I Love God for Making Santa!

Rudy and Moonlight preparing for Christmas.

Moonlight enjoying the view from under the tree.

After church Christmas Eve, we waited for Paul's family to come over. Rudy found some post it notes and decided to stick one on his nose. I think he said he was being Rudolph.

Neil introduced Rudy to Angry Birds (yes, we have deprived ourselves and our child from knowing exactly what it is).

Rudy passed out his gifts first. Grandmom liked her napkin holder.

Grandpa got a little village house.

Rudy was very excited to see Grandmom got him a Mario shirt...

... and even more excited to discover that it came with a Wii mario game.

The adults do a pollyanna type gift exchange (everyone has a different name for it). Sean thought if he sat away from everyone, no one would steal his alcohol (he was wrong).

Rudy and his grandparents.

Christmas morning, waiting to see the presents.

Organizing all the presents into a pile while he waited for us to look at our stockings.

My favorite gift - notebooks for Paul and Rudy to write and draw in since they are always creating stories together.

Lou even got a gift - a bone he carried around as he tried to eat.

Rudy learning to play his Wii games.

An uneasy truce between Moonlight and Lou. Moonlight seemed to think Lou's pillow was there for his own enjoyment.

Moonlight enjoyed watching Rudy play Lego Indiana Jones. This gift, from Santa, is the one that inspired Rudy to exclaim, "I love God for Making Santa!" Video will be posted soon.

Rudy also got several lego sets, here he is playing with many of them together.

Paul's favorite gift was a drawing pad and pencils. He spent the day trying it out.

Again, Moonlight and Lou sharing the pillow. Lou doing his best to ignore the fact that there is a cat near him.

Rudy with his mohawk hat.

As has been our tradition for the last few years. On Christmas night we went out to dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. This year it was packed! My dad and Paul's mom went with us. It was a nice relaxing end to a fun few days.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

After tagging our tree several weeks ago, today was finally the day to go pick it up. Before we arrived I made the mistake of questioning whether Rudy really remembered where the tree was. He immediately ran to the exact tree when we arrived.

This was the tree Rudy had picked and won the right to bring home through a game of Rock, Scissors, Paper.

When the man went to cut down that tree, though, we discovered that the truck was very crooked and it would be very difficult to put up straight, so we went with our second choice.

As we waited for the tree to get put in the car, Rudy and I relaxed around the fire with some hot chocolate.

This was the tree we ended up with - a little smaller but a lot fuller.

Rudy loves setting up this nativity set- and playing with it all season.

Moonlight's first tree- we expect to be squirting him with water - A LOT!

Rudy used his blocks to add walls and a roof to the nativity set.

Attempts at a family portrait by the tree.

 Love the dog's nose in this one!

To top off our Christmasy day, Santa came by on a fire truck.

Lou and Moonlight felt a little left out and stood at the door watching.

Our beautifully decorated house.

A Guatemalan Christmas

Last weekend, we went to Phoenixville for a Christmas party with other local families that have adopted from Guatemala. This year the party was held at a Guatemalan restaurant (one we now really want to go back to!). We got to talk to some other parents, and Rudy had fun running around with the kids. The entire restaurant was for our party so the kids had the run of the place.

Sitting in Santa's chair pre-Santa.

The upstairs room had almost no furniture, balloons, and music- the perfect place for the kids to run around. Here Rudy and another child are negotiating for balloons.

He was in the process of blowing up a balloon, as I took the picture, the balloon went flying out of his hands.

Finally getting the hang of blowing them up.

Rudy had a long conversation with Santa, starting off with showing him his shirt (it says, Have a Rockin' Christmas)...

... then he gave a thumbs up to Santa...

...and continued to talk.

One of the parents was telling us that the town we were in, Phoenixville, had a Firebird Festival that night, The build a big wooden Phoenix structure and the set it on fire at night. We couldn't stay for the festival (although it is definitely on our radar for next year), but we decided to drive by and see the big bird.

Also after the party, we took Charlie home for the night. Here he is being silly and carrying around what seemed to be his favorite toy, a maraca.

Paul and Rudy built this block tower. Moonlight really enjoyed it. Here he is sitting calmly, but Paul and I watched him bite and try to pull off some of the blocks a little while later.