Christmas 2009

2nd Annual Christmas Cookie Party

The night before Christmas Eve, we celebrated the season by decorating Christmas cookies with Jennie Parks and the Yates family.  Exactly one year ago we had the same party, but Melissa and I were 8 & 9 months pregnant..... so it was so fun to have Issac and Anders part of the group this year.

 

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was celebrated with the Larson side of our family.  After the Christmas Eve service at First Baptist Church, Anders joined the rest of his cousins at Grandma and Grandpa's house for gifts and great food.  Anders and his uncle Ryan both were proudly wearing their Christmas sweater vests :).

 

Christmas Morning

 Christmas morning we woke and opened stockings, and later that morning the rest of the Larson family joined us for Christmas brunch at our house.  It was uniquely a white Christmas here in Texas....which led to snowman and a Christmas morning snowball fight (sadly...I don't have any pictures).  However, I did capture Secily and Anders "playing" us a tune on the piano.

Boxing Day/Day After Christmas

In Canada the day after Christmas is know as Boxing Day, which is very similar to our day after Thanksgiving.  So in honor of Boxing Day we headed to the Frisco mall in hopes of holiday sales, and then took in some ice time at the malls ice rink.  All the Canadians hit the ice with no problem, while this small town Iowan girl (who can't skate for the life of me) "had" to stay on the sidelines and care for Anders.  However, Anders did have a chance to take a few loops around the rink with Daddy- after all he is part Canadian.

Christmas in Iowa

We drove the Sunday after Christmas to spend some time with our Judge family in Iowa.  The 12 hour drive went very smoothly (Jeff is a great driver and Anders slept most of the time), however at the end of the drive was "the hill" on which my parents house is located.  The hill during Iowa winters is covered with several inches of snow and most the time is at freezing temperatures, so it is often a challenge to drive up....especailly with Texan tires (which were our excuse anyway).

Iowa Highlights: 

-Spending time with Grandma Lana and Grandpa Ray

-Anders 1st:  crawled forward, ate an apple, and celebrated 1st birthday party...at 10 months old lucky boy got to celebrate his 1st birthday with Iowa friends and family

-2nd cousins

-Great Grandma and Grandpa 

-Lots and lots of snow -Snuggie time (my Grandma Hempy gave my whole extended family -around 30 total- as gifts)

-New Years Eve with the Winter family:  ISU won their bowel game, Cael turned 5, Avery was a princess, Gabe tried to teach Anders how to stand, and Melissa and Corbin blitzed it with us- dutch blitz style.