Christmas Day!

Our first Christmas in Sweden. Our first Christmas without the extended family. It was strange, not to have everyone around. But it was also kind of nice. We stayed in our pajamas all day. All Day. It was a very laid back day. No rushing around. Hardly any chaos at all. That being said - I give to you Our Christmas!

Santa brough Lilli a play kitchen.

Santa brought Tipton a green light saber and the General Grievous Star Wars Legos that he wanted.
And then there were the Christmas stockings... Tipton tore into his and was all excited to see everything it contained.
Thr first thing Lilli pulled out of her stocking was a Kinder egg. She stopped right there and immediately started opening the egg.
Then she started eating it.
Meanwhile Tipton kept pulling the toys and treats out of his stocking.
Lilli pulled out a few more things, but mostly she just kept eating the chocolate egg.
Daddy and Tipton decided to put together the General Grievous star fighter.

Lilli took a break from the chocolate to play with a dolly that Santa left in her stocking. The dolly is dressed like a chef, so Lilli took her over to her new kitchen to play.

The boys kept working on the lego star fighter.
Lilli finished the egg and moved onto her chocolate snowman.
The boys kept working on General Grievous star fighter.

After the stockings were emptied and the star fighter was completed, we had breakfast. I made french toast - with Julbrod. (Christmas bread - it tasted kind of like pepparkakor!) Despite all the chocolate Lilli had devoured earlier in the morning, she managed to eat an entire plate full of french toast.

Tipton ate several plates of french toast.
And here's me, making all that french toast.

After breakfast it was time to open the presents!

As seems to be a tradition, the first present that Lilli opened was from Cousin Donna. And as usual, it was the Biggest hit - Elmo!

Tipton got several new books - more Magic Treehouse books, a couple of choose-your-own adventure books, and some Fisher Price beginning reader books.

Lilli got some accessories for her kitchen from Grandma Suzie.

We had a very game-filled Christmas. Tipton opens the first game, Monster Match.

Lilli gave me a smoothee machine. It's pretty much just a blender with a tap, but I love it - as does Lilli. Every morning for breakfast she begs for "moodeees!"

Tipton got some new computer games.

He also got an Optimus Prime transformer.

Daddy got some 'days of the week' socks from Tipton (just like Tipton's!)

Daddy got some new jammies from Lilli.

Lilli got some new books from Grandma Suzie.

Tipton was thrilled with his new pokemon card book and all the packages of pokemon cards - including a Big pack.

The Scotts (Ian, Sam, Selena and Aaron) gave Lilli a wooden, nesting Russian doll, which she loves.

Lilli got a couple more dollies - she loves her dollies.

The Killmeyers (Chris, Amy, Mark, Leanne and Karen) gave Tipton Labyrinth Junior - a game he had been dying to play.

Tipton was so excited about the Star Wars Lego shirt from Grandma Suzie that he immediately put it on.

I gave Dave a new bathrobe (since we hadn't been able to find his old one since moving to Sweden.) He was very happy.

Tipton was very excited to get "Ace" - a character from Planet Heroes - from Grandma Suzie.

One of the biggest hits this Christmas were the Fritos that Donna sent. (Mmmmmm - clam dip!)

Dave was very happy to get the Stephen Colbert book from my Mom.

In addition to games, we got many puzzles this Christmas. Tipton got a Peter Pan puzzle.

More kitchen accessories from Grandma Suzie. Lilli especially liked the matching hat and apron.

Lilli got some Kid K'nex (so maybe she'll leave Tipton's alone.)

And it just wouldn't be Christmas if we didn't play a few games. Here Lilli and I are getting ready to play the Snail's Pace game that she got for Christmas.

Of course we had the traditional Christmas dinner of turkey, two kinds of stuffing, two kinds of potatoes... We had forgotten to bring back a box of the Uncle Ben's Wild Rice to stuff the turkey with, but I was able to find a recipe for it online. And I still had several boxes of Stove Topt stuffing that Jenni had brought me earlier in the year. I made mashed potatoes and found a sweet potato to bake for Dave. I must tell you that I picked out the smallest sweet potato I could find. Here's Dave holding it.

We cut it into thirds and cooked it forever, and it still didn't cook all the way through. I have never seen such gigantic sweet potatoes - and like I said, this was a SMALL one!

In the afternoon we called home. My sister, Christine, hosted Christmas this year. So I called there and got to talk to her and my other sister, Melany. They relayed my Christmas wishes to Mom (who can't hear on Christine's phone.) Then we called Dave's parents. We were able to call them over the computer, so we could see them and they could see us (because we've both got little cameras - don'tcha just love modern technology?) The kids were very excited to see Grandma Kay and Papa, and also Great Grama (who was there.) Later on we called back and got to see/talk to Cousin Donna. I think Dave even managed to get ahold of his brother, John, for a few minutes.

It was a good Christmas. A little sad in that we were so far from our families. But it was nice to be just the four of us - relaxing. We carried on as many of the family traditions as we could (like clam dip, two kinds of stuffing, working puzzles and playing games) as well as creating a few new ones (like staying in our jammies all day.)