Merry Christmas, Happy New Year!

(First off, any previous post which said it had the most pictures ever? Well, forget that...I'm pretty sure this one will beat them all, hands down.)

On Christmas Eve, Chris got off work a bit early and we went on a hunt for snow boots. We were supposed to be getting a white Christmas, and both boys were getting snow suits, but we had no boots!! I had called Wal-Mart in Bentonville, and they had Dalton's size, and called Target in Rogers, and they had Jackson's size, but no one had both sizes we needed. Plus, both boys are hard to fit for any shoes, because they have wide feet, and typically we can't find anything to fit them. So we carted both boys out in the cold rain to find some boots.

At the Pleasant Grove Rd Wal-Mart in Rogers, we could not find boots for either boy, but we did find some Croc's style rain boots for Dalton. He wore these, I'm not kidding, for three days straight, even to bed. He loves them!

For Jackson, we ended up buying him some faux suede cowboy boots because it was the only ones we could find to fit his fat little foot. :)

On Christmas Eve, we started a new tradition this year...we let the boys open one gift (one that we picked)...it was a new Christmas movie. So we ate dinner early, bathed early, put on PJ's, and watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, which used to be one of my favorites. Dalton loved it.

Then Dalton put out cookies and milk for Santa, and carrots for the reindeer. Notice the milk is in a sippy cup (so that the cats wouldn't drink it before Santa got there!).

And boy howdy, did Santa reward the boys for that!!

He even left a note for the boys.

Notice behind the tree, through the window? We got our white Christmas!!

Jackson was the first one up. We ended up waking Dalton up at 9:00, and he was pretty bleary eyed for a while!!

But got into the swing of things pretty fast. He took at least twenty minutes going through all the stuff in his stocking. He has AMAZING patience for a four year old.

He loved this little reindeer that "pooped" candy. What can I say? He IS a boy!

Before the ripping of presents... The boys must have been good this year. And of course, Grandma and Grandpa Bane and Grammy and Grandpa Wilhelm spoiled the snot out of them.

The pile on the left by the train table are Dalton's, and the pile on the right are Jackson's.

Jackson LOVES this xylophone that our friends Jill and Ron got for him!

And he equally loved the Goldfish from Santa and the Sock Monkey from Grandpa and Grandma Bane.

Of course, I think the present I was most excited about was both Volume 1 & 2 from "Glee"!!!! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Bane!! (Glee is on Wednesday nights on Fox, and if you don't watch it, you totally should. It's so funny!)

I think Chris's favorite was his present from Jackson and Dalton. They got on-line and uploaded tons of photos of themselves and ordered a special travel mug for Daddy. He takes his coffee to work every morning, and he loves it. (I know what you're thinking...that Jackson and Dalton uploaded photos? I know, right? They are SO good with technology...)

Jackson of course had to find out what the xylophone tasted like...

And then Dalton went out to play in the snow while Jackson napped! We decided it was too cold for J to go out...it was about ten degrees, and the wind was gusting up to 30mph. Dalton only got to stay out about ten minutes before his hands were frozen, but he made the most of his time!!

Chris was trying to lob snow balls at me, but he'd throw it and it would disintegrate in the wind...too dry!

And when we came in and laid everything out to dry, the cats had to get in the middle of it.

We were supposed to have Christmas dinner with my family at our house Christmas Day (night) but my sister Julie lives in West Fork and had close to 8 inches of snow, so we postponed to Sunday. Even then she wasn't able to get out still, so she missed it, but I did save her some food and froze it. Chris fried a turkey this year for the first time, and it was pretty good, but he says he'll never again do it when it's that cold outside!!

Here we are after dinner...from left is my sister Catherine, my sister Ann hiding behind her, my nephew Vann, nephew Fletcher, BIL Gene, me, and my mom.

When Dalton saw that train table on Christmas morning, he liked it, but immediately said "But I don't have the train for the table!!" Well, Aunt Annie and Grandma Pat fixed that!!

Dalton, blowing out the candles on Jesus's birthday cake...

Chris licking his plate clean...must have been good food!

My sister Ann...

And then this is days later, but I just had to post it because he is so stinkin' cute!!

I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends and loved ones, and Happy New Year!!