Christmas Vacation part 1

I'm back!  Mom called and told me I need to update my blog, so here I am!  We had a wonderful two weeks of Holiday vacation, family and just down-time.  It has been very nice, and sadly, comes to an end tonight as we anticipate going back to regular schedules of school and work.  After several weeks of 16-hour days for Steve, it was nice to have him home and all to ourselves.  Our camera broke on Christmas Eve (nice timing, eh?).  But thankfully we had family coming into town, so we had our very own family photographer for Christmas.  So here are some of our Christmas memories for 2008...

Christmas Eve included playing in the snow, eating pizza, watching "The Santa Claus 2", and  acting out the nativity.  Sydney was Mary, of course, who rode the donkey (me) into Bethlehem but didn't want to get off when she got there.  Mary also had  the wise men a little disgruntled because she wouldn't stay around when they were trying to present their gifts to the baby Jesus.  The kids then decorated cookies for Santa.  Unfortunately, due to the broken camera, this is the only picture I have of Christmas Eve, but it's a good one.  This is Tyler's note to Santa...

At about 11:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve we had visitors arrive!  Steve's sister Julie, her husband Rich and daughter Melissa, and Ann and Jay!  We feel so lucky that they would fly all the way out here, in the snowy weather on Christmas Eve to be with us!  What a blast!  So, thanks to Rich and Ann for all of the great pictures!  How sad we would be without them!  

Christmas morning brought very excited children (not only did Santa come, but lots of fun visitors as well!)  it also brought excited parents, for the children slept until 7:30!!! (Except for Tyler who came in at 3:30 wondering if it was time to go down and see what Santa brought...thankfully he went back to bed!)

Sydney was trying to figure out what was going on, where did all of these people come from, and what about all the new toys!  Santa brought her a kitchen, she seemed to be in shock for quite some time, look at the expression on her face!

Steve made his traditional Cinnamon rolls and Melissa was happy to help.

Uncle Jay is a favorite among nieces and nephews, here he is (though you can't actually see him in these pictures) helping Sam and Sydney with their tops. 

Eagerly awaiting the opening of the Santa gifts...

I love the excitement on Sam's face, and the air that Tyler caught in the next picture.  We have another picture similar to this from last year.  Tyler gets really excited for everyone at Christmastime.

Here is Julie, Melissa and Ann... again, what a treat for us to have them here.
Tyler enjoying one of Dad's gigantic cinnamon rolls (they were huge this year!!)

We spent much of Christmas building with Legos as this is all any of the boys wanted.  Here are the completed projects.
More to come from our Christmas vacation later (aren't you so excited!)...