Christmas and New Years

This was a big Christmas for us, the first one as a whole family in our own house.  Usually we put the dogs in boarding and we head to one of our families to celebrate Christmas, but not this year - we stayed home as a family with the dogs. 
Hayden loved Christmas!!! First stop was Santa's village.  Every year this family puts on a whole village in their front yard and Santa and Mrs. Claus come for the kids to take pictures with. 

Hayden and I in front of Santa's house

Hayden and daddy put gifts in the sleigh for all the children and then got to take a short ride.

Hayden really liked the toy room the best, imagine that.

Next, in family tradition, we had a Swedish smorgasbord on Christmas Eve.  Evan cooked an amazing meal with all the essentials.  Two of our friends' families who were also in town for Christmas came over to enjoy and then Josh read the girls Twas the Night Before Christmas. 

As we were making dinner, it started to snow!!!!

Josh reading to the girls before everyone headed home to wait for Santa!!!

Almost time for bed.

And finally, Christmas is here.  And better yet, Hayden's first white Christmas.   We started the day with amazing gluten free cardamon bread (yummy!!!!  - cant thank Eva enough).  Then we went down to see what Santa had brought before heading over to our friends for Christmas dinner.

I guess Hayden made the nice list!

Family Stockings!

The first thing Hayden ran up to was her brand new table and chairs from Grandma and Grandpa!

Santa brought Hayden new purple shoes!

Santa was very nice to daddy!

And mommy!

Once Hayden saw the basketball hoop mommy and daddy got her it was all over.  That is all she wanted to play with.  But I must say she got the concept on dunking the ball quite quickly!

From then on, the basketball stay under one arm while she tried to open the rest of her presents with the other.

Mommy, Hayden and the basketball.

This was the only gift that got Hayden to put the basketball down, her very own laptop from Farmor and grandpa David.

Time to play in the snow with Megan!

The girls loved the snow.

Daddy showing Hayden how to make a snow angel.

Daddy and Hayden walking in the snow.

The girls were giggling like crazy after playing in the snow. 

Present time again, Hayden got her very first baby doll and Megan now has her own drum set with shakers.

But of course, Hayden saw Josh's basketball and once again it was all about the basketball.  Poor Josh had to wait for us to leave to get to play with his ball.

We headed back home for our other tradition of relaxing and watching the new movies we got in our stockings, while Hayden took a nap. 

For New Years Eve we had a few friends over to watch the Clemson game and enjoy the end of 2012.

Hayden and I are ready for the game!

Believe it or not this was at the beginning of the night!

We made everyone try on the hats - Katie and Jason

Maegan and Kurt

Samson felt left out, Nikki however ran the other way.

Thus ended our 2012.  It was a great year in Frederick full of new friends and new experiences.  And it ended with Clemson beating LSU in the bowl game which just topped the year off!!!!