Christmas Celebrations # 2 & 3

We usually celebrate Christmas with Erik's family on Christmas Eve and my family on Christmas Day. However, families are growing so in order to accommodate everyone we decided to have Erik's family celebration on Sunday instead. It worked out really well because we were able to spend the night and make it an extra long event which Kade loved! We were even able to play out in the snow for a little bit where we saw tracks from rabbits, snakes, bears and a Sasquatch! Okay, only the first critter is true :-)

Unfortunately that meant we weren't able to travel to Kansas City to celebrate with my brother's family. In hindsight that turned out to be a good thing! Apparently Iowan's don't believe in clearing roads after big snowstorms because they were still terrible 3 days later and my parents were in a minor accident on their way home! No injuries, just a good scare and a dent in the car. We were still able to celebrate Christmas Day with my parents and do a Skype session with my brother and Vivienne (Evelyn had to work).

I don't think 4 days have ever flew by so fast!! I'm pretty sure Kade loved every minute of them! He got SO MANY awesome gifts and Santa didn't disappoint either :-) I know this because our neighbors have a light up plastic Santa in their yard and as we were passing it on our way home Kade said, "Hi Santa!! Thank you for the presents!"


First things first, Kade and "Aunt Air win" whipping up a delicious batch of adult punch :-)  We gave Kade a kid friendly version and he pretended to like it but every time he took a sip his face wrinkled up and he smacked his lips.  Needless to say, his glass never needed a refill!

And the second most important part of the day...frosting!!!  For the last month, everytime someone asked Kade what he wanted for Christmas his response was always, "pancakes, bacon and frosting" :-)


The finished product.  Have you ever seen better placement of sprinkles?! 



I'm pretty sure Kade's favorite person in the whole wide world is Erin, so she's in a lot of the Christmas pictures as Kade never left her side :-)

He kept the guys in the family busy after he opened this present!  Lots of tackling, running and throwing!!


A picture of my all-time favorite present...my little handy man, trimming the tree, with a bow on his head.


Kade and his cousin, Violet


Time to get to work on the next round of presents!

By Christmas morning, at my parent's house, Kade was an old pro at opening gifts!  He would say, "I can open it!  Here, let me show you what I got you" :-)

Careful with that knife, Grandpa!  Kade kept a close eye on his new tractor and offered lots of advice on how to get it out of the box.

I love this picture because this is how he posed with all of his presents.  He would hold them in front of his face and say "CHEESE".  At least with this gift you can see some of his big grin :-)