Wonderful Holiday!

Wayne skyping with Kirstin and Pete putting antlers on him

Randy and his White Elephant gift..wears it well!

Wayne opening gifts at home

Kids opening gifts...dogs playing with theirs

Alex, Graham and Connor flying kites at Gma's.

Alex and his twin, Connor, watching basketball

Connor, "Let me help you Graham." 

Playing cards with Great Gma Rita

"Alright!! Jump in the paper!!!"

We will help you Elyse

Elyse, Graham, Alex, Connor

With my holiday break soon over (yes, we return January 2nd...too soon!), I thought I would quickly send out a post sharing some pictures of our Christmas gatherings.  We had a wonderful time at all of the gatherings that we had with family and friends!  Thank you to Randy and Lori for hosting the Kerian Christmas gathering, my mom and dad for hosting the Nadermann Christmas, and Wayne for cooking for our family Christmas as I was not feeling well Christmas eve day.  Everything was perfect, it couldn't have been better, and it was so nice to have Kirstin home!

With the weather being in the 30s and 40s Christmas day, Wayne brought his kites to my parents and the little boys enjoyed flying Wayne's kites, as did Wayne, except there were a lot of power lines around that we had to be careful of.  Connor can now say "Kite" and it is so cute.  He can also say "Lyse" and "Aex" but not "Kim"....come on Sara.....get working on that! 

It was also nice that on Christmas day we got to spend some time with my grandma, the kids' great grandma.  She is a major card player, so she played cards with the kids, chuckling at "What kind of game do you play...this is crazy!"....as Elyse immitates Gma Rita in her older lady voice.  I was very glad to get to chat with her and see her!

Kirstin was not able to be home in time for the Kerian Christmas, but we did skype her in to watch and be there as much as she could.  She, sadly, left to fly back to NC this morning.  It was a very emotional morning for her, as I think she realized how much she misses Iowa (or maybe just sleeping in and never having to cook...yeah...that might be it! :)  Just kidding Kirstin!  We were so glad to have you home!  Your dad is still pretty shook up about you leaving....

I came across some old pictures of Ken that some of his friends had on Facebook while he was at West Point.  It was fun and bittersweet to look at those pictures and show the kids how Ken "really looked".  Kind of warmed my heart for the holiday break, but still miss him endlessly.

We hope all of you had a wonderful holiday season with family and friends over the holidays!  Thanks to our families for a wonderful holiday!