A Holly Jolly Christmas

This past weekend we were able to celebrate Christmas with Michael's side of the family. MawMaw and PawPaw braved the terrible Midwest weather and came to see us...although it was warm here until they came, so we think they must've brought the cold winter weather with them. ;) We took them to see the lights at the Opryland Hotel; something we like to do every year. We missed going last year, though, so this was the first time the boys really enjoyed it. Here are our little guys in front of the HUGE christmas tree of lights....or as Drew and Ben kept saying "the BIG wock-et". Try as we might, we couldn't convince them that it was a Christmas tree. It was definitely a rocket to them. The Grandparents and the boys behind one of the waterfalls.
Here is our best attempt to get a family picture. Unfortunately for me they were much more interested in running as fast as they could all over the place than posing for a photo-op.

And then we capped off the evening with cookies while looking at the twinkle lights. Of course, they each just had to pick out their own cookie, and no one was surprised that they each picked out a sugar cookie topped with a huge snow-ball sized mound of icing, complete with red and green "pwink-uls" on top. Needless to say the sugar rush that ensued was more than us four grown-ups could handle in a place that big.
We decided that since it was rainy and cold on Saturday that we'd just have our own version of Christmas morning. I made us all breakfast and we all exchanged presents. Ben had a great time opening everyone's presents, while Drew really enjoyed playing with whatever had just been opened.
Here they are playing with two of the new games that Dressie, Aunt Chelle and Uncle Dan gave them: Lucky Ducks and Splish Splash Fish. Both are cute little games that they have had a ball playing with.
But for sure the biggest hit of all was a choo-choo train that MawMaw and PawPaw gave them. They both love choo-choos, and have played with it almost non-stop. I wouldn've put a few more pictures of them tearing into all the boxes and paper, but somehow I ended up in all of the pictures the boys are in. And let's just be honest, there's no need for the whole world to see me in my pj's with no make-up and bed-head. We'll try to do better when we do Christmas again next weekend.

It was a great weekend, and my buddies are taking looong naps to recover from all the fun. The only thing that was missing was Dressie, Aunt Chelle and Uncle Dan who weren't able to come this year. We sure did miss you!!!

That's about all we have going on for now. Thanks for checking in on us....more Christmas pics to come soon!