It's Christmas time in Washington...State

Every Christmas my brother Brian and sister in law Dawn have a gingerbread house making party. I've yet to make it to one but one year in VA they brought their houses to my house for Christmas. On Christmas morning MJ was allowed to take a hammer (toy hammer of course) and demolish as well as dine on the house. This started as a way to keep him occupied while some of his slumbering aunts and uncles (or just one Aunt in particular) eased their way out of bed. So last year we continued it as a tradition and built a house for him to destroy on Christmas morning. I almost forgot this year (ok, I totally forgot) until Dawn asked if we would be doing the traditional Christmas morning demolition. So we finally got the cookies made (we did sugar cookies and scaled the houses back by 50% and made two) and the houses assembled and ready to decorate. As you can see, Annabelle enjoyed sampling the decorations.

Annabelle again enjoying the decorations. Perhaps we should have fed them breakfast first!Mike was patiently assisting (and sometimes doing it himself) the construction. You can see MJ's hammer poised for the future destruction of the house.

Annabelle's famous say "cheese" face!Here's the tree Christmas morning before the kids sat on the presents.MJ was ready to ride, he stood instead of taking the gifts off the back of the car.Annabelle just sat on them.I have no idea why I am posting this horrible picture of myself. We had matching pajamas, I could have just said that. Haha! I guess for me it is a bad idea to shower and go to bed with my hair wet. Pretty scary. Annabelle thought she could get into the baby cradle.

This is the Ugly Doll that Annabelle picked out for MJ.

Aren't those slippers adorable? Annabelle got into the gift opening. She was looking for something she could carry. Somehow she managed to find ones with her name on them. I don't know how.

This is her cow.

But the cow isn't nearly as fun as the plasma car when Daddy drives. I wish I had a picture from when Mike had MJ in front like this and Annabelle on his back.

I'm not sure how I got him to smile for me. But isn't he cute...and in desperate need of a haircut?Here are the houses, decorated, and ready for hammering.

Time for the demolition of the sugar cookie house. Looks like MJ had already knocked his over!

It didn't take MJ long! Annabelle got a little help eventually and they both ate their houses all day long. Once night fell, the houses made their way into the trash.

Annabelle got dress up hats from my parents for Christmas. They are absolutely adorable.

Another cheese face!

Anyway, we had a great Christmas. It was a bit strange not to see any family, but it was nice anyway. We hope everyone enjoyed the holidays.