As if that wasn't enough Christmas...

I promise, this is our last post about Christmas... and our last post of 2012! 

We returned home from France on the 29th and were amazed to see that even though Santa knew we were away for Christmas, he still made a stop at our house!  Not to mention the fact that we had some gifts to give one another, since there was no way we were going to bring more stuff with us to France, only to have to bring it right back home with us again.

The boys, okay, all of us, were totally exhausted when we got home.  There were no arguments whatsoever about going to bed and saving presents for one more day, especially when Mom and Dad knew that thanks to jet lag, we would all probably be up before dawn anyway.  So we decided to have another little "Christmas morning" on the 30th!  And after all the traveling and running around, it was really rather nice to just be home.

Liam stepped up to play "Santa" and did a great job making sure everyone had a little something to open.  He's really learning to recognize letters and even our names, so he had fun trying to read the tag on each gift and get it to the correct recipient.

I think kids just enjoy the process of opening gifts so much, and both boys were really good about letting the other help them tear each one open.  This was serious work!

One of the big hits-- for both Liam and Joer-- was definitely the big bucket of dinosaurs!

Liam and Joergen also gave Dad a very special gift, Darth Vader and Son, which Liam helped read to Dad while Dad extricated a toy from its packaging.  As a side note, this book is hilarious.

Because of the jet lag, the boys ended up only being awake at the same time for a relatively short while that day, which actually became a really good thing!  We realized it allowed us to have a little "Christmas morning" with each boy individually, which was quieter, calmer, and let us really take our time.  It was a neat blessing.

Joergen checking out his new animal book.

After gifts and naps, we headed outside to deal with the snow, which had fallen sometime while we were gone.  There was not much left to worry about, thanks to some slightly warmer temperatures the day before, but some jobs to be done nonetheless.

 

Our neighbor Miss Susan and her grandson had made a big snowman, which was standing right in the yard between our houses.  Joergen had never seen a real snowman before!

Not to be outdone, Liam wanted to make a snowman too... but there just wasn't much snow left to work with.  So he decided to make a pint-sized version of his own.  With its little baby-carrot nose, it just may be the cutest little snowman I've ever seen.

Liam and Dad then decided to move their little snowman to the old tree stump right next to Miss Susan's big snowman, so that they could be friends.  When we woke up the next morning, we saw that Miss Susan's snowman shared his scarf with Liam's snowman overnight, so now they could both be cozy in the snow!

Within a couple of days, our snowman duo melted away, and there has not been much snow to speak of ever since.  The boys are still hoping we'll get a good storm in before Spring... although I can't say that I share their hope!