Christmas....FINALLY!

We spent Christmas here in Memphis this year. We just couldn't fork over the $1500 it would cost us to fly home. And I don't do double digit hour road trips home with 2 small children. We asked everyone to come visit us, but no one took us up on the offer. Snif snif. Only kidding. Nathan's sister had a baby the day after Christmas, obviously eliminating that side of the family and my parents came up for Jack's birthday. All in all, it was kind of nice to have just the 4 of us spend Christmas together. Christmas Eve we went to church for a children's service, but still spent most of it in the hallways with one kid or another. Then we went over to some friend's house for a Christmas Eve party. I took only one sad picture the whole night. Here it is...Jack eating a Christmas cookie before church.

See, I told you it was sad.

We didn't really pump up the whole Santa idea this year. I think he is still a little too young to understand and besides, we have all been too sick to play pretend. (Katelynn brought home a nasty cold/bronchilitis/junk that spread to everyone but Nathan. It has lasted about 3 weeks in the house and is now spreading to all of our friends!). Jack also found every single gift I bought him. I would hide them in our closet and then be doing something during the day and he would walk out with one of his presents. Apparently I underestimated Jack's toy hunting abilities and need to step up the gift hiding. So Christmas morning he woke up about 7:30 and we ran out to find gifts he had already found in the past weeks! But he was still excited to see them because now he was allowed to open them!

At first Jack was a little cautious about opening the gifts, after all, for the last month I have been telling him not to open them. Now we get to open them all? Very confusing message for a 2 year old. But once he got the hang of it, he was a man on a mission and throughly enjoyed the gift opening process.

Jack is helping Daddy open his present from him, a remote control motorcycle. They both share a love for things with wheels!


Jack is helping me open my gift from Daddy - diamond earrings! He wrapped them in a large box to throw me off the scent...

Nathan opening his Wii

Little bit wanted to capture the moment too..."must get that camera!"

Owen was in the mix of all the Christmas chaos. Rigby, however, just decided to hide herself in a blanket and catch some more zzz's. Why bother herself with this maddness?





He's a car hoarder. What can I say?

Baby girl loves her gifts!

Jack had to get this out of the box immediately!

Katelynn with a high chair full of toys.

So we attempted to get a picture of the kids in their Christmas jammies, and this was out best shot. Jack was not having it. There were toys to play with people!

So we had to compromise and take an action shot of the 2 of them.

After presents, we (meaning me) made a huge Christmas lunch. One of Nathan's co-workers came over to enjoy it with us. He brought 2 huge bags of presents for the kids so we had Christmas all over again. I forgot to have Brian take a family picture of us while he was here :( . Jack spent the rest of the day playing with all of his new wheels, Katelynn chewed on her toys, and we played Wii to burn off some Christmas lunch calories. It was a great day. We missed the family, but enjoyed making some new memories with our little family.