other. All we know for sure is both the kitchen and the kids were clean when we got home. I wonder if Aspen got to 'help' clean up as a reward for watching the cookies? Oh well, at least the cookies tasted great. Sorry, no pictures of the cookies, we ate them all ;)

As you can tell, Santa was very generous this year, especially to the kids. Ty got lots of
Legos, erector sets, sports stuff and a new fish tank. Ellie received a new baby doll and lots of princess stuff. Her favorite gift may have been the new 'big-girl' bed from Santa. For those of you who don't know, we don't raise good sleepers. Ellie has been spending lots of time in our bed. So we made a big deal out of asking Santa for a new bed. And guess who has been sleeping in it on her own most nights? Christmas really is a time for miracles.
I hope to upload a picture of Ellie's new bed shortly. Her room looks great - no longer a nursery, definitely a girls room. I should also have pictures of Ellie's dance class and Ty's basketball games up in the next few weeks.