Christmas in Vegas

We had a wonderful Christmas on our own this year. We certainly missed family and the traditions we've been used to, but since we knew we would be seeing family in a week we just loved being able to do our own Christmas. On Christmas Eve we went walking around some nearby neighborhoods to see Christmas lights. Zeke is crazy about Christmas lights and leaving a couple of the really fancy ones almost brought tears! We had a "fancy" Christmas dinner of homemade ham and potatoes...well, actually is was a recipe from my 15 minute cookbook with sausage and canned potatoes. But that saved a lot of stress and was honestly just as delish. Plus I did splurge on my energy output by making homemade rolls...ok, sort of homemade, the dough was made by the bread machine! I love simplicity! I got out our nice crystal and fabric napkins and made a Christmas centerpiece but we decided instead to just watch "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"(cartoon) and use paper napkins and a giant plastic superman cup. It was perfect. After putting Zeke to bed we had a wrapping party with our couch dividing our living room and effectively hiding each others presents. It's kind of a tradition to wrap our gifts sneakily in the same room. (Although this year was rather easy for me since one of Trustin's gifts was in Utah and the other big one was a tree that was certainly not coming into the living room. But I was oh so discreet at wrapping his soccer socks and mango juice!

These pictures are from earlier on Christmas Eve or maybe the day before. Trustin decided to hide from Zeke behind the couch. Silly Daddy, didn't he know that could only end one way? Squash!

Here we are Christmas morning. The Anderson crew always used to eat Christmas breakfast up in their parents room before going down to see the presents. I love the idea and so we started the tradition at our house too. The only thing I want to change from this year is I want to buy a waffle iron and make real waffles (see, I'm not always lazy...just in case you were skeptical or my holiday culinations *culinary creations*).

And so began our Christmas. We didn't get a crazy reaction out of Zeke when he saw the presents, although he did beeline it to the present in the bag with the basketball and soccer ball on it (shocker there!).

Here Zeke is in his new playhut. He loves it, but has decided that it always requires one specific piece of furniture: Mama!



Here is my live reaction to Trustin's awesome gift to me: A Willow Tree Nativity set. A few seconds later I teared up.

Toys, need I say more?

A kiss for his new turtle light.

Daddy's pomegranate tree--picked especially by Zeke. It not much of a sight to behold in the winter, but it actually had two pomegranates growing on it and we're exciting to have anything that we can grow and eat in Vegas!

Zeke's drill. He is going to fly through the batteries on this one fast.

This is later that night, but what a cute little toolman!

On Christmas afternoon Uncle K and Aunt E came over to make gingerbread men. As you can see, Zeke did an excellent job making sure none of the candies went to waste.

We drew names to see who had to make who. This is us holding the one that looks like us. (Notice that Zeke's gingerbread man has a mouth full of candy). Trustin was present for all of this but as cameraman didn't make it into a single picture. Zeke made the one that looked like Daddy so we can at least know that it tasted good.

More to come of our trip to Utah later.