Celebrating the holiday

Our first Christmas celebration was on Saturday the 22nd with the extended Funny Nose clan. To make it easier for Grandma Anita, we had a lunch at her house with her husband Ken, GrandBob and Grannie Annie, Joe's Uncle Steve and Aunt Sharon, cousins Kristen and Diane and their kids and Joe's sister Leigh and our niece and nephew. It was a full house. Jake and Jadyn had a blast playing with all their cousins and the food was as always delicious.

Here are all the cousins together (we are minus one, Teah, who along with her parents Steven and Michelle, were unable to make it). Top row: Jadyn, Jake, Aidan and Aliyah. Bottom row Joel, Lilly and Paul.



And the kids and I when we got home (I wanted to show off my new boots, a Christmas gift from Joe):



When we got home Saturday afternoon, the kids were allowed to open gifts from GrandBob and Grannie Annie and both received items that were very high on their wish list. Jadyn immediately started snuggling her new Build-a-Bear German Shepherd, whom she named Germany and Jake was shocked and pleased to see a Megabloks Halo Elephant underneath the wrapping paper.





On Christmas Eve, we celebrating the holiday with friends, The Millers, our neighbors the Guerreros and Cruz and Tara. We had a traditional Mexican Christmas dinner complete with tamales, homemade refried beans, chicken taquitos and salsa courtesy of Joe and Mexican rice and guacamole from our local carniceria.  It was amazing! Afterwards, we gathered up the kids for a picture before doing a gift exchange. We were able to include Kuma and Harley in the picture along with Michael, Adriana, Jadyn, Jake and Dominic (notice Jadyn is wearing her new Stompeez slippers):



We were also able to get a family photo:



After everyone left, we carried out all our Christmas Eve traditions - picking out cookies, carrots and milk to leave for Santa, telling Jelfie good-bye, sprinkling magic reindeer food on the lawn and checking Santa's location on Norad. The kids excited, were able to go to bed fairly easy given their busy evening and by the time the clock struck midnight, Santa had already made his stop to our house:



The only question that remained; how early would the kids get up?????