Christmas 2011

At our 3rd Annual Christmas Eve dinner at the Ettekals, Yashar made the entire dinner. We brought drinks, pie homemade toffee and sugar cookies.

The dinner was to die for! He made some kind of dill rice, mashed potatoes, salmon, chicken (little chickens), an awesome salad, and asperagas. We left with very full bellies.

Kalvin brought his helicopter to show Sonnet. He demonstrated how he is able to land it on Duane's hand. He's become quite the helicopter expert.

 Tristen was very intreged by the train that goes around the tree and tried for at least 10 minutes to put it together.

 

After the delicious meal, the kids opened gifts from each other. Kalvin got a car and ramp and G.I. Joe.

 And Tristen ate 3 sugar cookies.

 Tristen got a car and G.I. Joe.

 Then we acted out the Christmas story. Tristen was a wiseman, Sonnet was Mary, Sela was an angel and Kalvin was Joseph. It was cute to see them all dressed up and all the adults including the girls grandma and grandpa were tickled to death.

 

I was able to get a picture of our cool tree just before going to bed the Christmas Eve.

I love how the lights and shadows make a colorful glow.

Tristen was the first up on Christmas morning. He found the candies on the couch and watched a movie before Kalvin got up.

 Just before the chaos of presents Duane read the note from Santa (he responded to Kalvin's letter to him)

and we took a family picture.

Christmas was great! You can see I got my vacuum. Duane spent hours online researching the best one and Christmas Eve morning we went to the vacuum store to try out the one we had our eye on, the Miele S7 Salsa. It looked great and Duane soon discovered he could buy it cheaper from them than anywhere online so we were able to make the purchase knowing we were getting a good deal. 

Kalvin had constantly been asking for a Lazer Stunt Chaser weeks prior to Christmas. Santa tried to talk Mrs. Claus out of getting it because "$40 is too much", but Mrs. Claus saw how important this was to Kalvin. He even made up a little tune about it (the only words were Lazer Stunt Chaser, but he would sing about it often). When he saw Santa briefly at the mall (since there was no line), he told him that's what he wanted then Santa said, "Okay, what else do you want." Kalvin looked at him blankly. Christmas morning, Kalvin went straight to the RC car box to open it before Duane told him that he should open all the smaller gifts first. I guess all those times passing by the car at the store, he recognized the box shape. Needless to say, Kalvin slept with the Lazer Chaser that night and has hardly let it out of his sight for a moment. I would compare it to a girly girl getting a doll for Christmas. He'll hug it often and say, "I'm so happy to have my Lazer Stunt Chaser." We still need to write Santa a thank you note. In the end, I think Santa is happy Mrs. Claus got the car for Kalvin.

Tristen got an airplane that shoots bullets. He loves airplanes and helicopters so this has been a favorite.

 These are the infamous toys. Kalvin's beloved Lazer Stunt Chaser and Tristen's FAVORITE airplane.

Thought I'd throw this last one in as well. 

The mornings (and day's actually) here in Albany are pretty cold. We've kept our thermostat at about 64 to 65 degrees. Some days Tristen will run around in his underwear till we leave the house and I make him put clothes on, but other day's I'm able to talk him into grabbing his own clothes. The only problem with that is that he always reaches into the top drawes of the dresser and gets Kalvin's pants and shirts. So, I decided to label the drawers. It may look a little confusing, but the idea is that on the left of the drawer are the actual words that describe with the drawer holds and to the right are pictures they can read to know what's inside.

It's really helped Tristen to understand where his clothes are and where Kalvin's are because he's able to read them so now when he runs to get clothes, he get's the right size :-)

(I only had time to put this together because my mom had already cleaned the whole house!)