Christmas & New Year's 2010

We have so few pictures from Christmas this year. I took pictures Christmas morning and then as we loaded the car for church I couldn't find the camera. We searched that night and pretty much every day following. This included opening every garbage bag and milling through the trash just in case it was pitched by mistake. Finally, we took one last look the following weekend after all Christmas decorations were put away. We even ripped apart the furniture and I dug down into our big cushion chair near the fireplace, I felt a string, pulled it out and sure enough it was the camera! I must have slipped it under the cushion and it worked it's way into the chair. So although we missed out on all the Christmas pics from Christmas day and beyond, the good news is we now have the camera back. So, here are the ones from Christmas morning....



We did things a little differently this year. Since the kids are getting a little older, we wanted to spend Christmas morning at home. So, Jeremy's parents, sister Kelly and Grandma came over to watch the kids open gifts. It was really fun. We had coffee and coffee cake and Pop-pop manned the screwdriver for all toy assembly!

Carter got a metal excavator that he could build himself with real tools. Somehow he ate toast instead and Pop-pop did a lot of the building. Carter sorted parts. He and Jeremy are going to finish it sometime soon....it's more of a project than Santa realized!

Leah got a new doll stroller...AGAIN! She keeps asking for one each year and this is now her third one. Her brothers use them like a truck and somehow the first two have broken. I'm hoping this one holds up.

Brooks got a new alligator.

Elliot helped Pop-pop work on the excavator too.

Brooks got a rocking horse and Carter's favorite gift, a cowboy rifle and pistol. He calls them his "gun shooters".

Here's Aunt Kelly trying to feed Brooks, who was more interested in playing with toys than eating breakfast.

It was a really nice morning at home. We went to 11am mass, which was beautiful and much less crowded than the Christmas Eve masses. I didn't like the music as well though. I kind of missed the traditional Christmas songs. From there, we spent the afternoon at my parents' house. My brothers came in from out of town so it was the first year we were all together on Christmas in forever!

The day after Christmas, we went to Jeremy's parents and had a "Christmas morning" with his side of the family. We at brunch, which was delicious and did a gift exchange. The kids played in the snow for a good portion of the day and we went to Jeremy's uncle's house that night for dinner.

It was a much easier pace this year and I enjoyed getting to visit more with the family without rushing around. We spread out the festivities and it worked great! Jeremy had a lot of v/c left so he was off most of the last two weeks of the year. Since the kids were off school too, we did a lot of fun things as a family. We took Carter and Leah skiing for the first time ever. They did so great and aside from a few meltdowns on the slope, it was really fun. David gave us a ski harness for the kids. It worked well and helped give Leah the confidence she needed right away. It also saved my back b/c there's a handle to pick them up with when they fall. We're looking forward to getting back out there again...just need to find a cheap way to take four kids skiing.

New Years was uneventful, went to bed before midnight....we're getting old!! We were supposed to go to a party with the kids but it didn't start till 8, which meant a really late bedtime for them, so we scrapped it and stayed home. It was still nice and we weren't exhausted the whole next day. So, we're getting kind of lame I guess! Happy New Year!

Now we're on to 2011... looking forward to a great year!