Sunday, January 2, 2011

Christmas 2010

It feels like we spend months preparing for Christmas and then it is over before you know it. I'm not sad though because we had a wonderful week with family. We traveled to my parents house on Christmas Eve and stayed through New Years Eve.

We managed to fit all the important things in this year, but a little condensed... we didn't cut down a tree this year, but we did get a tree! We didn't make cookies, but we did eat them! See, all the important things happened.

And, it got decorated (these days simple accomplishments are celebrated).


The boys saw Santa to make their requests.

Ryan would only get as close as necessary to get his candy cane... and not a bit closer!

Grandma an Grandpa's tree was a bit more impressive than ours. I'm glad I wasn't there when it came in the house... YIKES!

This year all six grandchildren were there Christmas morning. It was very exciting... and very loud!
I was up before the kids and eagerly waited for them to wake up. Tyler was the first downstairs. He sat down next to me, looked under the tree, sighed and said "well, I guess I didn't get coal!" No Ty, you didn't, but it was a close call!
Ryan really got into things this year. He knew that "Sinta" was coming and was bringing presents.


Ryan's obsession with "Saucy no man" reached a fevered pitch last week much to the dismay of the adults in the house. Did you know that there are three Frosty movies? There is the original "Frosty the Snowman," "Frosty Returns" and Santa brought Ryan "The Legend of Frosty." He could not have been happier and proceeded to watch it multiple times each day. Ugh!


Little Leah had no idea what was going on, but she was happy as always hanging out with Grandma watching all the fun.

Tyler has been asking for a pillow pet for almost a year and was very excited to receive it. Both boys love their pillow pets. Other favorite gifts included a telescope, glow in the dark stars, moon in my room, a lego alarm clock and a hex bug for Ty. Well, the lego alarm clock was a favorite. He brought it with him room to room, changed the channels and generally didn't let it out of his sight for 2 days. And then Monday morning happened and the alarm went off. Tyler looked at that clock like he had been betrayed. "Why did it do that mom?" he asked in a hurt voice. Hahaha!


Here was the scene after all the gifts were open. The scary thing is that most of the wrapping paper was bagged already.

We did attempt a family picture before heading out to see our extended family. I'm thinking it will be another 5 years before we can get everyone looking forward, with their eyes open and smiling. Oh well, that's the fun of it, right??

Christmas with the whole family present was a gift. We enjoyed ourselves through Sunday... and then it happened... It seems we can't escape some sort of illness when we are all together and this year was no exception. Tyler woke Dan and I up at 1:00am Sunday night/Monday morning saying he didn't feel good. Unfortunately he waited a bit too long and proceeded to get sick all over the room. Then Leah got sick, then Nora and then Ava. Yes, that is 4 out of 5 kids in the house with the stomach bug at the same time!! Aaaaaaahhhhh! It was so bad that it was somewhat humorous. Dad covered the entire family room with a blue tarp and we had buckets scattered around the room. It was quite a sight. Luckily Ryan and I escaped the ick. I think I got lucky because of my booster shot. And, Ryan may have had this particular illness a few weeks ago. Phew! The rest of the adults did get a milder version of this bug, but luckily didn't get as sick as the kids.
We all recovered and made the best out of the rest of the week. We explored a science museum, a children's museum and had a shopping day before heading home.
I discovered that Ryan learned the magic of Grandma while we were away. This morning he asked me for "bekfast" multiple times. I was finishing an article in the paper so I didn't oblige him right away. So finally he stopped asking for breakfast and instead asked for Grandma. Yes Ryan, you are right... Grandmas are much more responsive than mommies!

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