i believe

Christmas! i love it. it is so magical. i love seeing all the Christmas lights that sparkle all around my neighborhood. it makes the dark, dreary winter so much brighter and warmer. Christmas is especially special with children. i love seeing the spirit of Christmas reflected in their eyes and their excitement for Santa Claus. so much fun!

this year we had an amazing Christmas. Here's a photo history of all we did.

this was our Christmas card. i had to bribe mark with a milk shake to smile through all the photos we took. dave threatens that next year he better get one too. :)

mark's preschool group. all boys. enough said. :) i have to admit that they are all sweet hearts and that mark LOVES preschool.

confession: i LOVE Christmas lights. so these next photos are different attempts at capturing the essence of the Christmas lights this season.

sadly these photos didn't turn out as well, i was experimenting with a different setting on my camera, but i love how happy my boys were looking at the lights. mark still misses "his" christmas tree.

caleb loved the lights. we would turn off all the lights in our house and just sit as a family and watch the lights. so fun! i think if caleb could talk he would say that was the favorite thing he did this Christmas season.

love this photo that dave too. we're reading The Grinch next to our Christmas tree. i've decided that The Grinch is one of my favorite Christmas books. i loved sharing it with mark and caleb.

Christmas morning! caleb was more excited about the paper and bows then the presents he got. and mark...well mark was in LOVE with Christmas morning. every present opened was instantly claimed by him. for example, i would take a present and say, "give this to daddy mark. it's to daddy from grammy." his response, "no mommy. it says right here, 'to daddy and mark'".

here caleb and i are opening christmas presents with my parents, grandparents, sister, brother-in-law and andrew and isaac. it was so much to have them all in town this Christmas.

this picture is so cool. it's caleb saying "hi" to Chase, my bro on a mission in Ukraine, Christmas morning. Chase's mission president gave him the ok to skype with us Christmas day. so we got to "see" him for one hour. it was seriously so cool!

for Christmas my grandparents (oma and opa to their great-grandchildren) got an iPad! how hip are they?! so oma would sit by mark and read him stories like Peter Rabbit and The Little Engine that could from the iPad. so cool. oma is so techno savy. :)

here is our attempt to get the great-grandchildren all happy and in the same picture with oma and opa. didn't work. this picture just makes me laugh.

here is mark and opa reading. this is so tender to me because i witnessed this sweet moment. mark saw opa reading and he loves his opa so much and loved to be like him. so he dragged in a child's chair from the other room, set it next to opa. then grabbed a book and sat down and read next to opa. this shows me just how important his opa is to him. later during the trip opa had a bad cough spell and we were concerned for his health for a few minutes. mark, who was already in bed, heard our concern and started crying and was very worried for his opa. he wouldn't settle down until we said a short prayer for opa. luckily opa was fine and mark was able to go back to sleep. what a sweet heart it he! :)

my oma and opa flew in for Christmas this year. the story is that one night, while iChatting with mark, mark asked opa and oma to come visit for Christmas. well, that and the promise of eating a Lawry's was enough motivation to get opa and oma on a flight to Chi-town for Christmas. it was so fun to have them in town. we especially loved playing mad gab with them! thank you both for coming out! we love you.