Christmas 2011

The Christmas decorations are almost all put away; the tree is by the curb awaiting the yard waste truck. Even though our house is returning to its normal appearance, the memories of Christmas are still alive and well.

We had a fantastic Christmas this year (and hope you did, too) and are feeling so blessed that we saw many of our family members over the holiday. Eric's parents arrived on Christmas Eve. We played games, chatted, ate our traditional Christmas Eve dinner (aka breakfast for dinner ... this year, we had Eggs Benedict), and read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" as a family before going to bed.

Reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas"

Leaving cookies and milk for Santa

We awoke Christmas morning to find that Santa was very kind to us. Our stocking were overflowing with goodies, and we had more than enough presents under the tree. The kids were charged with excitement and could hardly contain themselves. Annika offered to "help" everyone open their gifts ... she's such a giver!! There was plenty of mayhem going around, but it was such fun to see both of our kids really getting into the excitement of the day.

Conor unwrapping his loot

Annika modeling her new husky hat/scarf combo

The prized gift of Christmas ... the kids are learning a great lesson in sharing with this one!

By late morning, Eric's folks were on their way home and we began preparing for wave 2 of Christmas ... my side of the family. We hosted both of my brothers and their families and my mom. We had a feast fit for a king (including an amazing prime rib that my brother Troy made).... ok, maybe the yorkshire pudding wasn't quite up to snuff, but that's what happens when I forget to put the flour in until after the pan is in the oven and then we try to whisk some in to save the mess. (Thanks to my sister-in-law, Staci, for jumping in so fast and helping with the frantic whisking! I think we could enter any synchronized whisking contest this side of the Mississippi and take 1st place!)

After dinner, we opened more presents and solved all of the world's problems (and probably created a few new ones!)

Annika unwrapping her gift from her cousins, Kat and Ian

Annika demonstrating how to use her new "bin-nock-cleeears"

The only downside to Christmas was Eric getting called into work at 9:00 PM. A windstorm had come through the area Christmas morning and it caused some power outages/surges in the region... one of which was at the company Eric works for. He and the ISP guy wound up putting in plenty of hours trying to get the systems all up and running again before people had to return to work. Fortunately, he was called at 9:00 PM instead of 9:00 AM on Christmas.... this kept him home for the day's festivities, at least.