CHRISTMAS!

I know we are well into January now, but I do want to take a minute to say how nice my Christmas was this year...or this past year...2009. I am so glad I got to take a few days off work and get away to West Virginia. As I mentioned before, getting the entire family there during the wintery December days was a bit of a challenge, but eventually did work out. A few days late and many reroutes later, Ben and Jen made it from Montana with my new little nephew, Joel. Meeting him for the first time and being able to be around him on his first Christmas was an absolute delight. He is the cutest little thing. This is a picture of when I first met him at the airport. The poor little guy had just had quite a time with his trip, but he seemed to do pretty well. We even had to wait around for luggage to arrive on a different flight. He didn't even cry (he saved that for the car ride home! Yeah!) He spit up a bit on Stacy, but not on me, so I guess he liked me. Not that he didn't like her, but he just respected me more, right? I am the 'elder' sister and he may have learned to 'respect the elder' or something like that. Well anyway, I managed not to get spit up on and I don't mind that at all.

Besides baby fun, Christmas was really nice because of all the normal things...like making men with Stacy. That's always an enjoyable tradition. The stories we tell and quotes we come up with as we roll out, cut, create, and bake our guys get better with each passing year. Mom tried to give us some tips on how to help our men hold together when they started falling apart. She had some good ideas, but it ended up being quite a messy batch regardless. Maybe better luck next time...