My Little Bit of Heaven on Earth: Christmas time...

Christmas time is one of my favorite times of the year...ok so it is my favorite!! I LOVE Christmas!! I love the decorations, the baking, the family time, the meaning, the presents, the snow, the lights, the look on the kid's faces, I JUST LOVE CHRISTMAS!!! This year was even better than the past because we were able to spend so much of it with family (despite that both Michael and I worked the holiday) and Sam was so much more animated and capable of comprehending the idea of opening presents! She was obsessed with Santa Clause...ok so really she still is and it's the middle of January! The first time she saw or heard of Santa was with my mom when she was at the mall, my mom said she was petrified of him...so a week or so later we went to get family pictures taken and decided to try our hand at Santa once more...we eased into see him and showed her how her little brother wanted to sit with him and she went right up and sat on his lap :) It was great! Getting a real smile out of that girl is another story, but that's not because of Santa it's because she's in this "I'm going to pretend like I'm smiling but really give you a cheesy look while you take my picture" stage. So remember how I told you she was still obsessed with Santa? Well cute story about that, every time she takes her shirt off she doesn't pull it all the way off her head so it kind of hangs off like a hat and she ALWAYS has to come up to me and say "look Mom I'm Santa Clause" with a huge grin :)

So on that note, here's our Santa shot for 2011, Eli didn't even realize a strange man was holding him I don't think :)

And then there is baking...mmmm...here's a few shots of my baking assistant for the year. Although her attention span is short and doesn't quite make it through the first batch cooking she sure does like to mix the dough...and like the beater of course (Mama taught her right!!) :)

This was a few shots from our Huffman family Christmas party, it was nice to be in town for once and be able to go!!

Here's a few shots of Christmas with the Chamberlins...

Papa got his new cell phone!

One of the many fake smiles of Samantha...

Nick and Benjamin

Molly...

Eli and Mommy with the train from Papa and Grandma

He was a little worn out from all the presents I think...

Our Christmas at home, Christmas morning bright and early...

Sam got "Po" in her stocking from the movie Kung Fu Panda which right now is her all time favorite movie/tv show...she LOVES "panda"

And her other fake smile...

Eli got a police motorcycle from Santa which he loves to ride on!!

Sam's bike from Santa

Sam's super cool animated doll (I think mom was more excited about this than she was)...she was actually pretty scared of this until we took it to Grandma's and Grandma and Makayla told her how cool it was! Now she likes it but still doesn't get too close, the waving arms scare her :oP