Merry Christmas from the Ankeneys!

Anxious for Santa to Come!!

Emma dressed Aliya up as Santa, and made
Jordan and elf so that William could sit on
Santa's lap and tell "him" what he wanted
for Christmas... SO cute.

Jordan-the-Elf has a purple sack full of toys

in case William has been a good boy this year

He got exactly what he wanted... a train made
out of toilet paper tubes!!

Are your cheeks washable, I wonder?

Let it SNOW!!!

December 12th we woke up to
our first snow of the season!!

We took our customary Sunday walk
to our neighborhood bakery in the snow...

And parked our sled in their sled racks

The wider you open your mouth
the MORE flakes fall in...right??

The kids made this little squatty
snowman all by themselves!

Getting ready for Christmas

Every year after Thanksgiving we get into
our pajamas and have hot chocolate with
marshmallows and candy canes while
we decorate the tree. The kids love to
open their ornament boxes and remember
the different Christmases that each
ornament represents. AND Geoff holds
court at his "ornament store" where kids
can get hooks for hanging up their things.

The "Ornament Store"

Getting ready for Christmas (cont..)

Emma discovered the recipe for Chex Mix
on the side of the cereal box and we decided
to make it this year! I made sure we had
all of the ingredients, but she read the directions
and made it pretty much all by herself! She
was surprised that it tasted "real"

Thanksgiving

I didn't get many pictures of our Thanksgiving
celebration...with the Baughman's here with us
and some friends from Geoff's work... we had a
great time. But I love this picture of Jordan watching
the turkey roasting...such expectancy! Almost like
Christmas!

On the Way Home

We stopped by King Ludwig II's castle on
the way home...he wasn't there. But we got
to see where he lived! This is the Neuschwanstein
Castle, which is the one that most closely resembles
the Disneyland castle.

This was taken from a bridge over a really
deep ravine that runs on the right side of the
castle. It's hard to imagine anyone living in
such an amazing place. It's also hard to imagine
how he got UP to his amazing place in the winter
time with only horses or wagons (or whatever
royalty used in Bavaria in the 1800's).