Twas Two Nights After Christmas

In the time it took me to upload these photos I have become quite tired. I went to the gym yesterday to work off some of my holiday turkey and the workout was quite strenuous and some nasty fatique has hit me tonight.

We made it through Christmas and we all still have smiles! It was delightful to be at home for the first time and to spend Christmas with our family. The boys were really excited (David, for no reason other than the fact that his brother was totally keyed up!) and had so much fun on Christmas morning. For the most part they were troopers, visiting and doing the holiday thing from the 22nd up to today. They were well behaved and did not make us cringe . . . too often ;-).

When Pete got out of bed and saw the tree with all the gifts, his eyes were as wide as saucers. He looked stunned. It was at least a half hour before he was ready to open the gifts!

Here David takes a stab at opening some of his stocking gifts (usually Pete was so helpful he ripped David's paper open for him!):


Pete opens his stocking:

Rudy opens his gift from Cash!!!

Pete just in awe that there are several more little wrapped packages in that stocking!


Dad puts together the shopping cart Granny bought for the boys . . . (they love grocery shopping and taking the food they bought to their new kitchen!)

David shakes up his LeapFrog maracas!

The Fisher Price Preschool Learning Center I went to Syracuse NY to get was a big hit (thanks Lauren and Mark). It has a music center and then flips over to a learning center where you can write and draw and it teaches you letters, numbers, phonics, etc.

My very small dining room table managed to fit 6 comfortably with kids at a smaller table. I got too busy and never took a picture *with* people seated or the turkey on the table!
My cousin Stacey and her husband and their kids came over for Christmas dinner. George helped with the turkey - b/c we were turkey virgins. Thanks for the rosemary tip!!

Here is their daughter Emily:
Michael tries out Peter's new plasma car from Steph and Chris. *ahem* Actually, we ALL tried out the plasma car :-)!!!!
At the last minute David decided I just hadn't cleaned enough so he wanted to get the dustbuster out . . .

Mmmmmmm, yummy appetizers . . .

Yummy treats I baked (mostly all my grandmother's (Gurney) recipe) . . .

The family hanging out after dinner . . .
Stacey and George brought their dog, Zues. Ironically enough Zues is Rudy's brother and they were the two pups of my uncle's litter that had the most similarities - it's kinda hard to tell them apart!

More relaxing, Paul even concocted some heavily-nutmeged eggnog for us!

Stacey and Stephanie

Paul and I dressed a couple nights before Christmas to go to our friend Kathy's Christmas party. We looked pretty good! I finally got my flatiron from e-bay in the mail and here is my first attempt using it.