Christmas

Hmmm. How to summarize a vacation, two Christmases, and Christi getting engaged without going on and on and on?  I'll let pictures do most of the talking, but I'll at least explain a little bit.

Christmas was both crazy and fun this year. It always is with Nathan's family and my family living so far apart. This year we spent Christmas in Oregon. We were able to spend 10 days, which is always nice and makes me miss living closer to my parents and sisters. Drew was spoiled rotten by his Lala and lots of Aunties who say yes to everything. (What's that Drew? You'd like M and M's for breakfast this morning? SURE!). No joke. This is exactly how it is. We tease that Drew goes through detox every time we come home from Oregon and the word "no" is reinstated in our house. He loves it though, and so do we.

Drew and Lala made an apple pie together for Christmas. Lala made a big pie, and Drew made a little one.

Drew did lots of tasting, hence the reason for his own pie.

The finished products!

Christmas morning was really fun as Drew had somewhat of an understanding of what was going on. Last year, he was interested in unwrapping gifts with us, but this year he was excited and actually looking forward to it. He literally ran down the hallway to go see the tree and what Santa had brought when it was time. His joy was contagious, and he had fun opening his own gifts and "helping" Collin open his.

Christmas Eve. Matching jammies! First time I've made the boys match in anything. It made me just want to *squeeze* them. :)

How Drew spent Christmas morning....

How Collin spent Christmas morning. 

This was one of Drew's stocking presents. He has "shaved" in every shower or bath he's taken since Christmas. Silly boy. :)

We rotate who we buy gifts for every year in my family. This year, Nathan and I had Christi. Lucky her, she's officially the first recipient of a quilt I've made.

I also started Collin on solids while we were in Oregon. He has started begging any time we eat anything, so I caved and fed him Cream of Wheat. He loved it!

The Monday after Christmas was another fun day and the main reason the dates of our trip were shifted last minute. We found out in November that Christi's boyfriend Tyler, who we love, was going to propose. Since he was planning on visiting his family in CA for Christmas, he wasn't going to pop the question until after he came back. We had originally planned on attending my cousin's wedding in Portland on the 19th of December, but when we found out Christi would be getting engaged the day we were planning to leave, we skipped the wedding so Nathan could work one more day. This allowed us to stay one day longer at the end of our trip and be there to celebrate with Christi and Tyler. We were a bit sad to miss the wedding and the chance to see family we haven't seen in a while, but it was fun to be able to share in Christi and Ty Ty's excitement.

SO excited for them! Christi, you will be a beautiful bride!! Tyler, you'll be a beautiful bride as well! ;)

On Tuesday morning we left Oregon bright and early so that we could make it back down to Nathan's parents' house in Fresno, CA for their Christmas with us that night. We told Drew the entire drive back that he would get to go see Grandma and Grandpa when the drive was over and that Santa had been to their house too.  That's all it took to ease the drive. Every time he got bored, we just started to talk about Grandma's house. Worked perfectly....at least for Drew. Poor Collin was so over driving by the time we were home. Fortunately, when we arrived Collin was happy again and we had a great time letting Drew run in to see the tree, opening gifts, and having tamales with Nathan's entire family.

Grandpa gave Drew a "Cars" fishing pole. Drew LOVED it!

Golf clubs, just like Grandma and Grandpa's :)

Well this turned in to a long post! All in all, it's been a great and busy past two weeks! Hope everyone had a great Christmas!