Holiday happenings

I hope that each of you had a splendid Christmas. I know I did. Would you like to know why? Well then, by all means, read on.

Christmas Eve was spent with Justin's family. (Well, first it was with my dad, but I didn't get pictures of that because I'm lame. But it was fun nonetheless.)

The Carrell family Christmas:

We ate pizza, drank wassail (mmmmmm), and opened presents.


Kennedy was euphoric about her new Barbie car.


So was Justin.

Harley thoroughly enjoyed her presents, as well. Via mastication.

Kennedy also received a magnificent Barbie dress-up box. She was so excited that she completely ignored the outstretched hand which was eagerly awaiting a "five".

And after blinking my eyes for only a second, the girls had transformed into Barbie-princess-fairies with magic wands who turn unsuspecting kin into frogs, snakes and other creatures. 'Twas quite the adventure.

And here are the women and children (minus myself), squished on a couch. The men were too cool and manly to be in a picture:

After a long and exciting evening with the Carrell family, we went home so that Santa could bring us some stuff.

Morning came, and so had Mr. Kringle.

Kennedy awoke to find some presents under the tree and couldn't wait to rip them open to see if Santa had granted her wish and brought her some Smencils and Sword and the Stone.

Oh look, he did. Amazing.

And since he's a pretty cool cat, he gave us more stuff.

I know it's not nearly as cool as Smencils, but I guess it will do.

We then went over to spend the rest of Christmas day with my brother and his family, AND my mother, who had been brought there by Santa. Christmas dinner was fabulous, since my sister in law cooked and she is like Martha Stewart, except without all the craziness.

And to sum it up, the rest of the year was fun. We got much-needed carpet installed downstairs, hung out with mi madre, had a little New Year's get-together with some friends, and played way too much Wii.

Now it's back to work. Yay....