Reising Family News: Another Christmas Survived

It's December 30 and we have survived another Christmas. It was an extremely exciting Christmas- since Tommy is no longer a constantly screaming, colicky newborn and Timmy got the whole Santa Claus thing and we watched him grow more and more excited about Santa coming- to our house! We left cookies & milk of course but this year, Timmy & I made a snack for the reindeer. I read that they love oatmeal flakes so we mixed some up w/ some cookie decoration candies (Timmy choose the small silver ball things as well as red & green sugar). Timmy woke up Cmas morning to realize that the reindeer DID love it but made a mess on our back deck eating it. "They are pretty messy, Mommy" Indeed they are.
It was also the first year we had Cmas in our NEW house- and hopefully the last house we will be celebrating in.
We started a new tradition in our new house for Cmas morning- we made cinnamon rolls and turned it into a "breakfast birthday cake" for Jesus. We lit a candle and sang happy birthday- it was another way to try to teach Timmy (and Tommy) why we have Cmas.
I took the boys to Wisconsin a couple of days later (we were delayed by one day due to weather-ended up missing the big celebration w/ my brothers, sister in law, nieces & nephews, Pops & Bev.... still trying to forgive Old Man Winter). We were able to spend the day w/ my dad & step mom and had a great time- despite the fact that their dog kept making moves on Timmy :) I was told the dog was fixed... must be something appealing about Timmy's scent or something. We spent both nights at my friend Leslie's. She has two boys (Jordan & Colby) who Timmy LOVES to play with and Tommy mostly watched since he couldn't keep up :) Since we missed Pops & Bev at the party, we stopped by and spent time with them. It was so wonderful to see everyone.
Back to reality and we are now getting ready to bring in the new year, new decade and to celebrate Tim's 40th bday!!!
Happy New Year!! (here are some pics...)