Our Wonderful Christmas...

This is going to be super long... I just put our Christmas with Garet's dad and our actual Christmas on the same post.  So, I'll try to let the pictures do most of the talking =)

 

Garet's dad and his wife, Barbara, have a house in Wintergreen, VA, so we spent the week before Christmas there with them.  We went to the top of the mountain, and it was super cold, but so pretty!

 

There wasn't any snow that first day...

 

We looked all around the Wintergreen Resort - it was really nice!  There were some shops, restaurants, coffee places, fires...

 

It was like a big mountain lodge!  Really pretty.  And it was neat to see all the ski lifts outside.

Then next day we went back up the mountain and there was snow!  It was actually snowing a lot but none of it was sticking, but when we looked over that same overlook all the ski snow blowers were going!  It looked like a blizzard!  Colin kept calling it "hot", guess it does look like steam =)

 

We took advantage of the indoor pool.  Colin LOVED it!  You can see that there was a step next to the side that Colin could walk on.  He "ran" up and down, up and down...

 

Pop got out his tractor one day and took Colin on a ride!  This was awesome for Colin - he was so excited, but he didn't move a muscle when he was sitting there on the back =)  Wonder which one had more fun...

 

We brought lots of Colin's toys with us (you can see his beloved bike in the background), but Barbara had [TONS] of cars for Colin to play with, which he loved, and she brought out this little nativity set that they enjoyed playing with.

 

By the end of the week, one of Garet's sisters, Karen, and her family got there... here is Kathryn getting some cuddles...

 

And Suzi took over their dog, Jesse's, toys. 

 

The last night we were there we celebrated Christmas with them.  This is the box that Garet's gift came in:

 

"Bathe & Brew".... it was a fake box =)  But we weren's so sure at first. 
Here is Colin trying to climb up on Sam...

 

We had these poppers that when you pop them open them you get a little toy, a little page of jokes, and a crown...

 

Garet and his sister Karen, and her daughter Kathryn...

 

Are you still with me??? =)  Told ya it was long...
When we got back home, we decorated a gingerbread house.  This was a first.  Colin did really well with it, he really enjoyed taste testing the gumdrops!

 

And the finished house:

 

We also made a cake for Jesus Birthday!  I couldn't fit all the candles on there, so we just put one ;)

 

I mentioned in the previous post that we opened one gift on Christmas Eve... this was Colin getting his Christmas pjs:

 

And... that brings us to Christmas morning!  Santa came to visit our house, and Colin was super excited!  Not that he really "gets" it, but I think our excitement carried over to him.  When he walked downstairs he immediately ran over and said "BIKE!" and took off riding!

 

After a couple laps on the bike, he grabbed his grocery cart and made some rounds...

 

So funny!  He really loves grocery carts, the fake food, the cash register.... all of it!
I also kept the Beane tradition and made these cinnamon sticky buns.   The house smelled so good!  But as you can see, it made a lot!  (anyone want to come over for some buns?)

 

We spaced out our Christmas morning... so after Colin got all the gifts from Santa, we took a break for breakfast.  Then we got to opening our gifts to each other.

 

Suzi was obviously really excited about Christmas =) 

 

She pepped up once she got to open her stocking.
A little later, Garet got a fire going in the basement fireplace and we all hung out down there.  Garet's mom sent Colin one of her old desktop computers, soooo now Colin has a computer!  We got on PBS and got to play a few of the free kids games on there.  I am thinking that a couple computer games are on their way here soon.  But Colin loved it!  He is really good with the ones at the library.  Not that he knows at ALL what he is doing, but he is excited to just be doing something on the computer.   

 

A lot of the games just require the child to hit any keyboard key to make something happen. 

So, that was our Christmas in a nutshell!  We had so much fun traveling, but we really enjoyed having our own Christmas here!  It was relaxed and just great.  We even got to go on a walk that afternoon after naps.  It was perfect!

Last night when Garet put Colin to bed, I turned on the monitor before Garet left his room, and I was just in time to hear a tiny, sleepy, two year old saying "Merry Christmas...." before drifting off to sleep.  Precious.