Christmas 2012 {Part 2}

The morning of Christmas Eve, we went out to breakfast just the three of us. It was a fun little outing and I got this photo of Sutton and Adam. They're keepers.

We put Sutton down for his nap a bit early so that we could be ready to go to our church's Christmas Eve service that afternoon. It was such a great service, Christmas Eve at our church is always one of my favorite traditions.

After church, we headed directly to my parents' house in Newton. In stark contrast to Adam's huge family, I just have one brother and Sutton is the only grandkid. Our tradition is to make a fun dinner of appetizers. This year everyone chose one thing to make. Here's Sutton waiting in his high chair for the food to be ready.

Everyone cooked this year, including me! I made sweet potato fries, Adam made buffalo wings, my dad made crab cakes, Michael made bacon/avocado/tomato/cream cheese awesomeness in puff pastries, Sara made some feta hummus, and my mom made spinach artichoke dip. We also had a variety of Christmas goodies and cookies.

Just in case we forgot Adam had a personality...

A highlight this year: Sara is allergic to peanut butter, so she's never in her ENTIRE life had puppy chow. My parents had the idea to make it with almond butter (which she can eat) and she tried it and loved it. Hooray!

Sutton and Uncle Michael bonded. They basically have the same sense of humor and so they got along great. :)

This mug has been in my family for about as long as I can remember.

After dinner, it was time to open presents. Sutton has this really bad method of opening presents where he tears off tiny pieces and has to throw them each on the ground one by one.

When he concentrates really hard, his mouth gets all pouty. Love it.

Just waiting...

"Ooooooh!!" I think this one was just clothes. :)

He threw the clothes on the floor, and started playing with the box. :) Then he helped hand out presents to the rest of us. And he helped us open them. Each time, he'd say "What is it?" before we could even start unwrapping it.

This was our first Christmas with Cooper. He's a talker. He's always growling or jabbering, not in a mean way...he just wants to be heard. It's pretty cute. Adam ruined his fun by popping bubble wrap in his face. He wasn't the same the rest of the night, lol.

Annie's more of an introvert and wasn't to sure what to make of all the paper and the crazy child running around.

"What is it? Ooh! Box!"

This was the hit of the night. Grandma and Grandpa got him a motorcycle that drives itself and does a wheelie at the push of a button. He wasn't interested in much else the rest of the night.

C'mon Daddy, get it out of the box faster!

Showing Uncle Michael his new "moe-bycle."

Cooper had to help Mom unwrap this one because Sutton was too busy with his moe-bycle.

I wanted to take a family photo, but we waited a little too close to Sutton's bed time to make it happen. Ah well, such is life! I still love this photo.

We put Sutton to bed and hung out for awhile and talked. I always love Christmas Eve with my family, it's such a peaceful time with the people I love.

And here's their tree...just for fun.

Christmas 2012 {Part 1}

We celebrated Christmas a bit early with Adam's side because his brother couldn't be in town on Christmas day. So on the 23rd, we all dressed in PJs and met up for brunch at his parents' house.

Adam and I ate with Sutton and his cousins at the kids table.

After brunch, it was time to open presents. With Adam's family, we always make a pile of presents for each kid and then they get to tear into them all at once. Sutton was doing such a great job of waiting for us to tell him to go.

Adam's brother Matt and his girlfriend Shay wrapped all their gifts in Justin Bieber wrapping paper. Awesome.

Breegy and her presents.

It's time!!!!!

This box was a really cool wooden train that he loves.

Bailey showing off a photo album she got.

A fun father/daughter photo.

Brynn and Breegy got some awesome dolls and accessories.

Breegy helped Grandma Janet open her gifts.

Adam's dad does a thrift store gift for all of us adult kids each year. This year, he picked out awesome hats for each of us. Here's Shay, Matt, Jessica, Steve, me, and Adam in our fashionable hats.

I had to show both versions thanks to Adam's fantastic posing.

After we opened all the normal gifts and stockings, the adults did a white elephant gift exchange. It was all fun and games until I stole Jessica's gift and Breegy got all upset and told me not to take her Mommy's gift. Then Steve stole mine and Sutton got mad at him! It was funny and cute that they were being all protective.

We told Sutton which gifts we wanted and he brought them to us. He hit the jackpot in his stocking, all his favorites were in there: a matchbox airplane and car, fruit snacks, a cereal bar, coloring book. He ate all the goodies in one shot...he just kept shoveling them in, even though we'd just eaten an entire meal.

Grandma Janet ended up with the hat that had a light on it.

Still eating...

And a couple photos of the grandkids.

We ended the afternoon with a couple of family photos outside. Can you believe this isn't even all of us? Adam has three siblings who live out of state who couldn't make it, and they all have kids. There's a total of 13 grandkids. But this is all of us who live in Kansas.

I also love that Shay's dog Janice is hiding in these. Too bad Diesel wasn't there! And look how both Sutton and Breegy are actually making silly faces. Love it.