Blue Angel of Christmas

Tony made Rudy a movie for Christmas: The Blue Angel of Christmas. Rudy was enthralled watching it:

A few more Christmas pictures...

Don't they look like they're happy?

Brian and Rebecca were willing to let the boys hold Lila for some pictures...

Christmas morning

We had to wake up the boys around 9 on Christmas morning to see what Santa brought. We were afraid if they slept in any longer, we'd be late for the first Christmas party! They were both thrilled to get the major items on each of their lists (easy bake oven for Brady and an airport for Rudy).

Lila also seemed very pleased with her gifts:

Family pictures

Because nothing says Merry Christmas like posed family pictures :)

The youngest generation on my mom's side (Grandma Lucy's great-grandchildren). Almost all here!

The middle generation (Grandma's grandchildren), missing 3 of my cousins:

Grandma's kids (my mom and her two brothers):

My dad's side of the family. Grandma with her 3 sons, 3 of her 4 grandchildren (my cousin Michele couldn't make it this year), 7 of her 11 great-grandchildren, and her great-great grandson. I think I got those numbers right!

family parties

A couple of the less formal shots from the family parties:

Bonfire

Grandma had a huge brush pile that needed to be burned, so that was our family fun on Thursday. (Isn't that how everyone celebrates Christmas Eve?!?)

Brady and Rudy were hard workers, loading logs into the golf cart to take over and adding them to the fire. Brady was the hero of the day when he noticed that one of the barns was smoking, helping to avert that disaster!

When my dad was getting ready to go over to Grandma's he told Brady what we were going to do. Brady came to find James and I and said, "Papa said we're going over to Grandma's to build a bonfire. Is he telling the truth?"

It's tempting to hijack Brian's facebook page and make this his profile picture :)

Family Christmas at home

We spread out the Christmas cheer every year with several mini-Christmas parties. We had our "family Christmas" at our house this year with Kelly's parents and Brian, Rebecca, and Lila.

Brady and Rudy also exchanged their gifts: a metal Blue Angel (Rudy was very specific with his wishes) and a squirmle for Brady (he was a little disappointed that it doesn't actually move all by itself!). We also gave the boys their gift from us: a trip to Great Wolf Lodge in January :)

More sledding!