The past few days have been a whirlwind of activity with Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and many, many inches of snow.

The kids got to play in the snow and then with their Pye-side cousins on Christmas Eve, and they've gotten to spend time with other family the past couple of days as well. They've decorated cookies with Minna, built a white chocolate "gingerbread" house with Grandpa Alan, made some origami birds, played a new board game with Grandpa Elliott and Katie, and, of course, they've eaten tons of food--even tried some new things like Welsh rarebit and lingonberries!

Last night we did our annual Christmas lights drive around the neighborhood (in the rain!).

We've kept up with our reading and are almost done with our current Hardy Boys mystery.

This afternoon John and NT got out the new microscope he got from Bob and learned how to use it. They looked at all kinds of things, including holly leaves, the water from the holly vase, Lizzy's ribbons, and some of my sourdough starter.

Tonight NT is at the Timberwolves game downtown with Grampy.