Christmas Week

Christmas week was so busy for us. It was the first week that Jed didn't have school (which meant we could finally see him longer than an hour a day) and so we filled it with lots of last minute things to do.

Monday we went down to the Bay Area to visit Jed's sister Annie to celebrate her daughter, Ella's birthday, who turned 1 the previous Friday.

Tuesday, was crazy shopping and other last minute things.

Wednesday, we went to see Santa at the mall. Elijah has been asking to see Santa almost on a daily basis. It's really funny, because he doesn't completely understand what Santa does, but he just knew Santa's coming. He even wanted to go to the snowy mountains to find Santa and his reindeer, after watching a show about it. He was SO excited for Santa. It was really nice because anytime he started to act out, we'd just tell him Santa says he needs to be nice or else Santa's not coming and Elijah's attitude would immediately change. We even told him that Santa said that he would have to start wearing underwear and no more diapers ;). Hopefully, it will help Elijah finally decide to use the potty.

Waiting in line to see Santa

Santa!!

Unfortunately, Chloe is afraid of the beard.

Thursday, Jed and I went to see the Nutcracker downtown. I've been wanting to see it for years and we finally went to see it. Tuesday marked our five years together (not married, but since we started dating) and since he'll be gone for our anniversary next year, we thought it'd be fun to celebrate it now. :) Afterwards, we spent more time shopping.

I also had to finish a cake I made for some friends' Christmas Eve dinner. It was a white cake filled with fresh strawberries, strawberry cream cheese, and lemon curd then frosted with a cream cheese whipped cream. I piped some snowflakes on it and made a little snowman snow globe for the top.

Friday, the kids got to open some gifts from Grandpa and from Devin and Elena.

They both love their new toys.

Santa also brought gifts for the kids during the night. (He brings them two gifts each and a picture of Christ)

For Elijah

(Elijah's instruments was a set)

And Chloe

Saturday, the kids opened all of their presents.

Even though they both got great gifts from everyone, they both have their favorites.

Elijah's is between his "video game" from Santa and the book that Grandma and Grandpa Berhold sent of them narrating The Night Before Christmas. (It's really cute, he loves opening each page just to listen to their voices.)

Chloe's favorite is the bag of goldfish crackers that Santa brought with her stocking. She ignored everything else around her and just ate and ate and ate. She went through 3/4 of the bag that day. When we'd take it away from her she just found a way to get it back. She seriously spent the day just eating. (At least we know what to get her for her birthday next month)

After spending the morning opening gifts, we had a super yummy breakfast of German Pancakes with fresh homemade applesauce (our tradition) and cream cheese whipped cream. Then everyone took naps. When we woke up, we went to Grandma's house to have dinner.

We took a group picture to send to my brother, Christian. (Also my mom and Kayla got their white coats for Christmas so we thought it'd be fun to show them off)

Christian's favorite pose

I put together a seven course meal for the family. It was my first time doing a seven course meal and I decided to a Japanese theme, since we have my grandma's prime rib for Christmas. My brother, James, did the appetizer (amuse bouche) first course. He made really delicious crouquets and pork tankastu over rice. My mom did the second course of miso soup and the third course of cucumber salad. I made mango sorbet as the palate cleanser for the forth course. We bought sushi for the fifth course. My Grandma's roast with her amazing gravy (seriously the best roast ever!) for the sixth course. And the seventh course was the Japanese Christmas cake (well my version of it), a six layer white cake with white chocolate cream cheese whipped cream and fresh strawberries. We also played games and exchanged more presents. It was so much fun having everyone together and having so much time to spend with one another.

We finished our night with visiting some friends after leaving Grandma's house and opening even more gifts. It was a really fun and perfect Christmas and it was so enjoyable being able to spend so much time with friends and family.