Christmas 2008

Wow. It's been a long week--good, but long. :)

Ryan was sick last week. First stomach bug of his life, and it was a doozy. He got sick Sunday, Chris got it on Monday, my mother-in-law got it Tuesday, my father-in-law got it Thursday (yep, that'd be Christmas, sick in a hotel room. Poor guy.)My parents got a mild case on Friday, then my grandparents both got it over the weekend. You might be thinking that I'm irresponsible that so many people got it. Possibly, but I promise I didn't mean to, it was just highly contagious. I mean, Chris and his mom got it from Ryan, but his dad got it from his mom...etc. OK.

We had fun with Chris' parents and seeing his brother, our sister in law and their kids. Anna-Kate especially enjoyed having so much family in town to play with her for the whole week!

Christmas day itself was wonderful (mostly). The kids woke up at normal time and Anna-Kate was WIDE EYED when she looked into the living room and saw her bike and stocking from Santa. (actually, a Barbie big wheels--it has a blinker and a little basket and a horn!). Ryan wasn't feeling amazing, so didn't care so much about his stocking and rocking horse. We had a big yummy breakfast, took pictures of the kids in their matching Christmas jammies, then began opening presents. We are so blessed by family that loves us! We were all given so many nice things. Anna-Kate's favorite's included her dress up clothes and her new doll house. She spends hours in her tu-tu playing with her new dolls in their house. Ryan's favorites are his little people train set and his new laptop. :)

On Saturday my in-laws headed back to St. Louis and we headed down to Macon to do Christmas with our extended family. It was so disappointing that Mana and Papa couldn't be there, but we had a good time seeing everyone anyway. Tonight we got together again with my grandparents who are feeling better.

Quotable from Christmas:

AK: "I Mary, Daddy Joseph, Mommy--you a sheep. Now, where's my son Jesus? Oh, excuse me sheep, I fell on you."
Her favorite thing is pretending to be the Holy family. I used to be Mary, I've been demoted to sheep. Ryan is a lamb usually. Her baby is usually baby Jesus (formerly known as "baby Kate" she keeps trying to rename baby Jesus. we are trying to not encourage that). She sometimes refers to me as sheep. Like, "sheep are you thirsty?"

I don't have pictures from Maon, or from my grandparents house tonight (I'm waiting on pictures from my Mom, and I'll post them later).

Anna-Kate on Ryan's rocking horse Christmas morning. She's trying to show him how to really jump on it:



Ryan opening his first tooth brush from his stocking:



Opening stockings--cute matching jammies: :)



Anna-Kate in her new dress up clothes:



Reading a new book with Mama:



Anna-Kate and Mimi reading a book:



Sweet Ryan trying to eat some dinner: