Christmas in pictures . . .

After a yummy supper of deep dish pizza, we opened stockings and presents. Here is a picture post to show a little bit of our evening:

Happy little girl in front of the tree

Our tree with all the presents under it, and stockings on the wall

This is the best picture I got of the kids in front of the tree

Julia pulls the first present out of her stocking

Josiah thought the new wooden train tracks were very tasty!

Sam got the Sheriff car (from Cars) in his stocking (each of the kids got a different car).

The pizza set was a pretty big hit!

Sam tore open his big present and yelled, "A train set! A train set!!" (This was the one thing he wanted more than anything else.)

Checking out the train set and telling me all the cars that were in it

Looks like we have another little train fan on our hands!

The kids seemed to really like their gifts. The Cariboo game was a big hit with Sam and Julia--it's even easy enough for them to play together, by themselves! They already lost one of the balls for it, though--hopefully we'll be able to do a more thorough search tomorrow and find it. Sam was totally thrilled with his train, although it wasn't as high quality as Jim wished. At first it wouldn't even run, but then Jim took it apart and figured out they had soldered (not sure if I spelled that right) something wrong, which was causing a short circuit of some kind. He fixed it (thank goodness I have a handy husband!!) and now it works great. I know it is something Sam will enjoy for many years to come. It is fun to be able to start building his collection now. :)

Well, it's late and I'm tired, so that's all I'll write about our Christmas Eve. There will be lots more to write about in the coming week as we make our way to Ohio and celebrate with family there! I don't know if I'll have time to blog again before we leave, so if not I'll probably write something while we're out there. Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and many good times shared with family and friends!!!