Christmas and New Years

Christmas weekend was very busy for us. On Christmas Eve we had my sister and brother-in-law and nephews over to exchange gifts. It is always nice to just get us together and we don't do it often enough. After they left I had some serious baking to do. Eric's female cousins decided this year to have a bake off. We were all given one of his memere's recipes and whoever made the best cookies won. I didn't know what kind of competition I was up against but I was determined to win. I worked hard on those cookies and needless to say I won by a landslide. There was no prize but the glory of winning was good enough for me! So we went to Eric's aunt's house for Christmas Eve. It is always nice to see everyone over there and Santa comes which is always interesting to see because he is a very 'happy' Santa so sometimes he scares Eric Charles a little bit so we never know how he'll react. On Christmas day we had Eric's mom, her boyfriend Phil, and Tyler over for brunch. It's nice to be able to stay home for the morning but still get to see family. After that we went to Eric's dad's house and then we went to my parent's house. Eric got so many nice gifts from everyone. He had a very nice Christmas and we did as well. Thank you to all our family for making our Christmas so special. And now for some pictures:


The annual family portrait in front of the tree. Pokey even decided to join us!





Eric's reaction as Santa came into the house

At first he wasn't so sure about Santa but once he saw he had a present, he had no problem with him!

Eric with his cousins, including Shannon's dog.

It looks like Santa came!

While the little guy was nestled all snug in his bed

It's time to open some presents

What nice handwriting Santa has!

Such a silly picture. He is holding his very first left-handed baseball glove. Mama is so proud to have a fellow lefty in the family!

One of his presents is a shaving kit. He likes to shave with Daddy and I found a cute little kid's shaving kit. He uses it all the time and it takes him an hour to "shave". Brushing on the shaving cream

don't miss a spot!

The Erics and uncle tyler building with the K'NEX that uncle tyler brought him

All dressed up in his christmas outfit playing his new computer that meme and pepe got him

So handsome

Eric had asked Santa for buzz lightyear and nearly every present he opened he would say, "I think this is buzz". We saved it for last. What I love in this video is how many times I tell him that mommy and daddy got him buzz. I clearly didn't want santa to take the credit for it.

Our New Years eve was low-key. We spent it with our friends Tim and Jenn and their daughter Savannah who is about a year older than Eric. They enjoy playing together and we get some grown up time too. We ordered chinese food. I don't know why we do that every year because we always end up eating so late and everyone's starving and wondering why we ordered it to begin with but it's always yummy! Then we watched a movie. Savannah crashed around 10:30. Eric Charles, the party animal that he is made it to midnight. We got home shortly after midnight. Unfortunately we missed the ball drop because we were in the car on the way home. It was a nice way to spend new years eve and we are excited for everything to come this year. We've declared that 2012 is going to be our year!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!