Christmas Day

Despite that "all closed up" gas fireplace, I guess Santa found his way in!

Justin's parents joined us for Christmas morning at our house. We started out by finding the Christmas Pickle. Logan found it this year. A few days earlier Justin and I were talking about it and said that if Logan found it, he would probably choose someone else to open the first gift & if Tolan found it he would choose himself to open the first gift. The next day we explained the Christmas Pickle to them and then asked what they would do. Logan said, "ummm, I think I would choose Ella to open a present." Tolan scrunched up his face and in a funny little voice followed by a crazy little laugh, he said, "I would pick MEEE!" We thought that was very funny.

But in the excitement of Christmas morning and all those presents in front of him, Logan ended up choosing to open the first gift himself & that's fine b/c he's 4!

Ella investigating her stocking

This was Ella's first Christmas & she just took it all in, playing with all the paper & ribbons & a few toys that she got. She kept busy just hanging out on the floor!

Grandma & Grandpa Shook got the boys Paper Jamz guitars & amps. They are pretty cool for cardboard! The boys love them.

We also got the boys 4 or 5 dress up costumes. They love dressing up so I just stocked up after Halloween when they were all on clearance!

I think the highlight of the morning was when Tolan wore this spiderman costume & rocked out on his guitar. It was hilarious. I will have to try and post the video.

Christmas afternoon we headed up to my parents' house to stay for a few days. The whole family was home - all 5 of us kids! I think this was the first time we were ALL together in about 10 years. The last time was when Neal left for his mission. 2002? So not quite 10 years, but still a LONG time! We managed to snap a picture. It's nothing fancy, but it's all of us! Neal & Kelli, Nate & Kelly, Pete, Jared. We are in front there, then Annabelle (Kelly's daughter), Tolan & my mom & dad and of course Chico down in front!

Christmas Eve 2010

Evidence of Santa:
Every year Justin's family gets together on Christmas Eve. I knew it was an old tradition, but apparently it is a 40-year-old tradition! We have lots of yummy food, including a variety of fish which is the Italian tradition. We also have a gift exchange. Here is Ella in front of the tree with all the gifts.

our kids

Justin's grandparents have both passed away, but these are their great-grandchildren that were there this Christmas Eve. Hailey, Madison, Tolan, Logan & Ella.

And here are our kids at home, all ready to go to bed so Santa could come!

Logan and Tolan were very excited for Christmas this year and were very interested and curious about Santa. They both had lots of questions about Santa this year. One day Tolan was kneeling in front of our gas fireplace for a few minutes just staring at it. I had no idea what he was doing. I thought he was going to take some of the rocks out of the bottom or something. But after a couple minutes he put on his confused face and asked me how Santa was going to get in through our fireplace b/c it's all closed up. He was very confused and concerned. A couple days later in the car they were pointing out all the houses that didn't have chimneys.

Christmas Activities

A couple of days before Christmas we went to the Carnegie Science Center with my family. Tolan has been very obsessed with Star Wars lately. They have a special robot exhibit and as much as T loves Star Wars he was afraid to get close to R2D2. (He was afraid of the other robots too) So this is the best we could get out of him. Speaking of Star Wars, he calls R2D2 "R D dootoo" and he calls Obi Wan Kenobi "O B commodey"

Logan, Tolan & Justin at the big train display

Logan played the part of Joseph in his preschool Christmas Program. He did a very good job, but when his part finally came the little girl who was playing Mary stood right in front of him so we couldn't see him or get a picture. Oh well. He did a pretty good job. His line was "We must find a room that will be best. We have come from afar and we need to rest."

(Logan is in the blue)

Here is Tolan waiting (semi)patiently for the program to begin

We went to a Christmas-themed playgroup and made these reindeer hats. Yes, Tolan picked the pink paper for his hat all on his own & loved having his red Rudolph nose.

Ella eating some puffs at my parents' after Christmas

and here she is playing with a light saber

A few days after Christmas we all went to dinner at the Villa. You can kind of see, there's me, Ella, then Tolan, Pete & Jared. Across the table my dad & my mom.( Justin, Nate & Annabelle were there too)

Ella loved the bread!

Tolan loved his "child's size" spaghetti. Yes, that child-sized portion could have fed 3 adults!

Benihana

April, a friend of mine since 7th grade, also turned 30 recently and a group of us went to Benihana to celebrate. Our chef was not quite as entertaining as you expect there, but the food was still good and we enjoyed the night out.

Justin's 30th Birthday

I have some catching up to do. Facebook makes me a bad blogger. It's just a lot faster and easier to post on there, especially now that I have a smartphone. (So if you'd like more updates friend me on Facebook!) I REALLY wish Google would make an app for Blogger!! And speaking of my new smartphone, it has also made me a lazy photographer. I always have it handy & use it to take pictures most of the time instead of getting out the real camera, so I apologize for the lesser-quality pictures.

Justin turned 30 in November. We had just gotten a new computer (and some dental work) so he wanted to keep things simple (i.e. inexpensive). We had dinner with his family on Sunday, the day before his birthday. And then on Monday the kids and I took these balloons and surprised him at work.

Logan has preschool on Mondays at 12:30 so I wanted to hurry up and do it before then so Logan could come with us. I thought that was very do-able, but it turned out not to be! I got the kids all ready to go and loaded up in the car. And then the car wouldn't start. I knew it was just the battery b/c it had died a couple of weeks before when I thought I was going to be early to church, but then the car wouldn't start. So here it was, dead again. I ended up having my neighbor, Amanda, come over and jump the car. Luckily she knew how! I had the cables, but I didn't know how to do it. So once we got the car running I hurried to Giant Eagle to get the balloons. Of course when we get to the desk at the floral dept they have a sign up that they will be back in 15 minutes. So while we waited we decided what we wanted to get. (There was a bit of a decision for the boys to make between Iron Man and Lightning McQueen). After a while no one had come, so I hauled all the kids over to customer service where they finally got someone to help. Once we got our balloons we headed out. It was a very windy day to have 3 kids & a balloon bouquet in tow! However, we made it and Justin was glad that we had made the effort!