Christmas

Christmas has come and gone to some, although I still don't feel like Christmas is quite over. We had the best Christmas ever! I will start with the beginning of the week. On Monday I had a few friends over for a a couple hours just to chat. Three of them are in College and so we don't see each other very often. My "best friend" from 1st grade just loves Andrew and so I had to get a picture of her holding him.
I love Andrew's outfit in the above picture! It was sent to him from his friend Leah and has Pooh Bear on the bottom of his overalls. So cute! :)

We had a good week leading up to Christmas. We were so excited because being near family is SO much nicer than being 20 hours away. On Tuesday Andrew and I went shopping with my Dad and stopped at our favorite little restaurant that has the best milkshakes and onion rings. My Dad used to with his parents when he was little and then when he and I would go Christmas shopping, we'd stop there for lunch. We had lots of fun and had a successful trip. :)

On Wednesday Andrew and I went over my parents house while Scott was at work as my Uncle and his family had driven here from California for Christmas and was coming over to visit.

On Thursday Andrew and I went with my family to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader (the new Narnia movie) for the second time (went with Scott on Sunday). It is a very good movie, and we all had lots of fun! :)

As you can see, I'm REALLY enjoying being near my family for the Holidays! We made lots of cookies last week and watched some Christmas movies in between working on gifts and wrapping them.

On Friday I made my Mom's Cinnamon Rolls to bake on Christmas morning (they were DELICIOUS!), cleaned the kitchen, worked on gifts, and finished wrapping everything. We then went over to my parents' for a light dinner before going to the Christmas Eve service at our church. Since we were all dressed up, we took some pictures. I just LOVE how this picture of Mom and I turned out.

Mom's "Christmas shirt" has glitter on it and so needless to say, we all end up with glitter on us by the end of the day. :)

Rebekah is very patient in letting everyone else hold Andrew even though she herself is dying to hold him, so I make sure I try and get a picture of the two of them on the rare occasions that she is holding him (without anyone trying to "steal" him).

Christmas morning, I got up at 6am. The earliest I've gotten up and stayed up in a very long time! Well over 6 months, I'd say. But we did go to bed early (at 11:30) and we were very excited about Christmas! Here are our filled stockings. My Mom made the bear in Andrew's stocking. It has a little sheep's suit and is just adorable!!!! Scott is working on getting Christmas music playing.

And our tree, with gifts underneath it.

Before we opened our stockings, Scott read the Christmas story from Matthew. It was so nice. Andrew slept through everything, but he won't get away with missing it all next year! :)

I managed to snatch a picture of Scott starting to open his stocking, and that was all I got from all of our gift opening. Oh well, hopefully I'll do better next year! I'd better!

Here is Andrew, sleeping peacefully, with his stocking beside him. :)

We were at my parents' by 8 and had such a LOVELY time!!! We took our time opening the gazillion presents that were under the tree (okay, there weren't really that many, but there definitely was more than I've ever seen there). All seven of us "kids" had gifts for everyone, and those alone overflowed the tree, nevermind when Mom and Dad added their gifts for us! :) It was SO much fun and we just had the best time!!!!

Daddy and Andrew are "buddies". :) After seeing each other quite a bit over the past week, Andrew gets excited when he sees Grandpa!

There were several "large gifts" like the one pictured below. Colleen is helping Joe "unwrap" his gift from her and Will.

They made him a castle, and it is just the coolest thing!!!! I have no idea how they did such an incredible job with it. Joe loves it and has been having lots of fun with it!

My parents got me some new clothes (which I very much needed) and we got some really neat gifts from my siblings. Hopefully I can take some pictures of them and post them soon.

My parents and I surprised Scott with a Wacom Bamboo tablet for his laptop. I successfully sneaked his laptop into our car without him even getting suspicious. He had lots of fun "playing" with it and did his first full illustration.

About mid-afternoon we went over to Scott's parents' house and had a lovely afternoon and evening!

On Sunday we went back to my parents house (my cousins wanted to visit one last time before they left).

Here is Scott playing with his tablet and Andrew "hanging out".

Well, Andrew is ready to eat, so I must go. I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!