Christmas 2011

This year we went to my folks for Christmas. All of my siblings were there. The nine first cousins were all assembled. Atticus is the oldest at 5 1/2. Wow. My mom made them all pajamas and this is our first official all-cousin Christmas Eve photo.

My dad reading the Christmas story before opening gifts.

(p.s. I wish I could figure out the light settings on my point and shoot -- seems like I get wildly different results on exactly the same set-up).

My brother Aaron and his son Grant

 

My sister Bekah holding Thea Belle

Celebrating Dietrich's birthday happened earlier on Christmas Eve.

Watching some movies...

Talking...

Chewing on frisbees (standard Christmas tradition) and wearing beads with brightly patterned tunics (par).

My Dad with Lincoln -- both looking cute...

 

And Thea Belle does this when almost anyone other than Brad and I or (feel honored -- ) Liz or Leah try to hold her. Poor Thea! I am glad my Dad was laughing (-: -- Thank you for understanding, Dad!

Then we went to Brad's folks over in Des Moines. But Atticus, Brad and then myself got the stomach flu. And I lost my camera (which was found as we were packing to leave) so these are the only pictures. And we came home to Minneapolis earlier than normal to go to a Dawes concert at the Varsity over in St.Paul (Christmas gift to Brad from me (-:). And we were feeling better by the New Year. For New Year's Eve we played games with kids until we put them to bed around 9 pm) ripped out our kitchen floor (to start our kitchen remodel), drank a glass of wine and watched the first half of Moonlight in Paris (which we bought for ourselves as a New Year's gift). We love Owen Wilson. We love not having the stomach flu. We love our families. We love coming home to Minneapolis.

And we had our own Christmas with just us back at home -- nice and quiet before the marathon of late, late nights working on the kitchen project. But for one day we tried to ignore all the vacation laundry and the kitchen appliances in the dining room and our still-queasy flu stomachs and just enjoy each other as a family. It was a good morning together.