Christmas Evening

After all the Christmas festivities were wrapped up at our house and the food was baked we headed over to Adam & Camille's house to enjoy the rest of the day with them. Allison & Seth were also in town so they joined us .. along with Christie because Bill was working. Its really nice that we are all in the same boat and totally understand being away from family & crazy schedules & can enjoy the day together.

I didnt take too many pictures. But I did get pictures of all of us doing a reading from Luke and caroling together before dinner. Camille planned it and it was really nice to all do together. (despite the fact that I CAN NOT sing to save my life)


the boys singing

and while we all read/caroled .. Henry entertained us with his gift that Santa brought him:


to say he is in love with his gift is an understatement

more reading



and then more playing:








allison and seth's sweet daughter also loved playing with the trains .. in between holding their hands.

and of course more playing. Im telling you. he barely stepped away from this thing the entire night:

he even knows how to open the drawers to put away stuff. brilliant

then after we went and all enjoyed dinner together.



it was a little crazy (read: fun) with all the kids running around and parents taking turns eating/entertaining their kids. Im thankful that we have friends we can enjoy holidays with. Please dont remind me that this is possibly one of our last christmas' with Adam & Camille. (waaaa waaa ... Debbie downer!)

oh and then on the way home. this little guy PASSED OUT.



(in his big boy car seat I might add)

he did the whole head falling forward thing that you do when you fall asleep in the car. it was cute.


Im pretty sure he was wxhausted from his first Christmas.

christmas morning

Christmas morning was great. Freeland & I woke up early to finish baking all the cinnamon rolls we started the night before. We wanted to make sure we were done before River woke up so we could just enjoy the morning once he was awake.

Umm PW's Cinnamon Rolls make a TON of cinnamon rolls. The only proof I have is a picture from my phone:


holy smokes.

They were good though. It was my first time making them & we might be switching our christmas morning tradition from Monkey Bread to these now.

Now onto the rest of the morning.

First this little guy woke up:





(note: we actually got him up .. changed his pajamas into Christmas pajamas.. put him back in bed & went back out of the room and staged the whole thing to do it again and get these pictures because his christmas pj's were dirty the night before! Im sure he was confused)

(also note - I actually forgot to wash his pj's so we just put dirty christmas pajamas on him that morning anyway) 

Then we took him downstairs to show him that Santa paid us all a little visit:




this is River's bed head





and before we knew it he was digging into everything:












eating the bible that he got from Rhonda




sharing his toys with Maddie. (such a sweet little guy)



My mom got him one of those books where you can record yourself reading the story to him. This was him listening to her reading the story:



She was on skype watching. It was sweet:



Freeland enjoying his toys too:





then after it was over we told River that he was in charge of the clean up:





Obviously River really had no idea what was going on but every time we opened a gift he pretty much squealed/yelled until we gave said gift to him to play with. So in some ways it seemed like he got it.

The rest of the day we spent cleaning up, cooking, and talking to all our family on skype. Then we headed over to Adam & Camille's for dinner. Ill post those pictures next. It was a great first Christmas as our own little family. We felt selfish with all these gifts and already started discussing how in the future we are going to have to work really hard to make sure River understands what Christmas is really about.

I did love playing Santa this year though.

34th annual christmas sweaters and spirits party

we hosted the annual christmas party again this year. (here is last year's party)

it was a blast. Even though there were some changes at the last minute and some friends werent able to be there (because they either moved since last year or were already out of town) we made the best of it.

I was bummed going through the pictures because they are horrible. You would think I had a little too much wine or something (not the case) because they are all blurry or out of focus and I stopped taking pictures half way through. But I still wanted to share them because Im thankful all our friends are able to get together for Christmas.

First of all .. Santa made a visit this year:


thats drew (with Roman and River) for those wondering



Freeland went as Cousin Eddie (from Christmas Vacation) last year .. so he went with the same idea this year just a different scene from the movie. I didnt get a full picture of his costume (kicking myself) but it was PERFECT. Here is the clip if you dont know what he is dressed up as . (note .. there is some language in it so feel free not to watch it if that bothers you)


family picture. Sarah let me borrow her costume from last year


adam by himself because Camille was still out of town. :(


i guess this makes her Mrs. Claus













I didnt get everyone on santa's lap. (kicking myself again) i was shocked that non of the kids were scared of him! It was a Christmas Miracle!


all the girls at the party


river and uncle adam

Since camille wasnt here to play the piano this year .. we found a replacement:









check out the penguins that Becky made with her appetizer!

And now I want to eat all that food again. It was SOOO good. 

Then the wine tasting started:







caleb having his own version of a wine tasting (with milk)





Then we started the annual Christmas Olympics. Drew graciously planned all the games again. Here are the few pictures I have:

















then Aubrey & Freeland had a rematch from the Halloween Party:




those are running shorts under Freeland's robe if you are curious



Aubrey won this time! Here she is dancing to her victory
(freeland MAY have done a LITTLE trash talking)



there were quite a few more games. Which I dont have pictures of. But what is important is that

FOR THE SECOND YEAR IN A ROW: THE GIRLS WON!

Here we are carrying Kristen around as our trophy:



the end. We still have cookies and treats here that we are trying to finish from that night. Feel free to come over and help!