So Very Merry

We had a wonderful Christmas! Here are a few pictures to share with all our out of town family! We spent the holiday at home, due to Brian and Lauren's work schedules...so the rest of the Bolger side came to us! On Christmas eve we enjoyed lots of yummy food, watched A Christmas Story, read the Gift of the Magi, played games, stayed up until midnight, and opened our adult gifts from the adult gift exchange. We gave to, and got from, Ann & Mom.

Christmas morning we opened the last day of advent, and put baby Jesus on the manger. The kids got 1 piece per day to build the nativity over the course of the month

We opened gifts and had brunch starting at about 9:30-10:00. It was some YUMMY food...crumb cake, cinnamon rolls (best I've ever had!), quiche, tea cakes and curd...the list goes on...it was amazingly good. The funniest part of the food was the rice porridge. Which was apparently delicious. I did not taste it, and all who know me, know of my absolute disdain of porridge. So I had to give Ann a hard time when she suggested eating this for breakfast on Christmas morning, using leftover rice. I guess really it's more rice pudding-ish (another *fave* of mine, ack), but I thought it was funny anyhow. All the porridge lovers liked it!

Here are some of our "prezzies", as Grey calls them...

He received gifts from Keaton (cousins exchange), G&G Kennedy, G&G Bolger, Mommy&Daddy, Noni, Ann, & Meghan!

He received gifts from G&G Kennedy, G&G Bolger, Mommy&Daddy, Noni, Ann, & Meghan!...his cousins exchange gift is still in the mail...from Vienna. He will die when he receives it...it's his very own handheld angry birds game! He does not know he's missing a prezzie yet. He'll be thrilled!

She received gifts from Marshall (cousins exchange), G&G Kennedy, G&G Bolger, Mommy&Daddy, Noni, Ann, & Meghan

Chilling with "Meemaw. No no no no no no! Meemaw! No no no no no no" Grey thinks it is hilarious fun to NOT call Grandpa "Papa", but rather his Grandma word, "Meemaw"

It's a Charlie Brown Christmas...on Brian's brand new Blu-Ray player!!! Our regular/good DVD player broke early this year. We replaced it with the backup DVD player...one I've had since before we were married. It basically was not cooperative technology with the new style of tvs and stuff, so all the movies sounded awful and were very dark (sometimes almost black). But we were living with it. Until I saw a steal of a Black Friday deal and HAD to snag him a new LG Blu-Ray/DVD player. It is truly amazing:-) The price was about 80% off too, so it was amazing all around!

The biggest family photo yet!! Including Ann's new husband, Jacob, and Lauren's boyfriend, Dale.

A wonderful gift...to me, from Brian. I LOVE it!!!!

Backstory: When I was getting married, my mom gave me her Kenwood mixer...it was dying, and she got a new Bosch or something. We'll the Kenwood's still going! You cannot however, raise it beyond halfway way to level one...one at the MAX. It grinds and whirls and makes atrocious sounds. But it goes fast enough to kneed pizza dough, which is all I use it for...I have a hand held mixer for everything else. Enter my wonderful mother in law who took pity on my mixing plight! (when she tried to use the machine when I wasn't home she got the scare of her life. I'm not kidding when I say do not raise above level one:-)! Guess what I happily threw in the garbage on Christmas Day?? RIP Kenmore, you've served 2 families very well, but your time is up! I now have a phenomenal KITCHENAID. Wahoooooooo!!!

Trying out a gift - Wii "attachments" to make the remote look like the actual sports equipment

Dale and Jake, a friendly rivalry going on! Dale sacrificially bought Jake a Cowboys backpack for school for his birthday (on the 26th) :-)

Another post with video coming soon!