Everything looks better upside down.

Somehow he flops himself backward, hangs out for a few and then sits back upright.  Seems like a decent ab work out I guess?!

Mickey Mouse!

snow

 For some reason, he liked to stick his face in the snow? 

88

Grandpa Yakey turned 88 today!  Brody helped make a cake last night and was front and center tonight to help blow out the candles and to consume the cake. 

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Christmas with Grammy and Grampy

I think we ate all day...

   and when we weren't eating, we were busy playing. 

 Eventually, they changed out of their matching pajamas and found their way to the gifts. 

 Even Eli found his way into the piles of gifts.

 A top gift....the $10 shopping carts.  Brody and Cohen shopped their way through Grammy's house the rest of the day and into the next day as well.

 Grandpa and Grandma Yakey helped entertain Riley.

 Another top gift was water goggles for our trip to the beach later this year.  Brody prefers to call them goo-goo goggles like Dr. Seuss does in the ABC book.

Eli and Grampy hanging out in Grampy's new chair. 

Uncle Justin excited about his gift!

Another gift that was a hit was Cohen's beloved Bobcat.  He was super excited to receive the first and second one!  I guess great minds think alike when it came to a gift for Cohen!

And that ends our Christmas extravaganza!

I failed to get a picture of the four of us together on Christmas.  Boo!

The rest of Christmas Day

 My favorite picture - Uncle Pat doing his happy dance that he drew #1 for the gift exchange!

These 3 were stunned because there was a special guest walking through the door...

That's right, Santa Claus himself came to Grandpa and Grandma's house!

Some people liked Santa....

Some people didn't...

It's what Santa brought that had two little boys eyes lighting up!

Because Grandpa is really a kid at heart, he even got a toy for Christmas! 

And to end, a happy picture of Riley.  He laid on the table and just giggled the night away.

One more day of Christmas to go...

Christmas Morning

 Brody was the first one up Christmas morning. After he asked to go play in the snow for the 100th time, we finally got him downstairs to find out if Santa had visited our house in the wee hours of the night.   Santa didn't quite get all the cookies eaten so Brody took care of those and started in on the apples too.  Santa even left both the boys a note! 

Eventually Riley woke up and joined the fun.  The boys found M&M's in their stockings and Brody found some Thomas the Tank Engine underoos too! 

Brody still likes to love on Riley.

We all scurried around after the stockings were emptied so we could make it to church at 9:00 a.m.  After church, Grammy and Grampy stopped by to see what Santa had left under the tree for the boys.  Grandpa and Grandma Yakey also came up to enjoy the festivities.  Brody had lots of fun opening all the gifts for him and Riley. 

After a late brunch, we finally got Brody to settle down for a much needed nap before we continued on our way...

Christmas Eve 2010

Blog updates have been postponed for some serious Uno on the i-Pad family time!

We spent Christmas Eve at home preparing food for our traditional dinner at Grammy's.

The Wittenberg's joined us as well as the Brehmer's.  Brody made friends with Seth - such good friends that Seth let Brody open a gift for him!

Alicia became good friends with Riley and helped him check out one of his gifts.

There's that Eli!

It was the first of many late nights for both boys.  We had fun though and dinner was quite yummy!

Before bedtime, Brody got to enjoy the snow for awhile as Kurt and Grampy scooped the drive.  He went to bed wanting to play in the snow and woke up asking the same thing. 

We remembered to put out cookies for Santa and apples for the reindeer and off to bed we all went for a long winter's nap!