Christmas Day

And there was the big day - Christmas Day, December 25th. The kids woke up excited and ready to run downstairs to see if Santa had eaten his snack and had left any presents. And yes, he had.
There were only crumbs left from the cookies and lots of presents under the tree and in the stockings.

The kids got to open their stockings right away and that was fun. Then we had to wait for the rest of the family to arrive to open the rest of the presents. To make that wait a little shorter we went outside to play in the snow that had fallen overnight. We made snow angels and had a snow ball fight.

And then we opened presents!

Wow, look at all those presents!

And here are our stockings!

Let's see what's in there

Lilly opening everything herself - it took some time :-)

Finn making snow angels

Getting ready for our snowball fight

Everybody here - let's open presents!

Enjoying our new presents

There is nothing better than a good book to read and comfy chair!

Christmas Eve

In Austria Christmas Eve (December 24th) is the big day - in the USA it is Christmas Day, December 25th.
Even though Christkind did not come on the 24th to Ben's family in the USA, we still had a very nice time. We all had pizza together for lunch and played outside after the kids nap. We then dressed up and went to church at 6pm to see Becky and her family light the last candle on the Advent wreath. The kids got to stay in the nursery and played.

We then went to the neighbor's house for their big Christmas party. Lots of people, great food, yummy drinks and a festive atmosphere. And then around 10pm Santa came to visit the party and everybody (little and big kids) got to sit on Santa's lap and got a present.

It was really nice. The kids got into their PJs just before and Lilly was super excited to see Santa. They got some great presents that kept them busy until the next day when they were allowed to open presents from under the tree.

And before we went to bed we laid out some cookies for Santa and made him some chocolate milk. The kids thought that was fun and Finn was determined that Santa only liked chocolate milk :-)

Dressed up for Christmas Eve

The girls playing the piano at the party

Lilly getting her present from Santa

Finn getting his present from Santa

Snack for Santa ready

And now hopefully we got see Rudolph at night....

Making a gingerbread house in Austria

I like to make gingerbread houses. Before we had kids, I used to do them with my nephews and nieces and now Finn and Lilly love to decorate them.
I bought a kit in Austria and one snowy Sunday morning, Ben and the kids worked on the gingerbread house. It turned out great and for the following weeks, Lilly kept walking by and liking off the icing and candy :-)

Hanging with the cousins

It is always fun to get the cousins together. Especially as we do not see them that often these days. 

They love to hang out and play - and can also get a little crazy sometimes :-)

Visit with Santa

On December 20th we flew to the US to visit Ben's family for Christmas. Everything went well with the flights (surprising with 2 toddlers of which one does not like to watch TV or sit still and no seat for her....) and the very next day we went to see Santa at the nearby mall.

I think it helps that our kids are used to seeing Nikolaus in Austria, so they were not afraid of seeing Santa. The opposite, they got super excited when we ran into Santa at the mall.

While playing Santa wondered by - Lilly nearly fell out of the car so excited she got

Waiting in line to sit on Santa's lap (not the red and yellow Puma sneakers Lilly chose to wear....)

Saying hi to Santa

I guess we are done here :-)

Snow

Here are just some impressions of the great snow we had at the beginning of December in Austria. It snowed for about 10 days on and off and it was just beautiful (except all the shoveling we had to do).

Ben and I also got to ski/ snowboard for the time of the season and we got to ski home, which is always a nice end of the ski day.

Drive to Alberschwende

My first powder line

Ben came down on the left

Good morning (view out our kitchen window)

Shoveling snow - a lot of it

Visits to the Christmas Market

And of course we had to check out the Christmas markets in the area while Barbara was there to visit. Here are some pictures:

The kids got to ride the train, the carousel, the pony. 

We made candles.

We drank Glühwein and ate almonds.

It snowed and was beautiful.

Finn making a candle at the market in Alberschwende

Lilly then of course wanted to make one as well

We met Emilia at the market

And then we met Philipp and his grandmother

When we went to Dornbirn to the market it was snowing again

The open fire was nice and warm

Finn riding on the pony

And of course Lilly too

Nice family picture

Watching the big kids ice skate

Barbara liked her Glühwein

Riding the kids train

And going to the carousel