Celebrating with the Drehers {Christmas 2011}

We spent Christmas evening with Adam's family. His parents decided to fore-go the traditional holiday meal, and instead they'd gotten Papa Murphy's pizzas the day before and then baked them on Christmas. It was a great idea, and super delicious.

In stark contrast to my side where Sutton is the first and only of his generation, on Adam's side, he's the twelfth grandkid out of thirteen! Lots of them live out-of-state so we don't often see them, but he still has a great time playing with his cousins who live close.

We'll start the photos off with the traditional Christmas photo of Grandma Janet with Bailey sitting on her lap. They started this when she was teeny tiny, and she's nearly outgrown the lap, haha.

Sutton has issues with us trying to get a photo of all the kids. He chooses that moment to decide he HAS to be held by me or Adam.

Then we opened gifts. Always the favorite part for the kiddos.

Adam's parents had Jones Soda made with our photo on the label! How fun is that!

Ed has an on-going battle with the plethora of squirrels that frequent his backyard. So Adam's sister and fam got him "squirrel underpants" as a joke. Didn't know they made those, did ya?

Adam plays a lot of chess, especially in his classroom...he's taught all his students to play (p.s., I don't even know how, shhh....). So his dad made him this amazing vertical chess board! He got glass pieces to go along with it. Very cool.

Sutton really likes this massager thing that his grandparents have. He has to play with it every time he goes over there. He really likes it when you massage his back. Or his belly. :)

The hit of the night for Sutton was the bubbles that were in his stocking. He looooves bubbles.

By the way, if you're wondering why everyone is in pajamas, Adam's sister Jessica had the fun idea to do a pajama Christmas. She even bought Sutton his own pair. Super cute.

We had to do our annual photo in front of the Christmas tree...I love our little family.

Then Adam showed Sutton the fun train that went around the bottom of the tree. He even got to push the lever to make it go.

Then he decided that a little dancing was in order. Per usual. :) This makes me smile every time I look at it. (Someone's cell phone rang at Lowe's today while we were in line and Sutton started dancing, and the people behind us thought it was the cutest thing and just oogled over Sutton.)

Okay, back to the train.

Breegy! This is our niece who has a special bond with Sutton. She's loud and awesome and all over the place and Sutton was scared of her for awhile, but now they're best buds. She always exclaims "BABY SUTTON!!!!" when she sees him. I think he'll always be "baby Sutton" to her, which is so sweet.

She and I are pretty good buddies too. She calls me "GEEMA!!!!"

So we tried again for the grandkids photo. Sutton freaked...

...so we gave him a cookie and an unopened box of candy and he was good to go.

And the boy cousins. We're sad Madeline left early and wasn't included in the kids' photo. Buuuut...she's a freshman in college, so...she's kinda old for that anyway. :)

Christmas Lunch {Christmas 2011}

After Sutton's morning nap on Christmas Day, we headed to my grandparents house to have lunch and spend time with them.

We learned that Sutton loves ham salad sandwiches and jello. So that was good. :) After lunch, I wanted a photo of the three of us on Christmas.

Sutton is a hot body, so we stripped him down and he went shirtless for awhile.

Sutton's great-grandma Norma and great-grandpa Melvin got him this awesome little chair that's just his size! Grandma called Sutton over to one of their bedrooms to help her get the chair out, and he carried it from the kitchen all the way out to the living room to show us.

Then he had to try it out. :) He LOVES this chair. We put it in our basement, where we play a lot of the time, and he's always sitting in it. Sometimes he moves it around the room to wherever we're sitting so that he can sit in his chair next to us. This was a great gift G&G Hiebert!

Next, Sutton helped everyone open their gifts. He sure loves tearing wrapping paper...but he can't part with that helicopter.

We took a group photo before we had to head back to Wichita for Sutton's second Christmas nap. Adam and I snuck one it too, before our evening activities. This is my mom and dad, brother and sister-in-law, grandparents on my mom's side, and us. My mom's an only child, so this is the whole fam on that side. So glad we all were able to get together!

And Sutton with his great-grandparents. I think this is a framer!

Happy New Year!

Have I ever told you that I have the best husband?

See, I had to work last night. New Year's Eve weddings are apparently kinda popular as I had one last year, this year, and already have one next year. Luckily this year, I was able to finish up shooting around 9pm and head home to ring in the New Year with my hubby.

We didn't have any big plans or parties, but that was totally fine with me since I was tired from working all day.

I got home, unloaded all my gear from the car and came up to the front door. There was a sign taped to it that said to go change into comfy clothes and head out to the studio in the backyard. It said Adam would be joining me momentarily. So I changed, and headed out back. I opened the door and it was dark, but there were bunches of candles around the perimeter of the studio, Coldplay blasting (LOVE their new album, by the way), lots of chocolate, a couple movies laying on the table, and a slideshow of these photos playing on my computer:

Isn't he the best? He walked in a few seconds later and we curled up on our MonsterSak, set an alarm for 11:55pm, and watched a movie to ring in the new year. Couldn't have asked for a better ending to 2011!

Please note Sutton's new look....where did all his hair go?! We cut it using the clippers Adam uses to cut his own hair. My baby is a big boy!

Also, I plan to have more Christmas posts coming, it's just been a super busy week! Back to real life after a great vacation, I suppose. :)

Here's to a fantastic 2012!!