Happy Birthday Jeff!

We had a quiet celebration at home today to celebrate Jeff's 34th birthday. We sure do love that guy : )

More visitors!

We were SO excited about having Aunt Jenn, Ty and Mary visit us the week after Christmas. It made the celebrating last much longer! We didn't do much of anything all week - just played and played. And had a few treats : )

Winter Wonderland!

Techincally it was a white Christmas in 2010, or at least it started snowing late Christmas night. This is what we woke up to! About 6 inches. It was beautiful. I love pictures of the front our house in the snow, but not as much as I love pictures of Tyson in the snow : ) He is like a little bunny hopping around out there.

Christmas Afternoon

I loved Christmas Day this year. I had nice holiday outfits picked out for the kids, but we just stayed in our pj's most of the day... the kids did all day. Lucas and Jeff figured out the Wii, Ellen played with all of her new baby doll stuff and my parents and I cooked a big breakfast and dinner. It was cozy and quiet.

After dinner my parents decided to head south. There was a big snow storm coming and they didn't want to risk missing seeing the rest of the family in Georgia on the 26th. Before the left we took some pictures. Miss Ellen loves her family so much. She was so happy to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa, or maw-maw and paw-paw, as she calls them : )

Notice that Lucas has been crying. Why would a boy cry on Christmas Day? Because his mean mommy and daddy made him quit playing his new video game to take some pictures! It's nothing that Grandpa can't fix with some silly tickles...

Silly grandpa!!

Christmas Morning

After Lucas waking up around 10pm and nearly walking into the family room, I thought we were in the clear. We were snug in our room on the wee hours of Christmas morning. Lucas was in our bed. I guess that I was so tired from staying up until midnight that I didn't feel the little stinker crawl right over me at 3am. I didn't know he had done it until he came running back into our bedroom exclaiming, "Mommy! Daddy! Santa brought me a Scooby Doo game!!!"

Oh no! My heart sunk. Christmas was ruined! Luckily I pulled it together and quickly told myself that it was only ruined if I acted like it was ruined. So instead of getting upset I said, "Wow! You're so lucky! But it's still very early so we better go back to sleep so we can play with all of your new things tomorrow." Luckily, again, he didn't protest. But the poor guy had a hard time going back to sleep, as you can imagine. It was so cute. I was almost asleep and he whispered, "And he got me the Star Wars gun too." Then what seemed like a long time passed and I was nearly asleep. Again. "And Mommy, he ate all of his cookies that I left for him!" And the last thing he said, at 4:15am was, "Santa also brought me some leggos!"

A couple of hours later we all woke up and had a re-do on seeing what Santa brought us : )

Can we go in yet?

Just like when we were little, we have to wait until everyone is ready to go into the gift room at the same time. Lucas and Ellen could hardly wait!

Lucas, already knowing what Santa had brought him, went straight to the Wii to check it out. Ellen, acting as if this happens all the time, not really phased, went straight for the doll in the high chair.

Oh. Lucas also got a bike! But it was from Daddy, not Santa, since Daddy rides bikes. Lucas told me about that too at 3am.

Ellen went straight to work, taking care of her new baby. In the stroller it went for a ride around the house, while Lucas checked out his new Star Wars gun and light sword thingies.

Oh yeah, Santa is awesome!

Ellen cracked me up how she was all busines...

Lucas was the first to start opening presents. Grandma and Grandpa got him some cool art tools.

Ellen, again, all business about opening her presents : )

Another gift from Daddy (and mommy, but daddy thought of it) was a box of 100 colored pencils. He enjoys coloring so much, and often does it with Jeff, so this was the perfect gift.