Christmas Morning

We woke up on Christmas morning (at a late 7:30 am!) to see what Santa brought!

Ayden was super excited about this play hut with a ball pit & tunnels!

A very tired mommy and daddy with our stockings.

Curious George went for a little ride in the new shopping cart.

Tour De Christmas Day 2

Christmas eve was the annual Monson Family get-together at Grandma & Grandpas. We ate the traditional norwegian fare of ham and potato dumplings, then went to the candlelight church service, then back to the house to open presents. Ayden did a great job even though he stayed up WAY past his bedtime.





Ayden and Grandma




Ayden would sing "Happy Birthday" whenever he saw a candle and blow them out!

Tour de Christmas Day 1

On the 23rd, I decided it would be fun to make sugar cookies with Ayden. He had lots of fun and would say "shake, shake, shake" anytime he was asked about making cookies. I guess the sprinkles were his favorite part.



Rolling out the dough:





Cutting out the shapes:Shaking on the spinkles:So proud of his cookies:Yummy!

A Visit with Santa

Or "HO HO" as Ayden calls him. We went in the afternoon last week, which was great because there was no line and Santa was able to talk with Ayden for a few minutes to get him comfortable. It started out with a high five and took time to get Ayden out of the stroller and onto Santa's lap. The picture isn't the greatest, but at least he's not screaming and running away!

Family pics

We had some family portraits done a few weeks ago. A woman at Ken's work is taking a photography class and needed some test subjects. We were more than happy for some free pictures. These are a few of the good ones. She also had some black and whites, but we don't have the CD for those yet. I'll post them as soon as we get them.

What a good helper!

One of Ayden's favorite things to do is "help" in the kitchen. Here are a couple of pictures from today when we were doing some holiday baking.

Right after I took this picture he took a bite out of the crisco stick - gross!

We have a big boy on our hands!

This weekend Ayden finally figured out how to pedal his little bike. He's been close for a while, but finally did it. He was pretty excited!

Here is a picture from last year when he first got the bike a little under a year ago:

And now:

Ayden also moved to a "big boy" bed. We took the front off of his crib and put up a little safety rail. He only got up once the first night and hasn't since. He thinks it's pretty cool that he can get in and out by himself. I think we were lucky the transition was so easy!