our christmas vacation

i got home from california on dec. 22rd. ang flew in on dec. 23. her & i spent christmas eve day, last-minute shopping... pretty much the whole day. it was a blast, of coarse!
we made home-made chicken noodle soup for christmas eve dinner and stayed up late (very late) wrapping presents... and watching '17 again'. i love that movie.

of coarse the kids were up way too early ready to open presents. we made them wait until 7:30 and all beds had to be made and teeth brushed. this wasn't a problem considering they had been up since 5 am. it was sweet laying awake in bed listening to them as they looked down at the tree and all the presents, wondering which ones belonged to them.

here we are right before we open the gate...

one picture with ang, one with me.

the kids in front of the tree before we started opening. lucy had found her unwrapped horse from ang and i am not sure what cali is doing... hugging herself, i think?! ;)

after all the presents were opened and i recommitted to myself that next year we will not be doing as many presents (like i do every year) , ang and i headed out to pick up some surprise visitors. i forgot to take pictures of them on the doorstep, but they arrived and the real fun began.

some of the stuff we did...

went for walks in the beautiful weather! we wore our new wings... a lot

benjamin & molly came and it was so wonderful. i couldn't help but take pictures of this cute face!

we had picnics on the deck in the beautiful sunshine.

i just couldn't help myself... look at that face!

the girls went shopping at costco, the boys went golfing. it was beautiful weather, clayboy hit his ball in the water and walked out onto the pond (frozen through) and hit his ball off the ice.

of coarse, this face was irresistible too!!!

auntie ang took the kids to the movie theatre to see tangled. they loved it.

we had to say good-bye to molly & ben-jamin. we also had to say good-bye to uncle clayboy and auntie bb. it was very sad.

and today i dropped ang off at the airport. it is lonely here now. it was the most wonderful christmas. we ate lots of good food. we laughed a lot. we cried some too. my sister drove me around to members house in the snow, and belinda seriously cleaned my house (were talking baseboards people!). there were some disasters along the way, but it was busy and crazy and perfect. i am so grateful each one of them made the trip to see us!

from the bottom of my heart, thank you for coming and making my christmas wishes come true!