epiphany.

so our little family does things a bit differently for christmas.  i'll come back to this.  first let me explain what epiphany is.
some people celebrate the twelve days of christmas.  it doesn't begin until christmas day.  so day one is december 25, and the twelfth day is january 6 (something about the calendar, and i don't know why it's really 13 days though).  it is known as epiphany.  it is celebrated in lots of places as the day the wise men brought gifts to Jesus.
so we decided before we had kiddos that we would do gifts on epiphany as a family.  we also decided that we would only do three gifts a piece (since that is what Jesus got as well).  it's a fun little tradition that brings the budget way down, causes us to be creative, and helps us to stay focused on what we are celebrating.
we also fudge it to work out on a saturday so we can all be home for the whole day.  so even though it's a day early, we celebrated epiphany today, and opened presents as a family.  the girls each got a pair of pajamas, books (we count these as one even though there was more than one book), and a bike of sorts.
jason and i don't stick to the three for the two of us because we sometimes just choose one bigger gift.
so that's the long explanation of our holiday gift exchange.  and here are some pictures of us all celebrating. (just a fair warning, jason made me the best present ever.  if you are prone to jealousy then you shouldn't look through the pictures).

seriously. best. husband. ever.

stocking.

stocking.

stocking.

excited about books.

excited about books tissue paper.

sweet ride.

even has a basket and a bell.

i am waiting a few more days to see if anyone else comments on the last post, and then i will pick a winner from all of you awesomes.