The Holiday Round Up - photo overload

I worked for a while on Christmas Eve and then we headed over to The Ferber's house. Check out Tracy's post about it. We had a lot of fun over there. Thanks again for having us over!

We had quite a feast. Caymen was quite the helper. If Claire wanted something, she'd just give it to her. Claire wanted a rice crispy bar in the middle of supper. No problem! Caymen to the rescue. HA!!

I brought some soup for supper and Dawson thought it was the best thing served. He loved him some soup.Here are some random pictures from the night. Oh! I have to tell you this. We were getting ready to go there and all I kept saying was that we were going to Ferber's for a party. I put on my Santa hat and Nathan about died. He said "Mom! Are you going to wear that? I mean, won't you be embarrassed?" HA! I assured him that the party was going to be the Ferber's with Auntie Chell, Grandma Sandy and Papa Ken. He felt much better. They could care less about me wearing a Santa hat. Actually, they probably expect it.Natey was so excited when he found out that Auntie Chell got him the Wii game that he really wanted.I got Caymen and Claire the same thing this year - Fairy outfits with shoes to match. They are so cute. Caymen got hers Christmas Eve and put it on quickly. Now, let me remind you that the Fairy's outfits are very short (think of Tinkerbell). It goes just below their butts. Same goes for the girls. Caymen spent most of the night pulling her new Fairy dress down as it creeped back up to just below her butt. Claire opened hers the next morning and it was the same story. Cute - but a little hoochie. :)

Christmas was wonderful this year. OH WAIT! The DRAMA. I must tell you about the drama. What would my life be without it? (Someone elses - that's for sure.) Ok, so at Tracy's, Auntie Chell was tracking Santa on the computer. When we got home, we started tracking him as well. We finally got the kids to bed, but I was tired and wanted to sleep before setting out the Santa stuff. So I went to bed about 10:30 and set my alarm for 4am. About 3 o'clock, I woke up and thought that I really should just get up and get things set out. At 3:30 I was still laying in bed when I hear Nathan coming down the stairs. (OH HOLY CRAP!!!) He comes into our bedroom bawling not as much because Santa hadn't been there but more because he had to go to the bathroom and didn't want Santa to come in the house, freak out that Nathan was up, turn around and never come back. OH THE DRAMA! I got him back into bed and waited until about 4:30 to set the stuff out. Talk about anxiety! I was sure that Nathan was going to wake up at any moment and catch me in the act. Holy Moly!

So, moving on. Christmas was great. Nathan woke up while I was still up (about 5:30) and saw that Santa had finally come. I let him see a Webkin that was in his stocking, but wouldn't let him look any farther. I told him I'd come lay in his bed with him until it was time to wake up. I think I finally got up about 8:30. We woke up Claire and tore into the gifts. Nathan said over and over that this was his best Christmas ever. I loved it and absorbed it like a sponge.

Justin had to work at noon, so we just lounged around all day. The kids stayed in their PJ's all day long. Well, Claire didn't. She put on that hoochie outfit I got her. :)

I made Brisket for supper (made possible by phone coaching from my Mom) and it was YUMMY! It was a great day. You could feel the love.

Yes - that's a butter knife in his mouth. I'm a good - normal - mother. I took the picture then took the knife away.

This is the position Natey was in most of the day. That was the smile that couldn't be removed from his face. He got a PSP people. A PSP!!!The weekend of Christmas we went to Pierre to have our Christmas with Justin's family. How could you forget after seeing that riveting sledding video, right? Here are some pictures from Pierre.

Doesn't Claire look so grown up in that picture? Crazy! This next one is of my nephew, Zachary, and his dad.Here is Zach helping Claire open up her gift. I'm pretty sure she told him to knock it off. She was ALL ABOUT opening her gifts. She could hardly stand herself.Jack isn't quite to the 'open it up and toss it aside' stage yet. He opens one and wants to play with it - and gets pissed, quite frankly, if you try to rush him. Here he is enjoying a new Little Einstein piano.Here are the rest of the sledding pictures. Check out how big that hill is. I took this picture of Nathan while I was on the top of the hill - with no zoom.Here are Spencer (nephew) and Nathan coming back up. I'm telling you - it was a trek.

Yes, Natey had his hat off. It was 40 degrees and freakin' warm going up and down those hills. I would take my hat and gloves off going up and put them back on to go down. I was shedding clothes like you couldn't believe. Holy cow I was hot. Poor Natey was sweating to death out there. It was sure fun though.

Claire had a fun time playing in the snow between slides. Oh - get this. Drama on the hill (how shocking!). So Bob and I were the ones that took the kids sledding. On about the 4th time down, we decided to race. I was riding with Nathan and Bob had Claire. We were going down - FAST, and Bob and Claire start to weave - and then roll. Yeah - roll. Bob was trying to hang on to Claire and after rolling a good 2 or 3 times - came to a stop. As you can imagine - Claire stood up screaming her head off. Bob stands up and has blood streaming from his face. Oh lordy. Claire wasn't as excited to sled after that, but she did have a good time making snow angels and digging holes by the fence.

So - that was Christmas 2008 - Kerrie Meyer Style.