Christmas

Our family enjoyed a wonderful Christmas and New Year with family and friends.  This chica was rather lax with camera usage so there aren't many pictures after Christmas (and thank you to Brandon and Annie for taking most of those!). 

The quick overview is:  we celebrated Mike's sister, Joanna's 18th birthday together (partly by making pizza and throwing crust in the air to stretch it!);  we opened lots and lots and lots of wonderful gifts; ate lots and lots and lots of wonderful Christmas cookies and candy; laughed while playing games and watching movies; enjoyed seeing our kids play with Nate and hearing him boss the dog around; passed around some colds; played laser tag; went to Katey's first piano recital (more on that in another post); took a quick trip to Morganton to visit with the Molendorps for a couple of hours; rang in the New Year with Mom, Becca and Kevin.

And, here are some pictures to prove it all (well, some of it, anyway) happened.

  (No, Nate isn't hurting Seth - that is just our ham-ball, hamming it up for the camera!)

Out-takes

40 pictures.  That is what it took to get a nice picture of my kids together and a nice one of each of them separately.  Have I mentioned that they are 8 and 10?!?! 

I did finally get some keepers, but thought I would share a few of the ones that didn't make the cut...

Just for the record...

Each year our kids are visited by a Christmas elf.  No, I'm not talking about the little Elf-on-a-Shelf, but an elf that comes and delivers surprise presents under the little tree upstairs.  Last year and this year, they even got a letter from STAR the after-Christmas elf!

The kids are completely convinced that this elf is not real, but is actually one of our Averill family members (Katey says she has it narrowed down to Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Jo or Aunt Christy).  And, for the last couple of years they have set traps in the playroom in a ploy to catch "the culprit". 

Because they are so very adamant about STAR not being real, that got me to wondering what else they deem to be real or not real.  Last night I asked them:

If STAR isn't real, is Santa?
K:  YES!
S:  Yeah.

How about the Easter Bunny?
K:  I don't know...maybe
S:  Probably

The tooth fairy? 
K:  YES!  I know for a fact that the tooth fairy is real!
S:  No...Katey, remember, Daddy told us.

The Grinch who Stole Christmas?
S:  I don't know
K:  No...Dr. Suess made him up

I love it!! 

Cuteness

There is just something so darn cute about kids in jammies!!!!