Simon/Farley Family Christmas

John's parents, Dirk and Nedra, are headed to Hawaii this Tuesday (we will be joining them on the 28th, woohoo!), so we celebrated an early Christmas with John's side of the family last night/this morning. Highlights included a delicious fondue dinner prepared by Nedra, Dirk's reading of the Christmas story, present-opening, trivial pursuit on the nintendo wii, and a big pillow fight with the cousins.

Janie and Auntie Lolo

Will with his fondue fork

Monkeys on the bed


Todd and Clara

Clara and Janie playing together

Jane all pooped out after present-opening (somehow my kids always manage to be half-naked by the end of the day, or by noon sometimes :)

Pictures from the Myers Family Christmas 2009

Since we will be scattered around the west coast for Christmas, we celebrated early with my side of the family. Highlights from Christmas 2009 included gingerbread house-making, nerts, the kids telling 'Santa' what they want for Christmas (Will said emergency vehicles and Evey said goggles), a chicken enchilada dinner and relaxing fun with the family.

Will telling Pa that he wants emergency vehicles for Christmas

Snuggling

Evey in the goggles she wanted for Christmas

Babs in the Christmas spirit

Opening stockings

Jane (18 months) and John (9 months)

the boys looking at the fire truck book

Gretchen in her snuggie

Jane sporting the snuggie

Will showing me the police car he was so excited to get (the siren kept going off while it was still wrapped and under the tree, so he was VERY ready to finally open it)

Mom and Gretch

Johnny and the kids waiting for dinner

Janie in her Christmas finest

Evey enjoying her sparkling cider

Baby John chasing Gretchen

Libby and Leah

Evey and Jane thoroughly enjoyed playing together in the kitchen

Gingerbread house with Great Aunt Mary (that collapsed shortly thereafter)


Janie enjoying her chocolate-covered hand

Jane in her new shades

December so far...

December has been busy busy busy but so full of fun activities. This week we're gearing up to celebrate Christmas early with our extended family as both my parents and in-laws are going to be out of town on Christmas. It will be weird but kind of fun to celebrate with just the four of us come December 25th.
A daily highlight for our family this month has been reading a Bible story every day followed by opening the advent calendar. The kids sit still for the story knowing that a delicious morsel of chocolate awaits them inside of the their calendar. I'll have to try and get a picture of them mauling John to get their chocolate when he finishes the story.
Here are a few other recent pictures:

Going to the Goble Sampson Christmas Party


Jane playing with the Nativity set at church and Will and Bubby watching carolers between services at church:


Jane and her buddy, Madison

Will being "tempted" to touch the tree. He likes to play police and make sure Sissy doesn't take any ornaments off of the tree, either.

Some of the kids at the Christmas party we hosted last night for our church friends. We had an awesome 13-year old from church help out and she managed to keep 14 (!!) kids under control with no injuries or damage to the house while the parents got to enjoy their dinner and a book exchange.

Thanksgiving 2009

Last year's holidays are a bit of a blur in my mind because we were sick much of the winter months. I am happy to say that Thanksgiving 2009 was relaxing, family-filled and flu bug-free. The only member of our family that caught a virus this Thanksgiving was our computer, which whacked out on Friday morning as I attempted to get some Black Friday deals. We finally got our computer back from the pc-fix shop yesterday. So, here I am finally downloading pictures.

We spent Wednesday evening with John's familiy/extended family and had a wonderful feast at Dirk and Nedra's.





Thursday was spent with my side of the family including lots of cousins, aunts and uncles.
The rest of the weekend was spent getting our Christmas tree and monkeying around as a family. I was sad to see the weekend end....