Merry Christmas 2012

Now that we are fully immersed in this Christmas season, I am going to try to stay on top of it and get a post done before we move on to the next event (before the new year), Joshua's third birthday.  This year has been like many peoples...filled with lots of activities and fun.  We've been enjoying some of the German traditions like St. Nickolaus Tag (Day)...as Gregory woke up in the middle of the night and saw his house shoes filled treats he said "He is real!" and I quickly (as quick as I could in the middle of the night) said, "no, mom and dad are real and we filled your shoes...but you remember the story of how St. Nickolaus used tom come to the German houses and leave treats for the kids?"

We had FIVE advent calendars going (six if you count the activity one we did some days).  Hope the boys remember how to eat a good meal without the incentive of chocolate :-)  I think I can remember :-)  We had christmas parties (youth group one, a small one with some MOPS friends, and even one up at Ramstein with our friend, Jan's youth group, because we happened to be in town and staying in the apartment above the party).  We got to enjoy a Christmas market (without kids), thanks to some great friends, Tom & Tesha.  Somehow we managed to not bake any Christmas cookies and my boys both got to still decorate cookies at two different friends' houses and I got to enjoy cookies at multiple places without the work :-)  So there were many good memories from this Christmas and we all enjoyed the time together.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.