Love, Life, and Lessons with the Kinzenbaws: Christmas....What???

Haha! So I am just now writing about Christmas...you might be thinking, is she crazy? Christmas was almost a month ago, it is a new year! I realized that but it has been BUSY! With a trip to Puerto Rico and Evan turning 3 and starting to finish our basement (posts about all of this to come!), I am lucky to just get the day to day stuff done around here. Anyways, we had a lovely Christmas. It was kind of strange having no snow but I am not complaining about the great weather we had for travel. We went to the farm (Mickey's family) for a few days before Christmas, Mickey had to work Christmas Eve so it was just me and the kids at home, had Christmas morning at home just the four of us along with going to church, then up to Ames with my dad's side of the family for dinner. On the 26th, we headed to the QC for the annual hotel get together with my dad's side of the family. My grandma gets us all hotel rooms for 2 nights so we can all just hang out. It is such a fun tradition. Ok, enough about our schedule, let's get to the good stuff!

Some of our favorite things about this holiday season:

Evan starting to understand what Christmas is really about: Jesus!
Alea being old enough to enjoy the activities a little bit!
Evan being in the Christmas program at church-he laughed midway during Silent Night and got the whole church to start laughing!
Hosting a "Homes of Light" with my two wonderful friends Erin and Sarah, it is a women's evangelistic outreach event that was so much fun.
Pizza & Game night at my parent's house with my brothers, grandma, and aunts and uncles.
Making mint cookies with Evan.
Decorating our new, huge tree as a family.
Having to go down Frosty Lane and Gingerbread Lane (two streets by our house that go all out with outside decorations) every single night if we were out and about!
Eating Old Oma's yummy feast in Amana and Evan being the gift giver to everyone during present time. ( and basically opening everyone's gifts for them)
There are too many more to list!

Some of our favorite presents from the holiday season:
Mickey- skis, a fresh supply of several travel coffee mugs (since he loses them throughout the year), a French press, and a tent (for him to Ev to camp out in this summer)
Mandey-IPAD2 (wow, loving that thing), sewing machine (can't wait to learn how to use it and get started making some things), TOMS shoes, a new hairdryer (desperately needed), Tervis coffee mugs, and the most comfy pj's and cute red shoes
Evan-IPAD2 (haha, he thinks it is his, he didn't get his own, let me assure you), CARS Memory game, CARS 2 and Lion King movies, kids camera, pretend cash register, Cars couch that folds into a bed, and a sled that we haven't been able to use yet!
Alea- 1st dollhouse, cow pillow, and pretty much the gift bags, tissue paper, and wrapping paper! haha!
We were so blessed with wonderful gifts this year, thanks to our generous and giving families!

Below are some various pictures of our holiday season!