WHEW!! I don’t ever remember a Christmas season being as busy as this last one! Jon and I were running around like chickens with our heads cut off the week before Christmas… both working two jobs, buying gifts, and trying to get other loose ends tied up before we flew back to Iowa for Christmas with his family. I saw the Broadway Musical Wicked on Saturday night and it was sooooo good! If you have an opportunity to see it, I wouldn’t pass it up! In fact, I want to go see it again! We flew into Omaha on Sunday afternoon and drove to my in-laws house in Orange City. I enjoyed almond patties, poke & pour cake, dried beef on rusk buns, and some delicious monkey bread!! The diet can always start tomorrow, right!? It even snowed on Christmas Day which looked very pretty from my warm place on the couch! No way was I venturing out in that cold white stuff! Here are a few pictures from our time at home:We got to meet the newest addition to the family! This is our nephew Tyson, just two months old. He’s wearing the gift we gave to him when he was born. I just couldn’t pass up the adorable teddy bear hat. And don’t you just want to squeeze those chubby cheeks!? This is Tyson’s brother, Grant. He’s 2 1/2 and starting to understand that at Christmas he gets presents! He didn’t seem to mind whose presents (or “presidents” as he calls them) he opened. The look on his face at the sight of each unopened gift was priceless!The look on this cute face is pretty priceless too! LOL! Jon’s mom found a box of old dolls that the kids used to LOVE! She thought it would be funny to wrap them up for Christmas. This was Jon’s favorite Cabbage Patch doll. All he has to do is lose a little hair and they could be twins! LOL! He also got his old Carebear (the green one)… nevermind that it was missing an eye and had holes under the arms! One of my favorite gifts was this Kitchen Aid immersion blender. Apparently I’m easily pleased!
I formed a very bad habit while were there too… can you say Guitar Hero!? My brother-in-law brought his Xbox and Guitar Hero games along and I just couldn’t get enough! This is me dualing with my SIL, Brooke. I think she won!We had a wonderful time at home and returned late on Wednesday night. In all our excitement to catch our flight to Iowa, we had forgotten to take note of where we parked our car. So we spent about 20 minutes wandering around this huge lot and finally found it. It’s good to be back home! Jon and I exchanged our gifts before we left for Iowa. He got me this beautiful diamond necklace… completely unexpected which made it even more special! I was able to get my hands on a Nintendo Wii for his Christmas gift! When I had the idea to get him a Wii I had no idea that a million other people also wanted to get Wii’s for Christmas. It was this year’s most popular Christmas gift. After many phone calls I was told that one of the nearby Costco stores would be putting out a shipment in just 15 minutes. I rushed over there and made it in line for one of only thirteen Wii’s that arrived that day. The people at Costco told me I was very lucky as they always sell out within 5 minutes of taking them off the truck. They didn’t even enter the store… we took them direct from the loading dock! LOL! Jon was very appreciative of my efforts and we’ve been enjoying playing our Wii since we got back home. We’re exchanging gifts with my family this weekend and then we must take down the Christmas tree and all the festive decorations and store them until next year. *sad face*I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and I wish you all the best in the New Year! Thank you for reading my blog throughout 2007! I’ve made so many wonderful friends through this blogging venture and I hope 2008 holds more of the same! P.S. Sorry I missed Cupcake Friday but with all the travels I just couldn’t get a design completed. Stay tuned next Friday for a tasty treat! 🙂