Christmas

I finally get to my Christmas pictures here, yeah! Sorry for my late updates, I just don't have the energy to get to my computer where all the pictures are stored on. I thought I had more time doing PC work during the kids' winter break but somehow these 2 weeks just flew by!

Anyway, Santa Claus deposited all his gifts at the fire place for the kids on Christmas Day. Olivia was happy to receive 3 more unicorn ponies for her family.

and she got a nice feathery dress up hat that she wanted so bad and never wore it since this picture was taken ... :-(

..but she got a cute beanie hat that has two openings in the back for her piggy tails. Olivia absolutely loves this hat! (yeah!). And she got a round scarf neck thing that she loves, too. Finally a 'scarf' that stays put!

Jonah got a light saber sword (or something) . It lights up and makes noises and of course a week later it is broken already :-(

And there were more presents from us under the tree

We celebrated Christmas Day at our house with the entire Gates clan. All together we were 17 people and we had 6 dogs. Thanks to a spacious house it never felt crowded. Everybody pitched in with food so we could eat from 11 in the morning to 8:30 pm when everybody left.

John, Chris' Dad, got this flying shark (sky swimmers). It is really amazing and is definitely fun to fly around. It can go up and down and right and left. You hold the remote in your hands and wiggle the tail fin to make it move forward, under the chin is a device that moves either between the flippers to make the shark lift up (forward) or it moves towards the mouth, makes it top-heavy and therefore let the shark swim down (backward on the remote). It is super quiet and it really looks like it is swimming through the air. For $40 a quite amazing toy!

At the bottom I have a video of the shark swimming through the house....

GreatGreat Gram (who is now 102.5 years old) was quite amazed to be able to skype with her daughter Deanna in New Jersey and see her grand and great grand kids over the computer. I honestly don't know if she really 'got it' that the PC was real life broadcasting but everyone thought it was a great idea to wish extended family a Merry Christmas!

Here's the shark swimming video.