Pre-Christmas

Yesterday was quite a day, if I do say so myself! My family came over once again to have a day-long celebration for Christmas. (If I didn't mention before, we were celebrating Christmas early because of my sister and dad being in town.) It was so much fun to have an early Christmas and it really helped us all get in the Christmas spirit!
Here's how the day went: Everyone started arriving around 9:30am for brunch. I had egg bakes and Butter Braid Caramel Rolls for everyone (yummy!!). My dear friend, Bri, came over to take all of our pictures and a big family picture around 10am. I knew we'd be taking pictures outside so I had asked Chris to go around and pick up some doggy doo-doo in the yard. Of course, as soon as my little family walked outside and was about to sit down in the grass, Caleb yelled "Don't sit on the dog poop!!" We probably should have asked Bri where she wanted us to sit before cleaning up....
Here are a few non-professional pictures for you to see:

The sisters:


(By the way, Torie's hair looks like a Barbie doll's hair---it's so gorgeous and long!! Makes me want to grow my hair out again!!)

The "red girls"---and Stef. We hadn't planned on all wearing red so it was funny when we saw each other and we looked like triplets!! Stef may have felt a little out of place in her gray sweater, but she looked great herself! :)


Chris and Caleb:


Chris and I relaxing on the couch:


(Do we all look like we're about to go skiing, or what?!)

After pictures, everyone couldn't wait to open gifts so we did that in the early afternoon. Hannah was having a great time playing with the wrapping paper. To her, it was almost better than the actual gifts! Caleb loved everything that he received and he's been playing with Hannah's toys, too. When she wants to play with them, we have to remind Caleb that those toys were given to his sister and not him, so he really needs to share!

Hannah with her favorite gift: the wrapping paper.



Caleb with his gifts. (Yes, most of those around him were FOR him!!)


Later in the evening, Caleb took Hannah's new "baby" and purse, and told everyone that he was "a mommy". :) (Chris is SO proud!!)


After gifts, we put some Christmas movies on and got cooking. The Christmas meal in our house doesn't take too much preparation right before we eat---almost everything needs to cook for awhile beforehand. We finally ate around supper-time and it was well worth the wait!! I have to say, the Lutefisk was amazing this year and I am looking forward to the leftovers. :)

Here's the Lutefisk Chef himself (my uncle Kent):


Everyone stayed at our house until 9pm or so, since we were all having a great time chatting and watching more movies. (I think we covered "Holiday Inn" twice, "Santa Clause 2", "Elf", "Miracle on 34th Street" and "It's a Wonderful Life". I'm still in the mood to watch Christmas movies today!!)

The kids were a little bit hard to wind-down on Friday night, so we let Caleb stay up late last night so he could get rid of some of his energy. As it turns out, he had an awful cough during the night--so bad that we had to give him some medicine. Today, he has a runny nose and is talking with a very raspy voice. Too much fun for the kids, I think, so we're staying home to relax and recuperate today. Thank goodness for this lazy day!

Merry Pre-Christmas, everyone!! :)