Um, Better Late Than Never?

I think that is the mantra for my life. I'm sure my mom would agree, as would Burke (although I haven't been late for Church for ages).
Life has been busy. I have been working on getting things ready for a new Primary year, including getting teachers, a bulletin board, and binders ready. I haven't gotten around to doing the CD's yet. In addition to that, I have had Christmas, New Years, a baptism, and a birthday. Plus, Burke was off of work for the whole week between Christmas and New Years, so we took time to enjoy his company.
I have fallen behind in blogging, so my goal is to cover everything this week.
Starting with Christmas:

We had a nice Christmas Eve with a dinner at my sister's. Then we met up with Grandma W and headed to the city center to look at the Christmas village.

Of course, when we got home, it was time to open the annual Christmas jammies.
The kids all had cute jammies, and some cute (if I do say so myself) robes I sewed with my new Christmas present.
After that, we read the Christmas story from the bible and went to bed. At least, I did.

I was unaware of Burke's nocturnal sneaky activities. He accuses me of being very snoopy, so he had to go around to the neighbor's and gather up the gifts he had hidden there....
There were more surprises to be found in the morning.

Christmas morning was a blast. The kids ran out to see the spread.
A new bike for Nathan, a karaoke machine for Kade, a Nintendo DS for Annika, and a CD player for Adrienne.
A new calculator for Burke (yes, Santa knew he was an engineer without a functioning calculator...sad, sad).

Santa is full of surprises.

Burke and Kade made me a new step for my bathtub. It is quite a reach for a shorty to climb in and I have almost fallen a few times while getting in and out. Therefore, I had casually mentioned a few dozen times over the last 4 years how much easier it would be to have a nice step to climb in and out.
Burke sneaked off a few nights and went to a neighbor who is an amazing carpenter and made me a beautiful, thoughtful, matching knotty alder step for my bathroom. I loved it.
Thoughtful (and handmade) gifts are the best!

After opening gifts and relaxing for a while, we headed off to see The Princess and the Frog.
Very cute, and a nice way to end the day.
Grandma W stayed with us through Christmas Eve and into Christmas Day. We enjoyed her company and the kids were so sad when she left the next day to head to Disneyland.