Christmas 2011

Matching Christmas jammies on Christmas Eve. 

I intended to have them made by the beginning of December, but it didn't happen. 

Better late than never right? 

 Santa arrived and filled the stockings.  Ready for Christmas morning!

 I get a new Nativity every year, and this year I didn't have to buy it! 

My awesome SIL Jenna bought this for me for Christmas.  Love it!!

 Grandpa Vaughan wanted to read the kids a story on Christmas Eve - How The Grinch Stole Christmas (if you know my Dad you'll get it!)

So we did a FaceTime chat (Love, love, love FaceTime), and he read while the kids flipped the pages.  They loved it, and actually listened and were quiet the whole time!

 Me holding up the phone, so my Dad could see the kids and they could see him.

 Tyson's favorite gift - a new Nerf gun.  I've lost count of how many of these we have - honestly!

 Zach's favorite gift - a How to Draw Dragons book, and new art pencils and paper.  He is our resident artist.

 Emma's favorite gift - a BopIt.  Its not as easy as it looks, and quite addicting.

Tessa's favorite gift - a Dora Pillow Pet.  She actually got 2 pillow pets, one was a pee-wee lady bug.

The only sad thing about Christmas is we missed being with all the family.  Luckily Macc and Lisa live close, so they drove down the afternoon of Christmas Day and we had Christmas dinner together, and they stayed for a few days.  It was wonderful having them with us, it made the holiday a lot more fun!

My nieces, Ella and Olivia in the cute shirts that Aunt Adriann made for them.  I had a much better picture of them with Olivia actually looking at the camera, but it won't download for some reason - sorry.

Great Wolf Lodge

For Christmas this year we gave the kids the option of less "gifts" and one big family gift or trip instead.  They voted for a family trip instead, so we chose Great Wolf Lodge.  It is an awesome family resort with an indoor water park. They have them all over the East coast, we've been to ones in Pennsylvania and Virginia.  Luckily they have one outside Cincinnati, which is just 2 hours from us.  Another great thing about this location, is it's only 15 minutes from my brother Macc's house.  So he and his daughter Ella came and joined us for the day - TONS OF FUN!!

 Family Photo under the giant bucket.

With a little coaxing, we got Ella to go down the slide.  After the first time down, she was hooked!!



 Cute Ella

Tyson was a great buddy for Tessa.  They had tons of fun in the wave pool.