Christmas Morning

Santa brought Austin a cool work bench and a bunch of tools. Isn't that tool belt the cutest?

As you can see, he's quite pleased with his ride on the truck. One of many great scores we got off of Craigslist this year.

Austin made out very well this year as far as toys go. I'm sure we're not the first parents to go crazy for their kid at Christmas. We'll probably just get him clothes now for his birthday next month.

The cats did alright too, here's a neat dual perch so they can look out the window.

We greatly appreciate all the generous gifts we received from friends and family this year.

Winter Wonderland

Here are some pictures we took around the outside of the new house after the first good snow storm. We have pretty much had snow on the ground the entire month.




Snow covered pines. We love having mature trees in our yard. Even in the winter, there are little critters running through our yard collecting food and such. It is fun to watch.


This is the spiral staircase that leads down from the covered deck.

After all that cold, it is wonderful to take a nice Sunday afternoon nap. Jim caught LeAnna and both cats snoozing away.

Prodigy

okay, maybe not exactly a musical genius, but he does love to play the piano. He will try to play the same note you just played, but that's about as musical as it gets.


Making sure he doesn't fall off the bench.


We had to share with you Boston's latest nap spot. We have two Christmas trees this year, one real and one fake. This is the fake one in the living room, and there are no decorations on it.... well, almost none. I came downstairs one morning and this is where Boston was sleeping.


Later he actually moved up one rung on the tree. We thought it was really funny. Anybody have a good way to remove cat hair from an artificial tree?

Picking a Christmas Tree

We have a family tradition of going to a tree farm and picking out the perfect tree to have cut down. This being Austin's first Christmas, it was his first experience with "Santa's Woods". It is a really neat place with Santa Claus, reindeer, hayrack rides, clydesdale horses, hot chocolate... the works. Of course we chose a very cold day to go (high of 10). So we're not sure that Austin enjoyed himself.


Here we are heading out to the tree farm on the hayrack ride.


Needless to say, the cold inspired to choose quickly. It actually looks pretty nice in our family room. Not decorated yet.


Poor guy, daddy's trying to keep him warm.


Ah, they had a nice fire for us to enjoy and warm up a bit.


Here we are back in the lodge warming up. Good times. We think Austin will enjoy it more next year.

More Rooms

The Family Room



This is our fireplace in the family room. It is a 2-sided fireplace that doubles as a fireplace in the kitchen. This is the second room we have officially painted and put together.


The ugly flowery window coverings that were left by the previous owners have been removed. We plan to put in curtains to match the pillows on the couch. The doors you see in the back of the room lead out to the covered deck.


This has become one of Boston's favorite napping spots.

The Playroom



This is basically a HUGE bedroom that we have put all of Austin's toys and videos in for him to play. Obviously we've done nothing else to it. We would like to eventually have the walls painted with a really cute kids landscape, or dinosaurs or something like that. But, that is a bit down the line.


Here he is playing with the toys! See the desk in the backround? We picked that up at a garage sale and refinished it. We're pretty proud of it. We can thank Jim's vision for that.


The Nintendo Room


There is a funky, sort-of, finished room off the main basement area. Jim claimed it as a display room for his Nintendo collection, and a place for him to play the games. As you can see, Austin is more than willing to join in.


Here he is trying to get daddy's controller. His nose is a little red from a cold.



He actually sat in the bean bag content for quite a while. See what video games do to you kids? Doesn't he look spacey.



Of course, Boston found a place to sleep to be part of the action!





On a more serious note. Today has been a difficult day for us here in Omaha. It is one thing to hear about a shooting, it is another to hear about one in your neighborhood at a place where you could have been innocently shopping for Christmas gifts. Today we are counting our blessings that our loved ones are alive and well. No matter what our current stressors are, there are always things to remind us of our blessings.