Christmas Recap 09. Finally.

Christmas tends to be a whirl wind of family functions for us, this year was no different. This will be the longest blog post you've ever read in your life, so maybe get comfy, grab some coffee or tea and relax. This could take awhile.

Christmas Eve started at 2pm at our house with just my parents and sisters for our little gift exchange. My dad decided the few weeks before Christmas to see if he could still grow a beard and I think he looked like Kris Kringle!

Hubs and I opening gifts. Hubs got a nice picture of Dodger stadium for his office. I think one of his favorite gifts.
My sister and her "friend" Mike.

We got my dad the poster of the "creation of Adam" for his office.

I got a pair of jeans from Gap. When you're six foot tall jeans are HARD to come by, especially jeans that aren't over a hundred dollars which I'm NOT willing to spend. I was a bit excited to say the least.
Then we all made our way to my grandparents house for Christmas Eve with my grandma's whole family. We eat non stop all night, sign Christmas carols (there are some really funny videos), open gifts, laugh etc.
My grandpa gave my uncle a pocket watch that his mother gave him that belonged to her grandparents. They traced the family tree back and listed who the original owner of the watch was and inclosed a photo of the them. They determined it would have been about 130 years old. It was a cool moment.

This is my baby sister, Blaire. She house sat for us while we were out of town when baby Carsyn was born. She kind of got herself stuck in Ryan's work handcuffs that she didn't realize were real (don't ask) and so we wrapped up a handcuff key for her as a joke. She didn't find it funny.
My sister, Amanda (right) and our cousin Crystal (they are roommates away at college right now). I heart the Christmas sweater that Crystal was sporting as a dress. Only she can pull this off.
We stayed to help clean up and Blaire and hubs were arm wrestling for who was going to vacuum. It's both of their favorite chores! I kind of think hubs won!
Christmas morning was a bit frosty at our house. This is as "white" as anything gets around here. It's just frost.
Hubs and I sat around in our sweats and opened our gifts to each other.
We've been married 3 1/2 years and this was the first time we've ever been home alone Christmas morning to have our own Christmas together and I loved every last second of it. It was perfect for us.
Then I made the two of us breakfast. This is Kibey (I guess I don't really know how to spell that) and eggs, which are a favorite in our family. It's a middle eastern meat mixed in with scrambled eggs. YUM!
I had a heck of a time trying to load photos from our Hanford Christmas (hubs family) nothing loaded in order so these are quite random. Christmas night we had dinner just the six of us (us, hubs parents, sister & her husband, baby slept) then our family friends the Stryd's come over and we visited and then Oz went home and Kate & the baby stayed the night so we could all have breakfast together the next morning and Oz had to work the next day. Well, baby had slept all Christmas afternoon/evening so he was awake pretty much all night with Kate and J (my MIL) so Saturday morning I woke up at 7 and rocked him so they could take a nap for a bit before breakfast. I fell asleep in the chair and hubs captured this pic. **WARNING** no make-up, no hair brushed, in my jammies!

He was having good dreams I guess. He kept smiling in his sleep.

Hubs family has always played the pickle game. There's a small green pickle ornament hidden in the tree and there's a gift for the person who finds it. My hubs has found it every single year! Drives me nuts.
We had our normal photo shoot with baby.

Then we headed out to have coffee with these two! This is hubs best friend from high school, Michael Cook and his beautiful wife, Cori. I had only met Michael once at our wedding and I'd never met Cori. They live in Denver now, but were here to spend Christmas with Michael's parents. I adore these two. We had a great time and way to short of a visit. I'm hoping we can head east to see them soon! We had to rush from coffee to the Smart's for a suprise 50th birthday party for Gary. He kind of threw us all off because he came in the garage door instead of the front door where we were all standing. He was shocked nonetheless.
His daughers and wife threw the party. This is one of his daughters Suzzie and her husband Jaime.
My job during the party was to cuddle this little guy.
Gary's a Stealers fan, can you tell?
The cake was awesome, had a picture of him on it when he was little.
Then, Sunday we headed home for another family function with my grandpa's side of the family. The boys played cornhole out back.
There was a table of Tripoly going on.
A hard core game of spoons being played. Don't let my mom's innocent face fool you, she probably has a spoon hiding in her pocket for good measure.
Our annual "kids" photo. We all complain about taking it, but I'm always glad we have it. We're only missing Jill & her husband Mike (who live in New York and couldn't make the journey home this year) and Michael (who was working).
We're a pretty random bunch! We only see these cousins about twice a year because we all live across the state, but we have a ball when we see them all!
I sure hope you all had a very Merry Christmas. I'm so glad to finally get these photos uploaded and documented on the blog.