A whole lota catch'n up to do...part 1

Wow, so much has happened in the last few weeks, I barely know where to start! Aunt Anne, Uncle Nate and Grandpa Jones all came in for Christmas and we have been moving fast every since. So hang with me...I have a lot to post over the next little while :)

Anne came in on the Sunday before Christmas and helped me take Orson and Lucy to see Santa and hear a story (we met up with Jessica and Maddox). Orson and Maddox thought him to be very interesting, Lucy....hated him. We still got some fun pictures and enjoyed a day in town.

Dad and Nathan came in Wednesday night, so we started straight into Christmas Eve with them the next day. We all went to mass (it was so nice sharing mass with my family), took some pictures all dressed up in front of the tree, had fajitas, put Orson to bed and played a great game of catch phrase accompanied by a few bottles of wine. I think it was the best Christmas eve that I can remember. I haven't been that relaxed in a long time!

Quite the evening!

Christmas morning came bright and early, well for Matt anyway. He was so excited he couldn't sleep. I thought this was because he wanted to see Orson open his presents but, come to find out, Matt had bought himself something he really wanted! That isn't completely fair, he really put effort into picking out presents this year and he wanted to see how happy we all were with his choices (and we all were). Anyway, Orson did not cooperate and waited until past 9 am to wake up! We had breakfast almost ready by the time he made his appearance, so we quickly opened up our stockings and then sat down to a big meal to start the day.
Orson really enjoyed looking in his stocking for things and we all enjoyed watching him (and helping. I didn't get a any really great picture of the stockings but you can get the feel.

I spent the last week up to Christmas hurriedly making Matt and Orson's to hang on our new mantle...I think they turned out pretty well. You can just make out Matt's on the far right and I did remember to take a picture of Orson's before I hung it up.

After breakfast we started in on the presents. It was a lot of fun, and Orson got some really great stuff from everyone. I think his favorites were the dragon Annie bought him, the hanging airplane that Nate got him and the car that Matt has been totting around for years. Of course, Grandpa was the real winner....he brought some of our old Brio train track with him....Orson is in love with trains and is really excited for Matt and I to finish building him a train table.

John and Dani sent Orson some great little cars....that he drove straight into the fire place (his legs look sooo long!)

Nate got a great hat and goggles from Anne

Orson took opening the presents very seriously, as you can tell by his tongue :)

He loved the car!

I made him a Christmas onesie to wear...he decided to do it up with a scarf.

Later that night, Nate's present and his got combined :)

And here is the whole gang....wish you had made it Matt.

We finished the day up by going for a hike along the river. It was a lovely, lovely couple of days.