I hope that everyone is looking forward to Christmas as much as we are these days!! We are on our way to finishing all of our shopping and I hope to have the gifts all wrapped sometime this week. Phew!

We had a lovely weekend. On Saturday we braved the crowds and did a little shopping (and wine tasting) before Joe, Jen and AJ came over for a visit. Benjamin was beside himself to have his best bud in the house!! We went out to eat at a new-ish place in town, Paradise Pete's. If you're reading this and you're local, I highly recommend a visit. After a rocky first couple of months, they have really improved their menu and we had a fabulous meal. The boys came home and played until they practically passed out. Then they both woke up in the morning and did more of the same. They had a great time.

Today we did a little more shopping and even fit in a quick visit with the Santa at our local mall. I must say, he's a pretty authentic Santa and Benjamin was very impressed. We almost had to drag him away!!

I uploaded a few pictures onto flickr from both today and also the past couple of weeks. We've had a few snowstorms this December already. Our first happened during our last visit to the Twin Cities (see last post), so we weren't home to shovel before the snow was covered with a hearty layer of ice. The pictures of Benjamin in the snow are from the Monday after the storm. Mike came home during his lunch hour so we could shovel out the driveway. We haven't received a significant snowfall recently, but I'm sure there will be more to come.

Good luck to those of you with lots of shopping left!! And in case we don't get back before the holidays...Merry Christmas!!