and now for my final TRICK: Merry Christmas (2 Weeks Late)

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Merry Christmas (2 Weeks Late)

All I have to say is, this whole Masters program is getting in the way of my blogging.

Anyway, we had a wonderful Christmas! Ian's whole family was here and we were busy eating and sitting around for a whole week. Marsha, Frank, and Great Grandpa got here on Wednesday and Severin and Colleen arrived on Christmas morning with a big surprise...they are engaged! Aunt Colleen is awesome and we are all happy Severin did so well for himself!

Christmas Eve at Mike and Courtney's was a lot of Holden chasing Casey and Rob's dog Oliver around and sipping tea with her new tea set from Grandma. Ev made it till a whopping 7:15 and then we had to head home before the ultimate meltdown. And they had to get to bed for Santa!

Everett and Holden , mostly Holden, had a grand time opening about one million presents. They had so many that we had a pre-Christmas with all of the presents my dad sent. Why not spread out the joy, right?

On Christmas morning, Holden begged to go downstairs, and had a heart attack waiting for Ev to get his diaper changed. But, under the tree she discovered Santa had left her mommy and baby stuffed giraffes. She kept telling us she was, "too shy" when she sat on Santa's lap and maybe he wouldn't get the news she wanted a mommy and baby giraffe. But good old Santa pulled through. I was a little worried when on Christmas eve she decided she NEEDED a daddy giraffe too. I kept telling her Santa did not have time to back to Toys R Us, so she may only end up with the mommy and baby. Luckily, she was OK with that!

We had 13 adults, 2 kids, and 2 dogs for Dinner and it was great. If this family keeps marrying and reproducing we will soon end up as big as my PA family gatherings!

Everything went really well for my big first Christmas dinner, except for the baking. Luckily, I had previously made some cookies, because Christmas eve and morning were not my time to wear a chef's hat. On Christmas eve my chocolate chip cookies all came out flat like pancakes, even though I used the high altitude directions...damn. At 9 am I discovered that the chocolate cheesecake I had made the night before was burned on the edges and raw in he middle. UGH! No problem, I will make chocolate cupcakes. I even have some homemade butter cream frosting left over from Ev's B-day cake. Until...GD cupcakes! They all completely sunk in the middle....ALTITUDE, I curse you! Now it was war, I had to succeed with something, so I turned to my trusty Hershey's dark chocolate brownie recipe. SUCCESS! Thank goodness because I was running out of flour. I even decorated each mini Brownie with a swirl of green butter cream icing from my fancy new pastry bags and a tiny chocolate chip. Just to prove to the baking gods I was the winner. So Holden really lucked out getting to lick the Brownie bowl on Christmas morning! I love this collage!

By 9pm I was a zombie and completely passed out. All the work was totally worth it though! Keep up those traditions!

Here are all of the pics
http://picasaweb.google.com/KimHanou/Christmas2009#

A parting shot of Holden at the end of a long Christmas Day....Do you believe I live with this person????

2 comments:

Aunt KarenJanuary 7, 2010 at 5:46 AM
I am glad you found the time in your busy schedule to update your blog so frequently since Ev's birthday! I love all the Christmas pics. It appears Holden had a grand time!
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PeteJanuary 31, 2010 at 6:17 PM
The Everett man looks good in his parting shot. It is so fun checking out the pictures in this blogg.
Should Lyndsey, or I, read the space travlers wife?
Hold on to your holsters
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Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Merry Christmas (2 Weeks Late)

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