Merry Christmas

 It was a wonderful Christmas this year.  My mom and our friend Thea were able to join us for Christmas eve.  We had invited others but they had to cancel last minute.  We still had a wonderful time - ham dinner, gifts, games, and of course, the nativity play.  Christmas morning brought more presents croissant sandwiches, and lots of nerf gun battles with the new guns.

Before and after Christmas, we've done other fun things - cookie/gingerbread house decorating, sledding, and "skating" on the frozen lake at Belle Isle.

It started snowing Christmas eve for the first time this season.  Perfect timing.  We were able to go sledding the day after Christmas.  Not a ton of snow, but enough to make a great day.  Peter felt confident enough to sled independently the whole time and the little snow made it possible for him to walk himself back up the hill each time too.  It was amazing.  How far we've come in such a few short years.  Of course, the nerf guns had to come to the sledding hill too.  He was so wiped out by the time we came home, that he fell asleep on Christian's bed within minutes. 

I had heard that large parts of the detroit river are frozen over so we had to make a trip out to Belle Isle to see for ourselves.  Although it was true, the kids were a bit hesitant to venture on the river itself.  So we settled for the lake in the middle of the island and had a blast "skating" around on it.  Peter fell about a thousand times but thanks to a puffy diaper and a puffy coat, he just kept right on going.  Only I got wet as I lifted Peter off the ice onto the shore, my left foot found a soft spot along the edge and that entire leg went under.  I spent the rest of the day on the island with a soaking wet shoe and left pant leg. We visited the nature center for a while though, and by the time we left, it was 1/2 dry.

The highlight of the nature center was the model of an underground bug area which the kids had to crawl through and dig out rocks (all styrofoam) and gather nuts and seeds for winter.  They had to be placed into shoots in various places in the walls which lit up more and more until you'd completed the task.  Peter loved it and even Christian had fun.