Christmas Day...This One's for You, Grandpa Grilz

Another wonderful present for Mom and Dad... the kids slept in until 7:45 a.m. MK actually slept until 8:15. Ethan raced downstairs to check his stocking.

By the time MK woke up, Ethan had made it into the living room to discover the new bike Santa brought.
Mary Kate found her bouncy Inch Worm rider and decided to take it for a spin while holding her Gears toy. Notice that she is wearing some new purple Mary Jane crocs...very stylish with the pink flannel reindeer pjs.

Ethan helps Mary Kate open her other present from Santa...a new dollhouse.

After all the gifts were opened, we had breakfast. In the middle of breakfast, we got a call from Grandma Brenda telling us that Grandpa Grilz came down with a very bad case of the stomach flu on Christmas Eve. We decided that Christmas dinner wouldn't be the same without them, so we postponed our dinner until Grandpa's recovered. We hope you are feeling better soon, Grandpa!! We love you.

Without a big meal to cook, Mom decided to stay in her pajamas and play for most of the day. We had a great time with all the new toys and gifts. We got several health updates from Grandma Brenda and spent lots of time talking on the phone to family across the country.

Here's the view of our snowy back yard from our family room. We've had such a beautiful, snowy December. For the past several days, temperatures have been in the high 20's to low 30's and it's been fabulous for playing in the snow. We've received about 13 inches of snow this month, and more is on the way. Hooray!

Merry Christmas to all our dear family and friends. We wish you peace, love, joy and health.