Christmas Morning!

As usual, we all spent the night at Grandma Wolfe's house for Christmas Eve.  Em, Caleb and the boys and Todd and Brenna were all there.  Grandma's house is starting to feel pretty small with all those people.  At any rate, here are a few photos of our morning.

Unfortunately dad wasn't there because he had to have emergency surgery on his knee due to an infection.  So things were a little crazy.  Todd came to town a week before Christmas an got the tree for Grandma's.  It was a little Charlie Brown-ish.  But after mom and I gave it a little TLC and decorated it, it didn't look so bad.

The rest of our time in Pittsburgh, Sam and I got to go to a movie with my siblings, visit the Carnegie Museum of Natural History to see the re-vamped dinosaur exhibit, and went to a 5 year class get together with my High School senior class.  We also got to visit with Aunt Nancy, Willie, Miriam and Donnie.  I hadn't seen Aunt Nancy and Willie in quite a while and it had been even longer since I'd seen Miriam and Donnie, so it was so good to be able to catch up.  I am so bad with keeping in touch.

I also discovered that Caribou coffee (my very favorite that I have to get my fill of while I visit) had new, improved mochas.  I was skeptical, but they were really good.  I think I stopped there 7 of the 10 days I was home.  When are they going to open Caribou in California?  One in Lake Forest maybe? Just my business alone would probably be enough to keep them afloat.

Tradition!

Christmas cookies with the Bovards.  It all started with Erin and me and our moms making and decorating Christmas cookies when we were in grade school.  Well, the tradition has continued and includes our ever growing families.  The more the merrier I say.  This was Sam's first year at cookie decorating.  Turns out he's got a hidden talent - he was good.  And Phin really cranked them out this year too.  He was pretty good. Silas just enjoyed eating the cookies.

Light One Candle for Peace

This is a video from Phin's preschool Christmas program. Notice he's the only one in his class even trying to sing. Good job Phin!!

Christmas with the Crocketts

Since Sam and I were going to be in Pittsburgh for actual Christmas, we spent the weekend before pretending it was Christmas.  We went over Friday night after work and had dinner.  I made a yule log for the first time - complete with meringue mushrooms.  It ended up pretty good.  A lot of work but I would probably do it again.

We all spent the night and woke up to a wonderful Christmas breakfast complete with homemade doughnuts before spending the morning opening a TON of gifts.

I made out like a bandit! Ben and Kalyn got me a breadmaker - one of the things I didn't think I needed when I registered for our wedding but found I was really missing.  I got a ton of wonderful gifts.  Sam really out did himself this year.  He got me a beautiful bracelet and an equally beautiful bag.  It's going to be hard for him to top that next Christmas.

The best part of our wonderful "Christmas morning" was that we got to go do it again with more family in just a few days!

Visitors!

Continuing on my mission to get caught up with posts...

November was filled with visitors (well, the most houseguests our apartment has seen anyway). First off was Erin and Dan who came out for the Ducks/Pens game. And I'm proud to say that the Pens won...but Sam got to sit on the glass so it wasn't a total loss for him. I didn't get any pictures until the actual game, but here's what I have. We also got a quick trip to L.A. in to see Tim and have some Pink's hot dogs. It was my very first Pink's hot dog even though I lived a half-mile from it for about a year.



Next was Emily's trip out for USC's homecoming game. I don't really wanna talk about the game, so I guess it's okay that this is the only picture I got.

While we were in L.A. we got to hang out with Emily's friend Rebecca - also don't have any pictures of that. But I do have proof of Emily's requisite visit to the beach. San Clemente to be exact. It was a perfect Southern California fall day!


(Please notice our pile of Starbucks drinks on the bench that I thought would be out of the above picture). Can't be without our Starbucks.


Next up: Thanksgiving and my birthday. A little rushed and low quality but I'm almost caught up.