Christmas

For Christmas this year, my Mom and Andrew came out to join us, Kenny, and Ginny. Logan had not seen his Uncle Andrew since May, and was thrilled.  I think he thoroughly tired Andrew out in the 5 days he was here.  I figured it was only right, as Logan is just like Andrew at this age, and its only right that Andrew should get to experience what that was like for everyone else:).

Andrew around 3 years old.  (He's naked in this picture, but I have graciously edited that out.  You're welcome Andrew.)

Logan had a pretty great week.  Kenny and Andrew took him on trips to the airport, Children's Museum, and Zoo, and then of course there was Christmas. 

Decorating the tree house with Daddy

Amelie

Walking/biking/swinging around the lake

Amelie & Uncle Andrew

Amelie

We had Christmas Eve at our house, and carried on our Christmas Eve tradition of meatballs, eggplant, and ravioli.  Mark said he was going to make grilled cheese (his tradition, because he refused to eat his family's traditional clam chowder growing up), but I think he ate the meatballs in the end.
 

Christmas Eve- Amelie and Auntie Kenny

Amelie and Ginny

Kenny & Ginny (I think we have now completed all permutations of those 3)

Cooking the ravioli

And the eggplant

Ayla and Logan decorating Christmas cookies

Amelie and me

Andrew and Logan, trying on hockey gear

Kenny, Amelie, and Andrew (thank you Grandma Z for the Christmas outfit!)

Kenny & Andrew had been driven to drink at this point by all that family time

Logan at Christmas Eve Dinner

Mark & Amelie

Stockings hung by the chimney with care

Family picture.  Amelie was not too happy about it.

Grandpa Z reading us the Night Before Christmas

On Christmas morning, I was expecting to get woken up at 5am by Logan wanting to rush out and open his presents.  Instead, I had to go wake him up and drag him out of bed around 8.  He was kind of scared about the fact that we might have let some strange man come into our house in the middle of the night (quite sensible, I suppose).  Once we had convinced him that Santa was no longer there, he did cautiously go out to the family room and was quite happy to discover his lego pirate ship.   Logan didn't get through too many presents last year, but this year he was quite efficient at ripping through them all. 

On Christmas morning, Logan found a Jake and the Neverland Pirates lego pirate ship waiting for him

And Santa brought Amelie a doll

We went down to the lake for ice skating and then headed over to Kenny's for Christmas dinner.  We tried a new meal this year, fondue, but we did not execute it perfectly (we had the ingredients but not the recipes).  By that point in the week, the raw meat and thick cheese seemed pretty funny to some of us... others had had about enough of all this family time and were not so pleased. We did manage to do the chocolate fondue perfectly, which is really the important part.

My grandmother  is a classy lady and is none too pleased to have  a paper crown on her head

Kenny, on the other hand, thought her crown was pretty awesome

I think they might be drinking again

Time to join them

The day after Christmas, we met my godmother Janie for lunch.  She brought us all beautiful presents, including a very stylish hat for Amelie... I will have to take a picture. 

Mom, Janie, and Ginny at lunch the day after Christmas

And then everyone headed home, and we set off for a climbing trip in St. George.  Merry Christmas!