Merry Christmas!

The days after Christmas always feels so strange to me. It is like you just got done planning a wedding for the past 4 months and now that the day of festivities is over you are don't really quite know what to do with yourself. At least that's how it is for me :) Our Christmas was pretty mellow. Cindy was sick (and still is) with a pretty high fever for almost 5 days, so we didn't get a lot of super animated reactions out of her most of the time. Luke, as always, was pleasant, and loved the actual opening of gifts. He had to remove every single scrap of paper, tape, etc. from the box itself before it could be opened, however. He is very thorough! I really didn't end up with very many pictures this year, and the ones I did take are pretty lame. But just a few for the memory book, I guess...



Luke and Grandpa Sweeney opening a train set on Christmas Eve morning. It was a total hit!




Christmas Eve PJs!



Cindy was conscious enough to remember to leave out cookies for Santa and a bag of hay for the reindeer. So cute!



Cindy's letter to Santa asked for a bouquet of real flowers. (She wanted this ever since Nathan and Linnley's wedding...) Santa came through! She was pretty happy about them. Well, as happy as you get when you feel sick, anyway.


Cindy got a little more life in her as the day progressed. Book and cat from Grandparents Bingham. Yay books!!




Uncle Brian is so good! He brought back gifts for all of us- the ladies all got these very European scarves. Nice work in the background, Bri.




Since my Mom and Brian have a long-standing tradition of trying to outdo one another when it comes to gift wrapping- I secured a refrigerator box for Brian to use on Mom. She approached the box with true trepidation....and it didn't help when my dad went around the back side and kicked the box really hard. Mom jumped an easy ten feet.


"INSERT PICTURE OF MOM WITH HER ACTUAL PRESENT FROM THE GIANT BOX HERE"

My camera died while she was opening the actual gift. I tried to get Brian to email me his pics of it before he left for Utah, but I guess I am too low on the priority list. :) One day, I will show you...



Luke in his sweet new hoodie!

There is only one way to eat apple pie with whip cream- go straight for the cream, no silverware needed.

So that was pretty much Christmas for us. Wow, my pictures were really terrible this year! I feel a resolution coming on... Actually, as of 8:50am this morning my camera is DEAD. I turned it on to take a picture of Luke in his sweet new church clothes and it clicked, beeped, coughed, whispered the word "rosebud!" and then died. I am devastated!!! But I guess I know what to get myself for my birthday now. Anyway, we had a great day with our little family here in our little home and then with both sets of Grandparents throughout the day. We ate, laughed, ate, talked, ate some more, and really enjoyed the gift of being together. I hope it's always like this :)