Christmas

A little behind.  I know.  Better late than never, right?  There's so much to tell and so many pictures, I know this is going to take me a while...so bear with me.

Christmas!  It was wonderful.  One of my favorites, by far.  It was Max's first Christmas, but let's face it, he didn't really have any idea what was going on.  In reality, it was Jack's first real Christmas.  The first one he could anticipate and get excited about.  And what a huge difference that made.  Seeing Christmas through his eyes really brought it to life for me again.  It was truly magical.

Christmas Eve we started the day with a trip to Grams and Gramps' house to make Santa some cookies and the reindeer some food to help them keep their energy up through the night.  Jack loves baking and had a great time but probably enjoyed eating the m&m's the best!

 

 

Or maybe he loved goofing off with Uncle Aaron the best...tough call!

 

 Max sat patiently with Granny and took it all in.  His noggin is too big for the baby Santa hat...we thought he looked more like the Pope than Santa!

And just before naptime, Gramps and Jack read "Twas the Night Before Christmas."

After nap it was time to head to Uncle Harold's wonderful Christmas Eve dinner. But not before a few pictures of the boys in their Christmas finest in front of the tree...

 

And here's the whole crew (minus Max, Uncle Harold and Judy)...in their  Christmas finest...and Rudolph noses!

 

Max snoozed a while...

and then spent a while on Granny's lap...

 

 While Jack and Gramps spent a lot of time checking out this very cool train UH bought to go around the tree...

 

and Max checked out Gramps' boots!

 

After a lovely evening there, it was time to go home and get ready for Santa's big visit.Jack put out the reindeer food...

 and some cookies and orange juice for Santa...

and put on his special Christmas jammies that Grandma bought him and got into bed...

 

The next morning Jack didn't really wake up any earlier than normal, but wasn't feeling very good.  His cold had gotten worse which made him a bit groggy, but he was still excited to see if Santa had come and even more excited when he realized that he had come and he even brought him the T. Rex he'd asked for!

 Max slept in a bit but liked all that Santa left him as well...

 

We spent the rest of the morning playing with our new toys, before it was time to head over to Grams and Gramps' to see what Santa left there...

 

 

And boy did Santa ever come over there...he clearly thought we'd all been VERY good!

 

 Everyone loved all of their gifts....it really was quite a Christmas!  Max took it all in....

and then modeled his new monster shoes.

I love this picture of Jack.  At some point when it all got to be too much, Jack took one of his toys and went and sat in the hall all alone to play.

After a long morning of opening gifts, and a good nap, it was time for Christmas dinner!  Look at these lovely cooks...

And check out this handsome clean shaven fella...

who celebrated turning 29 (again) a little later in the night...

It really was a wonderful day and I can't recall a nicer Christmas, though all of mine have been wonderful.  It was a white Christmas too...which was really nice until it interfered with our plans to go see the Lion family the day after Christmas.  We made the trip later in January and there's another post about that coming soon...

 

We rounded out the holiday season with a visit from the Weavers to meet Max!  It was so wonderful to see them and ring in the new year with them.  It was Max's first sleep over and he did great!

 The last day of 2010 didn't end so well for them with the news of some water damage at the house we all love so much in Hilton Head, but we sure hope 2011 will be great for them...and all of you!