A Year in Review

The last post of this year will be nothing but pictures. Yay!!!

When I do a post sometimes it can be tough to decide which pictures make it and which don't. So here's a few of those that didn't make it throughout the year. Other than all of them being taken in 2009 they are in no particular order.

Cinderella's prince and my little prince.

My little wild man.

We get good use of our Christmas jammies, this was taken last May.

Kristin is playing a card game with Mamaw while we were at Rehoboth Beach.

And that's it. Bye 2009, hello 2010!

Christmas Afternoon/Evening

*If you would like to read these in order scroll down till you find the post titled Christmas Eve and start there, I got a little ambitious and finished all these posts in one day.

This is the first year in a long time that everyone in the family was together at one time, at least for a couple of hours. It was great being able to see everyone on Christmas. Thank you to everyone for joining us!

I have lots of pictures to share of this time and will admit that I stole a few from Katie's share site to put on here. Thank you Katie! Now onto the pictures.

Zach's showing PopPop his new bike.

I think in this pic Zach is either using Ilene's phone to text Kristin or waiting for a text he sent from Kristin's phone. If you ever get a bunch of jumbled letters from any of our cell phones it's because Zach got a hold of our phones. He gets the biggest kick out of sending texts.

Lehlan is playing with Zach's new kitchen set. Kelly helped Paul put it together, it came in a million pieces and it took them quite awhile to finish it.

Sweet little baby Alex! Lauren snagged him right away once he was out of his carseat.

It's so funny to see Ryan gravitate towards Megan. I guess it's because she's crazy and fun.

A group shot of present opening.

Kristin's turn to hold Alex.

Lehlan and Ryan playing the piano with Megan and Ilene watching them.

Whenever there's a baby in the group the baby gets lots of pictures taken, here's Alex with my mom. He sure made the rounds! I snagged him right before they left just so I could have my turn too.

Dinner time! Compare Ryan and Zach's plates, Ryan is a much better eater at get togethers. The only thing on Zach's plate is a roll and a small piece of turkey. He had been snacking all afternoon so I didn't even bother attempting to get him to eat a decent dinner.

Before everyone left we did a couple of group pics. This one is of both our parents and our kids.

The whole family, all 19 of us.

So that's finally the end of our 2009 Christmas. So many memories were made.

Christmas Morning

On Christmas morning the kids know to not go downstairs until everyone is ready. So finally when everyone is awake they gather on the steps for their picture.
After being set free from the stairs the girls just glanced at the tree and then headed straight to the kitchen to see if Santa ate the cookies and left a note. Zach on the other hand went straight to the tree and was all excited to see that Santa left him a bike. He caught up with the girls in the kitchen then we started opening our stockings.

After a quick orange juice (coffee for me) break it was onto the presents! Now Zach could finally try out his bike.

Lauren helped capture the memories. Whenever it was time for her to open a present she would pass the camcorder to either Megan or Kristin. Megan's video footage will be interesting to watch later, she couldn't hold the camcorder still!

Megan didn't ask for anything "big" so she got a lot of smaller things like this Snuggie:

She also got: clothes, jewelry, books, DS games, and a "Put on a Show" kit.

One of the presents Lauren got was a 3-hole punch in her lime green color that she likes. Now she can stop using the one in the office and not putting it back!

Some of Zach's other presents was this pirate robe:

Other things he got was: a kitchen set, a couple of Cars games, Ants in the Pants game, 2 new Thomas pieces, a monster bath wrap, a pizza chef playset and a Spiderman bear kit.

Lauren had asked for a laptop but I kept pretending like she wasn't getting one. She was so excited when she opened up her last present, strategically placed in the back of the tree.

Kristin wanted a cell phone and of course this was also saved for her last present. I saw it sticking out from underneath the couch. Needless to say she was also excited.

Another pic of Lauren and her computer with Paul helping her get it started. A tired little boy has to take a little break. So much activity and so much work opening presents.

We tried to get him to take a nap before anyone came over but it just wasn't happening. He hasn't taken a nap for the last couple of weeks, I think my little man is outgrowing naptime. :(

I'm going to keep trying though, I need the break more than he does!

There's still more to tell about Christmas day but that's going to have to wait till my next post. To be continued again...