I just love this little girl! This year Amber wanted a Princess party.
First item on the agenda was dress up and playing in the cardboard castle in the basement.
Finally, the cake!
On Christmas Eve Chris's parents arrived along with his brother, Eric. We enjoyed our traditional Bethlehem dinner of fish, grapes, olives, pita, hummus, eggs etc. and then acted out the account of the birth of Christ. 
Some Christmas highlights this year were: New pajamas on Christmas Eve and homemade necklaces from Grandma Hansen on Christmas morning.
The gift with the biggest reaction was when I realized that the kids had given me a clarinet. After 18 years of not having a clarinet to play and wishing that I did so many times, my emotions got the better of me. It was probably a good 5 min. before I could even open it up. As soon as I saw the case I knew what it was and just started crying. Way to go kids, best gift ever!
But, the biggest surprise was when the kids opened the Wii gaming console. I have always said that we would never get a gaming system, but with some restrictions am actually looking forward to having a Wii. We have been enjoying family friendly games like Just Dance and Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader.
After opening gifts, the kids got dressed in their new duds and we all went to church, then took pictures afterward. We had a wonderful Christmas dinner (if I do say so myself) and then Chris' Dad had to go back to West Virginia for work.
On Monday, Grandma and I took the little girls to see a movie while the big kids (Eric and Chris included) went bike riding and had a Nerf war in the basement.
What a wonderful holiday, now it's time to take down the decorations and plan Amber's birthday party followed by a rocking New Year's Eve party to ring in the new year!
We recently watched one of the Spy Kids movies for family movie night and the girls picked up on the theme of the film and created their own spy game, which included using the kitty. I'm not sure what the kitty thought of that, but it's just a regular day in the Mattson household as far as everyone else is concerned.
Chris took this picture after a long day of shopping on my 36th birthday as an attempt to show my baby belly. At 16 weeks pregnant, most of the time my belly just looks like I had a big dinner and with all the holidays parties we've been too, that is mostly true. At 16 weeks, I have been feeling the baby move for a few days now and that's been real exciting.
Scary Mommy!
Amber with her friend.
Krystal, Delaney, and Janet stayed together to get candy.
Five of the Mattson cousins.
We read about Native American boys who have to pass a sort of right of passage test to achieve manhood as they reach a certain age. I guess for Jared you could say that age is 12 and that right of passage is that Mom finally let him shoot a real gun. Each year the guys at church get together and have a shoot out and now that Jared is 12 I just couldn't keep him from going. So, with Dad and his two grandfathers, he headed out to try his hand at several different weapons.
I would put more captions about each gun, but of course, I have no idea what they are.
Here is Grandpa Hansen shooting.
Grandpa Mattson looks on as Jared tries another gun. I think he had a lot of fun and his shoulder and arms were only sore for a few days after the experience.
What do 12 year old boys want for their birthday? A NERF gun fight! Jared invited his friends over on this beautiful Fall day for a capture the flag NERF fight. The boys had a blast.
Earlier in the day Jared had a soccer game. They played against a really tough team so he thought he would intimidate them by having black under his eyes. The team played really well.
Annual Easter Egg Hunt at the Buchinsky's
Clarissa and Cailin are ready for the hay ride.
So are the younger kids.
Off they go!
Amber hunting,
Krystal hunting,
Even Jared's not too old for the fun (yet).
Precious! Who knew that pure joy could be found in a plastic egg.
