Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and All of That Other Good Stuff

Now that the hubbub of the holidays has finally died down a bit and we're back into our day-to-day routine, I wanted to post a few pictures of our time with our families. It was just as wonderful as I expected it would be: great food (and too much of it!), good memories, and the boys got more than they knew what to do with. This year was our year to visit Michael's family in Missouri, and the boys had a great time playing with their cousin, Dresden. We tried really hard to get a picture of the three of them in front of the christmas tree together, but as you can see from the picture, Ben and Drew never stay in the same place for very long. So, this is as good as it got. You may think that this picture didn't quite turn out. But when I saw it, all I could think was "wow, that's exactly how Ben looked while opening his presents! Needless to say, he had a ball and was a whirlwind of motion. True to his personality, Drew had fun opening his presents too, but he was much slower and cautious, taking his time and studying the paper and bows very carefully. In Centralia (Michael's hometown) they have a tradition that I just love. Every christmas morning Santa Claus goes through the whole town riding on the back of the firetruck (complete with lights and sirens!) passing out goodie bags to all of the children that come out to see him. It's really such a neat thing to see all the kiddos running down the street as soon as they hear the sirens getting closer to their house, and even more special as I think about a tradition that Michael had when he was a little boy passed down to our boys. So, of course, we bundled the boys up and took them out to see Santa. Then, when we got back from Missouri we had a couple of days before my parents came up to celebrate christmas and new year's with us. Once again, there were more presents than anybody deserved and we had a great time being together. We were so wrapped up (no pun intended!) in watching the boys with their presents that we really forgot to take very many pictures. But here's one that captures it all. Ben is saying "oooooohh" -- which is one of their two favorite words right now (the other one is "uh-oh") -- at a present that Drew just opened. Everything about watching them during this time was special and really cute. And this is our family picture. We tried to get Reagan in the picture too, but she was much too busy with her own presents to stop and pose.We are so blessed! Not just because of all the stuff, but because we had such wonderful family members to share it with. We hope you all had as great a time with your family and had a fun New Year's too!!!