The day after Christmas 2009

So this year, I hosted Christmas with my immediate family, which included my Dad, stepmom, both sisters and my niece and nephew. I made turkey and all the fixin's (since I didn't end up making one for Thanksgiving) and it was delish!!! (kinda surprised myself :) And after dinner, we opened presents. With 3 kids aged 9, 10 and 11, this is a pretty quick task. They don't spend too much time looking at the gifts at first...and it's utter destruction in the living room :)

Izzy was very focused on the task at hand...

Not quite sure what happened to my nephew's pants, but had to capture it!

Love the hat!

A little time with Grandma

And a little time with Grandpa

My nephew LOVES Izzy....since he's the only boy, I think he appreciates it when he gets to do things with her..cute!

All of the kids ended up spending the night at our house that night, which was no small feat for us. We (Joacim and I) were a little worried because we'd never had more than 2 of them at a time (sounds silly, I know, but I've heard from very reliable sources that they can gang up on you!). The great side-benefit of this is having 3 great little baby-sitters :) JT spent some time with Joacim playing the playstation, and Taylor and Brianne played with Izzy:

We had a great time....made hot chocolate and popcorn and watched Polar Express.

It was a GREAT day!!!

Brianne's Birthday

Ok, so I'm TOTALLY behind on this one, but I wanted to make sure I posted this because I know that my little sister looks on here, and I want her to see the photos.

So, her 11th (yikes!!! can't believe it!!!) birthday was back on September 20th. We had a nice little party with family at my parent's house. It was a little chilly that day, but you'll see that it didn't stop the kids!

Here's the birthday girl and her niece...

The girls (Taylor and Bri) were having so much fun playing with Izzy, and from the looks of the smiles on her face, she was having just as much fun!





This is my nephew, JT..trying to look like a thug..:)

Opening presents....of course there had to be SOMETHING in regards to the Jonas Brothers!

I have no idea what she was doing here

Here she is trying on JT's trucker hat

So, even though the pool was only 78 degrees, the kids wanted to go swimming. Amazingly enough, they stayed in there for quite a while!

Here's JT doing a somersault...pretty nice

Why do Cheetos and swimming always seem to go together for kids???

Here's a little mommy time

She was eyeing that water though..she REALLY wanted to get in

Joacim got this one...nice expression, JT!

Then, of course, they wanted Joacim to throw them into the pool...I think this is Taylor flying through the air

And now Brianne (this was a LOT easier when they were younger...they're almost too tall for it now!)

Finally Izzy gets her turn

Here's Bri's yummy cake!

And here's Izzy with her Grandpa....she LOVES her grandpa...doesn't matter how much time goes by between visits...

This MIGHT be part of the reason why :) (look at the expression on my dad's face!)


It was a great day!!!