Merry Christmas

Christmas has come and gone. Time always seems to go so fast. I did get my camera, that was fun. Santa came a whole week early and delivered left it on my doorstep. The kids thought that was pretty cool. Mike's parents came in on the 20th and stayed through the week. They are very generous people and spoiled us rotten while they were here. Our Christmas present from them was a trip to Costco to get whatever we needed. On Christmas Eve we always have a party at my mom and dad's house. There were 27 people there this year. It was quite a large gathering. We always have a little program from each family. Marcus and James each played 2 songs on the keyboard and my sister's family and my brother's family each did a song. Grandma always likes to read the candy cane story. This year JuliAnna was so funny. She was sitting on my nephew's lap, and he has a little stubble growing on his chin, she sat and rubbed his face the whole time that my mom was reading the story. She kept rubbing her head on his chin to. It was really cute.

This is my momma! She was so stressed that night.

Mike and his mom. Jeanne is in the background, she is my niece.
Even though I am so super fat, I am posting a picture of me and my sister Michelle.
Here are the kids Christmas morning, you can't really see the stack of presents behind them, but they had a pretty nice Christmas.

Here is Mike and his mom trying to put together one of James's toys. It only took about 3 hours.

Each of the kids (including Mike) got a Nintendo DS. They haven't put them down since they opened them yesterday. Here is Marcus with his.

Here is JuliAnna with some of her toys. She is such a ham!

And here is James with his.

I should have taken pictures this morning of the amount of snow we had. We got more than a foot yesterday. I really wasn't feeling well this morning, but I knew if I didn't go out and help Mike shovel, his mom and dad would. His dad threw out his back a while ago and his mom has broken her arm, so I went out. Well, they came out and watched us work. As his mom watched us, she said this is ridiculous, we are going to Lowes! His wonderful mom and dad, got in their car and went and bought us a snow thrower! Mike was so excited for his new toy, that since our walks were already done, he went up and down the street and also did 2 of our neighbors walks across the street as well as Susan's walks. I couldn't get him back in the house. I don't know what we would do without his mom and dad. They are so thoughtful and caring. Anyway, this was probably one of the best Christmases in a long time. I hope everyone else had a wonderful one as well:)