On the fifth day of Christmas, Aunt Laurie gave to me...

Playing under the covers

Christmas morn

'Twas the night before Christmas...

Christmas Eve eve

Papa Dana's comin' to town...

Leslie's dad came to deliver Christmas presents to the boys last night and stayed for dinner with us.

They only got to open one present each, but they played with them all night long. Thanks Dana & Kathy!

Bunco babes

You know they have a great relationship when:
1. Leslie's comfortable asking my mom to borrow some of her clothes for an ugly Christmas sweater party...
2. And Mom's not even offended!

We'll leave the light on for ya

Multi-tasker

Look — I can go potty and sing "We Three Kings"!

(I stopped taping before Landon was done with his business, so you don't get to see him flush, look down into the toilet and say, "Bye-bye pee-pee...")

Zeal

So I'm standing at the kitchen sink this morning (cleaning up yet another bowl of spilled cereal), when I notice this in our fruit bowl right in front of me.

I was just at one of the Zeal citrus farms in California on Tuesday! Here's Greg Thonesen (in the red cap) and my co-workers touring his fields!

I immediately said to Jackson, "Oh my gosh, do you see this Zeal orange? Do you know where it came from?" And he said, "...New Zealand?"

• • •

Then after church, we stopped at Hy-Vee to see even more. Sure enough, they're a special sale item this week (here on the front page of the Hy-Vee ad), just like Greg told us.

Lauritzen Botanical Gardens

See the railroad bridge going right through this huge "tree"?

Their poinsettias were all grown in the garden's greenhouses and included multi-hued, splotched, ruffled, deep red, pale yellow and blush pink varieties.

Several model trains whirred and whistled on about 500 linear feet of track, around dozens of miniature Omaha landmark structures — all constructed of natural materials.

Friday night fun

Know A California Farmer — Fresno