The Christmas Season

December brought a lot of snow to us. We aren't very used to it around here. OSU, which never closes, had delayed start 3 days. The Foundation and Comcast never closed so we learned to deal with it and only drive when we needed to. The first day of snow was a Sunday and Paul built a fantastic snowman. The Man hadn't really been in snow before. I think he liked it, especially when Paul showed him how to throw snow at me. It was a blast then. Five minutes later though, his hands were cold and he was ready to go in.
He got to have his first hot chocolate and then we had Swedish pancakes. You don't think he likes them, do you?

Getting our tree.... We got it at Donovan's Farm, literally just around the corner. You can't shop any more local than that! I was amazed at how many extra trees the corner lots had though... an early sign of a bad economy??
We spent Christmas in our first home. It was so great to have a place of our own and space to spread out and really enjoy it.

Dad and Carol came over for Christmas Eve and Mom and Pete came over for Christmas day. The day after Christmas is Paul's mom's birthday and so we headed to Ashland to celebrate with his side of the family. The Man loved every bit of it!

Christmas Eve - he knows the gifts are the good part. But that doesn't stop him from trying to put the toys back in the boxes when he is done! Even the big inchworm! Clothes get thrown straight to the ground. Classic!
Christmas Morning was PERFECT! Paul envisioned Benjamin coming in and seeing the train set and just going crazy and playing with it with his daddy. It was very sweet. And it pretty much happened! With a small sidetracking to a pager he got the night before (which ended up thrown out on the lawn!). But the look on Benjamin's face was priceless!!!

The day after, we went to Paul's parents house and did Christmas there and also celebrated Grandma Pat's birthday. She chose for the family to go to Red Lobster. All 15 or so of us! The Man had a great time with the Lobsters! The young women there were eating Benjamin up and loved sharing them with him.




Robotic reindeer - what fun!
Ah... back at home....