Unfinished business before we move on...

Yes we had more awarding going on towards the end of the year... McKenna got an award the end of November for the "Virtue of Generosity". No picture that day, I was out and about and no time to stop by the house... Then in December, McKenna, Nick received awards... McKenna, "Virtue of Courage" and Nick, "Virtue of Courage" Way to stick with it and make it happen!

The Big Day... or three

Christmas this year was a bit more hectic than most. Erics schedule was work, work, work. for that matter most of the families were too. Christmas day was mainly just the five of us, then we had the Olson/Alpert clan on Saturday and Sunday the Olson/Gilmer clan was here. Below you will see pictures from all of it... no particular order, just family fun. Get comfy, you may be here a few minutes.



As you can see the boy has found that there are alot of goodies this time of year and boy are they good. We started doing our Christmas baking about a week before the 'big day' and he loved it. Yes, right in the middle of everything. He knew when the spoons were ready to be licked, he knew when it was time to take things out of the oven... he even knew where hiding spots were all over the place. Yes thats a bowl of old fashioned hard candy in his lap. He's grown so tall he can reach everything off the counters. He also loved the tree. As you can see here there are a few lights twinkling but no little sparkly dangly things... everything was moved to the top half of the tree. Amazingly it never did tumble over. And never once did he dig into the presents... amazing enough... especially since Caley had to rearrange every-single-one-every-single-day. Presents, oh so much fun. This year we had to put a special email into Santa. Daddys schedule wasn't going to allow us to wake up to presents delivered from Santa so we requested that Santa's elves to send them special delivery to the shed and we'd wait for Daddy to get home to open them... they were so accomodating, the kids thought that was awfully nice of them to make special arrangements.

"And I don't think I've tried one of these."

MMMMM... looks good enough to eat

Candy... I really like these sticky swirly sticks. A nice coat of glistening red slobber everywhere!

This is Christmas eve... I told the kids I wanted to get a Christmas photo of all of them in front of the tree just like every year. As soon as we were done Eric asked them "who wanted to open up presents?" At first the look on their faces was 'oh he's just kidding' and then figuring out that he was serious the beams that came form their faces could have lit up 7 more christmas trees.

Once he saw that there was someting under that pretty paper he got into opening them up.

Mommy gave Daddy a million dollar bill...

SCORE... I got what I wanted! Barbie RV

Love this out fit that came from Hawaii... Jack doesn't even understand how good he will look this summer. and the girls got beautful Hawaiin dresses. Thanks Gramma Ruth and Grampa Gerard

Sittin around fat and sassy!

McKenna and baby Zach.

The tech family, Fran on his iPod, Trish texting, Mara on the Guitar Hero and Nick had

one of the girls Leapsters...

Strong Man, Jacob Tyler...

Those Alpert girls are pros at the unwrapping stuff... no messin around!

and baby Zach, what a little guy but a chunk at the same time... mostly his cheeks... no its all his cheeks but he's growing into the fast. Beautiful baby boy!

Gramma Gilmer and Laurie...

Uncle Joe and Auntie Sharon

Isn't she beautiful?

Thats it for this year!
Merry Christmas to All and to All a Goodnight!

A Visit to Santa Himself...

Off to the Old Cannery we go... we chose them this year because it was all done on donation and they donated to local food banks, we thought it was a good deal. But...... it was a very long line. 3 hours to be exact.

As you can see we had to nap now and then but over all went very well. Everyone in line around us was in the Christmas Spirit and made the time pass...

Doesn't my little man look so handsome in his Christmas outfit? It definelty made him look so grown up.

And doesn't ole Saint Nick look so Jolly?
He was jolly,and by the time we had
our turn it was and hour past the end of his day.











After the photo the kids got to pick a piece of candy from under the bridge. Even Daddy got to be in on this venture after work.

Look at my kids aren't they beautiful :)