Sunday, January 27, 2013

Christmas Weekend

We visited Santa Rosa for Christmas weekend and spent 4 days with both families. Here are some highlights.

We let the kids start opening gifts a few days in advance so they could enjoy some of them throughout the weekend and they wouldn't be so overwhelmed on Christmas morning. This first one I'm pretty proud of. I found this unfinished wooden castle at Micheal's Crafts and knew Jackson would love it for putting little toys and animals inside, like a doll house. So I bought it in September and took it on as a project to make it special for him.

Before

 And After! Here's the front. The drawbridge has a lion (Jackson's favorite animal). And I used ideas from the Gieseke family coat of arms to design the sheilds with "JT" for Jackson Timothy.
 All filled with dragons and knights ready to play
 "Gieseke" on the back. This was a lot more time consuming than I thought it would be, but I'm happy with the results. I have to resign myself to the reality that it will probably get broken and he's not really old enough to care about the custom paint job, but it's cool nonetheless.
Discovering the castle for the first time
 He's pleased!
Cosette got a barnyard full of animals
On our way to church Christmas Eve

Kids with their cousin Evan
Christmas morning! Cosette gets a cart to push and a dolly!
Posing with her dolly in matching pink
 
 Running to Papa to show off her toys and get snuggles. She is so affectionate.
 Eating our mom's famous cinnamon rolls
 Jack's willing to try them
 Natalie and Justin and me and Dan
Opening the first of the Dinosaur Train toys. He was so thrilled!
Coco just loved the ribbon!
A little tea set
Hard at work on those trains!
Stomping around with another dolly
Loves to run to Papa!
So happy
Even more dinos and trains! Best Christmas ever for Jack.
Sweet Christmas Baby

Lot of cute headwear


New fishing vest
New pirate ship from Papa
Crazy reindeer
What a great morning!
This is from Christmas Caroling with our small group, but it was cute so I'm throwing it in. Jack and Emeline prepare to carol by running amok.
Cosette snuggles up
Love my blue-eyed lady!

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