Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. We started with Christmas Eve at my parents house. Nolan's parents joined us along with my Grandma. My mom prepared our traditional meal of ham, yummy potatoes and such. Delicious! We ate, visited, played games and opened Christmas Eve gifts. All of us were pretty tired, pretty early. Too much anticipation.

The O'Brien Crew

Mike, Ashlee & Boys

Grandma & Grandpa Skiby with Boys

The Boys and their Great Grandma Mary, we were very blessed to have her with us this Christmas after a heart attack in October, she's 91 years young.

We made sure that Santa had a snack to tempt him to come.

Don't forget the reindeer. Cy had made some reindeer food in school. It was made up of oats (for them to smell) and glitter (they are drawn to sparkle). Worked like a charm!


Christmas morning started pretty early. Cole is suddenly an early riser (boo!) and was up at 6:30, it was still dark so the coast was not clear. We waited until Cy got up around 7:15 to get started. Santa left a letter saying that the reindeer were so enticed by the food we left out for them that he had stopped at our house first out of all the homed in the neighborhood. Santa gobbled up his Cookies and took our elf, Ralphie, back to the North Pole. Ralphie had kept watch over the boys each day and reported back to the North Pole each night. We look forward to seeing him again next year.



Showing off some of their gifts.
Night vision goggles from Granny & Papa Skiby.


Cuddly Storm Troopers

Santa brought Cole his own Indiana Jones hat and whip.


We had a great day. This is the first year that we stayed home all day. The boys are at the age that they want to stay and play with their toys and avoid running around. We asked our families to come over to our house. It was such a relaxing day. Norm brought over and made all of us breakfast. We chose a great year to do this as the weather was terrible!! We appreciate everyone braving the storm to come spend some of the the day with us.

The theme of our Christmas was Recession Shmession...what recession. It was crazy. As the owners of the only grandchildren on both sides, we were swimming - no drowning in gifts. I still do not have them all put away and it will take 6 more garbage days for us to get rid of all the packaging. Everyone was more than generous, we are very spoiled.

This is the end of the day, still in jammies. We were happily worn out.

Here is Cole re-enacting how he had slept waiting for Santa.

Thanks for a wonderful Christmas. Each one seems just better than the last. Already counting the days until the next one.