Christmas 2010.

We celebrated our first Christmas in our new home. It was just the six of us. Very simple.

The kids woke up early, as usual. They unwrapped their presents in record time. (I was barely able to get a few photos.) I love this one of everyone together.

Jimmy's number one gift was a new BB gun. Now that he has 5 acres to explore he needed more fire power. Yes, that's an old 4J's shirt from when I was younger. I explained to the kids that in my family all of our first names started with the letter "J", so we called ourselves the 4J's. And we had a boat called the 4J's at Sea.

 I guess that's why I came up with our nickname, The Land Six.

Will's number one gift was a Backyard Explorer vest. It has all of these pockets and hooks. It came with tools for digging, a lantern, binoculars and a compass. He wears it all the time and hardly takes it off. A few times he's even fallen asleep wearing it. A true backyard explorer.

Alex's number one (and two) gifts were the Harry Potter LEGO train and the Halo LEGO set. He's still really into building with LEGOs. It's amazing all of the little details they come up with now.

Here's Helen with all of her loot. I think she would have a hard time deciding which was her number one gift. She had a lot of fun playing with her Magic Fabric Studio. You take some fabric stickers, place them on the tray, then put a foam piece on top, cover it with more stickers, put it through the press and then out comes a mini "stuffed" animal. She thought it was the greatest thing that something flat could turn into something 3D. Oh, to be seven again!

Mike spent most of the day cooking. For lunch he made spanikopita, pigs in a blanket, brie wrapped in puff pastry and crab-stuffed shrimp. For dinner he made roast beef, ham, mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes, squash casserole, green beans with prosciutto, sauerkraut and rolls. Needless to say, we had leftovers for the next two days. Now comes the part I hate...taking down the tree and putting away all of the decorations. Can't we just leave everything up for next Christmas? It's only 354 days away.

On a different note:  My Project Life kit arrived yesterday. I ordered the Turquoise Edition and I'm so excited to get started. I really want to keep up with it this year.