We had a busy, but wonderful weekend. I am so tired that I could just close my eyes and fall asleep right here on my couch, but I know that if I don't upload all these pictures (sooooo many pictures - just warning you!) I'm not going to find time to do it until after Christmas...and then it just won't get done at all. I find it a little sad that it's kind of a struggle to stay awake at the very late hour of 8:30pm. I used to be quite the night owl but lately I have been so drained!
Friday night we had our annual Christmas party, which is a tradition that started 6 years ago at my sweet Donna's apartment and has continued on through the years. The last few years we have alternated hosting responsibilities with Allen & Lindsay...living down the street from each other makes it pretty convenient.
This year it was at our house. We went the Italian route and had pasta, salad, garlic bread, and some yummy dessert.
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| Donna, Rick & Harrison, and Ashley |
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| Ashley and Jon |
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| My sweet Donna |
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| The Jo(h)ns |
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| Harrison is over his fear of Allen...finally! |
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| Attempt at a kiddie shot |
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| Time for the kids to open presents! |
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| Despicable Me...score! |
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| Wrapping paper...score! |
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| Ashleigh...our little vet in training |
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| Harrison got a bat... |
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| Look out, Daddy. Harrison got a bat! |
After all the eating and kiddie fun, it was time to start the White Elephant exchange. I'm always a little nervous about the White Elephant exchange, I'm not gonna lie. Any time Jon is a participant you just never know what you might be unwrapping!
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| Poor Rick. He kept getting all of his gifts stolen. |
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| Amanda didn't waste any time stealing the first gift! |
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He tried to act unhappy about Eclipse, but we all know how he really secretly likes it :) Everybody else did, too, so it got stolen a couple of times.
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| And so did his Starbucks gift set... |
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| Lindsay ended up with Frankie. |
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| Tim was lucky enough to get some fine gifts, as well. I mean, who doesn't want a Kama "Putra" book? |
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| And of course everybody was jealous of my mom's Gumby snuggie...or should I say knock-off snuggie... |
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After all the stealing, Rick was left with a sausage. Yep, a sausage. He looks pretty excited, though!
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Saturday we headed to Rick's parents' house to celebrate Christmas with his family. We had a little bit of a rocky start to the day and the trip ended up taking about 2 1/2 hours longer than it should have (a little more on that in a separate post), but once we
finally got there we had a great time!
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| Take 1 of the annual kiddo picture. At least Christian is smiling! |
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| Take 2. Definitely not the winner. |
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| Take 3. Fail. Hopefully somebody else got a good one! |
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| Harrison admiring his Bamaw. |
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| Great Granny and Baby Austin |
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| "Nice" Cullen. I kept telling him he had on the wrong shirt :) |
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| I'm-tired-of-saying-cheese-can-we-please-just-open-the-gifts-now?! |
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| Cavan's ready to get in on the action |
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My favorite niece!
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| And let the chaos commence... |
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| Kody and Jakob |
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| Sweet Aunt Laura |
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| Harrison with his Papaw and Aunt |
Before we left, we were sitting outside around the fire pit as my FIL was teaching Harrison how to say "Papaw." He kept studying him so seriously and would repeat "ba-baw?" Still trying to learn those Ps but he's getting close!
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And now, over an hour of uploading pictures later, I'm officially going to bed. Night!
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