The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I feel like that may have been my title for last year's Christmas blog, but Mr. Blogger let me do it, so I'm going with it. It was definitely a different feeling this year than years' past. A big link was missing to our chain of events for the days surrounding Christmas. We always go to Vovo and Eddie's on Christmas Eve and it was a bittersweet visit this year. There was definitely a big piece of our tradition missing at the dinner table and during the gift-opening. It was the first time in as long as I can remember that no one opened Old Spice as his gift! We got a little crazy with our traditional gingerbread house and decided to venture into the gingerbread VILLAGE this year. There was a little too much construction experience needed for my liking but it turned out well and the kids enjoyed eating the candy off the village just as much as they do off of just the house (in other words, they couldn't have cared less whether we had 1 building or 120, just as long as there was candy involved).

The Christmas Eve kids photo. It'll never be perfect and it'll never turn out with all people looking at the camera with smiles on their faces at the same time. But there are just some photos that are better than others, even if they aren't "perfect." My apologies to Ashlynn, who may or may not like this photo being on the internet!!!

Minus Ashlynn, this could be a contender for the framable Christmas Eve pic. I love Sam's lips, even though I have no idea what he's doing, and Cooper's Ironman helmet is a nice touch as well.

I'm digging Sam's new look.

Ahhh, the Kids Table!

We loved the pj's from Kori and Kali so much that we had to change into them at 1PM! Makes total sense to me!

The Christmas Day cousin photo, Sam not pictured. He was happily napping when this photo was taken.

There may have been a few things missing during our Christmas festivities this year, but that doesn't make it any less meaningful and special. We missed Vovo A LOT during the holidays but Christmas is always about counting your blessings (in my opinion) and with all that can go wrong in your life, I promise we still have lots to be grateful for. It would have been easy to crawl in a private little hole in our own house this year and not come out until 2011. By doing that, though, we would have missed out on all the amazing friends and family that we still have in our lives. We would have missed so much fun, love and laughter in addition to the warm, fuzzy feeling in our hearts that we get from being surrounded by such love. What fun is that?