Christmas 2010 {Part 1}

Well I have to say our first Christmas as a family of 3 was absolutely perfect, and as Manny's shirt proclaims, truly the "Best Christmas Ever." Granted, he doesn't have much to compare it to, but I have no doubt he loved every minute of it. :) I'm so thankful for the wonderful blessing of our family.

Bubs was such a good sport and really loved all of his wrapping paper gifts. I took a ton of pictures, but due to the fact that I am clearly in over my head with my new camera, a lot of them didn't turn out the best. This makes me so sad, and is really giving me the much-needed push to learn my camera (other than the auto setting)...which is what I was trying to do but failed. Needless to say, I have a post coming on all that, so let's move on to the recap of our Christmas! And yes, I will be including some of those bad pictures just so I have a record. :)

We spent Christmas Eve at my parents' house. We had a great time eating lots (of course) and as usual watched Christmas Vacation and laughed as hard as if it was the first time we'd seen it. That movie never gets old...it's the gift that keeps on giving for sure. Here I am with Bubs right before he went to bed. (exhibit A of bad pictures, but notice my mom's beautiful tree in the background!)

Christmas Day all of my family came to my parents' house so we could celebrate together. With 5 kids in my family, our spouses, and 9 grandkids, it was definitely a full house and so much fun! Very first thing we had a surprise for my parents. They have been wanting to get a new TV, so all of us kids decided to go together to surprise them with one. We wanted to have it set up and everything, so we came up with the idea to tell them we wanted to go take pictures of them with the grandkids so we could get them out of the house while the guys set the TV up. Only problem is it was fuh-reeeezing outside! So I'm sure they thought I was crazy insisting on outdoor pictures, but they obliged. The poor kids were freezing but we only stayed outside like 5 minutes so they managed to survive.

I think this was one of the last pictures we took before everyone headed to the car...you can see we're starting to fall apart.

 Poor Laci and Ellie were so cold but stuck together...they are best buddies; it's precious.

 My precious mom and dad...aren't they the cutest?!

As soon as we got a text from the guys that they were done, we loaded back up and headed home. We got inside and mom and dad didn't notice the tv right away. They were talking about lunch or something and finally my dad was like, "What?" because we were all standing around and smiling at them. Finally they noticed the tv, and were so shocked! It was SO fun to do a surprise for them after all of these years that they've done so much for us and always made Christmas memorable and incredibly special. It was a great memory. :) Love you SO much mom and dad!

Next it was time to open presents! Of course the kids really got into it, and Manny really got into, well, the paper. Laci helped him open most of his gifts.

 

There was one gift of Laci's that Manny really wanted to help her open though...it was so funny how he kept going over to it. Laci was so sweet and let him help. :)

Don't you just love his precious outfit from SheShe Made?! I will post some more pictures of him in it in the next Christmas post too...he looked like such a doll in it.

My parents got him a Leap Frog Musical Activity Table, and he loves it!! I'm not sure what we did before this thing. They also got him a fun cell phone where you can record messages...he loves that too.

 

After the kids opened their gifts, the adults did a Dirty Santa gift exchange. This is so much easier than buying gifts for everybody, and is also so fun! Patrick scored an awesome back massager (that he pretty much got for me so he wouldn't have to rub my back) and I got an amazing electric blanket and cookbook/craft idea book that has tons of cool things I can't wait to try.

After that we had a yummy lunch and then just relaxed the rest of the day...it was a great time! This post is already incredibly long, so I'll post about our little family Christmas at home in a separate post. I love Christmas time but am always sad when it's over...although I am ready to have my decorations down. Be back soon with more!