Christmas pics

A few days before Christmas, Aunt Annmarie came - bringing with her (besides her one-of-a-kind hugs and smiles) some sweet gifts - Ethan's first christmas present! Some stylish "little man" clothes. It was her first time to visit us in the house. We loved getting to host her overnight, keeping her up late helping Michael make his chocolate truffles. She also took Noah sledding, well what started out as sledding, but an hour and a half later they came in after mostly just playing on the snowy playground. (c:

It was wonderful to have my parents join us for Christmas this year in our new home - it sure made it feel more like home. They arrived on Christmas Eve in time for us to visit before going Christmas Caroling on our street! Between my parents and us, we had four part harmony! It was really fun to show some love to our neighbors in this way.

Before caroling

Noah woke up nearly every hour that night, beginning at 1am - "Is it morning yet?" Guess he was excited. We held him off until my parents arrived from their hotel, but let him open his stocking around 7.

Mom and Dad brought a turkey for Christmas dinner and Dad and Michael stuffed it together. This was our first real feast here! Again, we missed not having my sister and her family here with us. We are looking forward to going to visit them in Asheville in the coming months.

My parents graciously decided to stay the weekend putting up a lovely shed for us while we went up to Arlington to celebrate with Michael's side of the family.

The evening we arrived was the annual Christmas party! We had so missed this tradition while we were gone. I put Ethan in the same tux that Noah wore to the same party exactly 3 years before - a good excuse to dress up a baby boy. (c: His favorite spot during the party was underneath the grand piano when everyone was singing carols. It was plenty loud under there and he was "singing" his little heart out with the rest of us. Noah got to make another gingerbread house with all the neighborhood girls. Michael and Matthew joined their parents' recorder choir - this is a tradition that began while we were gone and is a great way to get everybody in on the music-making part of the party.

Noah absolutely loved the whole evening. Periodically throughout, he would ask me, "Is there more party?"

Our little superhero - Thanks Andrea!

The rest of the weekend we enjoyed a 2nd Christmas morning, seeing cousins Stephen and Sarah, going to the Botanic Garden and seeing their all-natural train set-up, visiting Nana all together, and a Caps game for the brothers.

On Tuesday, Matthew and Kerry came back to C-ville with us for a couple days. We had a blast with them and squeezed in 2 games of "Settlers" before they left.