Christmas pictures

Gotta love Christmas jammies...especially ones like the girls have on that I got for super cheap at Carter's at the Greene after last Christmas. They have snowmen on them and Jake's is a Star Wars theme.

Since we had the privilege of having John and Amy with us at Christmas, we only opened a few of the gifts at our house before leaving to go to my parent's house. We had a nice morning with the "York" Kanost's...

and the newly married, Rickert's, before they left for Chicago!

Jake opening his Storm Troopers mask. This was one I brought from home. I thought he and Jonathon and Matthew might like to play with it. (This was another steal...I found it brand new at a thrift store. The packaging was all torn up and the actual pieces needed to be put back together, but the thing worked in the store and I only paid $5 for it! I saw them at Target for between 30 and 40 bucks)!
Turns out my three year old loved it just as much!

Annual Christmas shot with the hubby.

Always a pleasure partying with the *Tueys* later in the afternoon. Here is Sarah and her loverly daughter, Libby. It was such a nice picture, I had to include it.

*They are really called the Coutures, but for anyone who doesn't know the story...when Joel Couture became Dr. Couture, Jake was just a youngster. When he tried to say his name, it came out "Da-er Tuey." And the name Tuey just stuck (although the spelling is up for debate).

Some of the party guests just chillin' after a big, delicious meal.

Grandma Kanost in her "spot." Love that she can make it every year.

I think he loves me?

I know he loves her!

I know I love these two "Uncle-Matt posers."

No idea?? But they were having fun.

Matthew was pretty fond of his Slinky he got as a prize from one of the games.

Libs and Claire...texting already?

Christmas tree pictures

I know these are late by about a month (seems to be my blogger pace), but better late than never. Right?

My mom offered her tree to us a couple of years ago since we have a high ceiling in the living room. As you can see from the picture below, it is a 9 footer. We decided to take her up on the offer this year and planned on trading trees. For the past few years, she has not utilized all the parts of the tree and only had it be a 7 footer. So, the trade seemed perfect. Only...it wasn't. Sorry, mom. Apparently, a section of our pre-lit tree wasn't lit. I had forgotten that Dan had to string up one strand of lights on it last year to make up for the malfuntion. Well, the point of the trade for my mom was that she really liked the idea of a pre-lit one, as hers was not (again, see picture below of Dan stringing lights). The other quality of our tree that I do like, my mom did not. My mom is a lover of colored lights and our tree had white lights. I, on the other hand, even though I grew up with colored lights, prefer white lights. I just came to this conclusion this year since we decided to try colored lights. I think white lights make the tree pop out more, including the ornaments. And this may sound strange, but the colored lights make me feel sleepy??? Or maybe mezmorized is the right term??? So, the solution...we offered my mom her tree back. Only she really still liked the idea of a pre-lit tree, so she found one...that has colored lights and rotates! Here are some shots of our decorating night...which we actually got done early this year - the day after Thanksgiving! I think that is a record for us.

Claire got a little candy cane happy.

The placement of this nutcracker makes me laugh.

A new ornament...Jake and Lydia decided to hand craft some ornaments at home. This was a mighty big one that I often moved to a less prominent place throughout the season. I lost that battle. You can spot it in the center of the tree in the picture below. Mom just laughed as that scenerio brought back memories.