Christmas / New Years in Illinois

After we all made the long drive to Illinois, the kids were ready to open presents at my parents house. All of the adults, however, were exhausted and ready for bed :-) The compromise meant that they got to open all the presents except for the ones from Uncle Kevin and Kenny, and my scatterbrain forgot to get any sort of camera out! But in my defense, nobody managed to have one ready. That meant that lots of pictures were taken when they were finally able to open the presents that Kevin and Kenny got them.

As you can tell, Heidi ended up getting that nasty cold virus that was going around my family, which also caused a cold sore on her lip. I suppose for her sake, that was better than getting the flu just after her surgery. She is showing off a pretty new princess puzzle.

Kylie absolutely loves this fish bowl that my grandma got her. She spends a lot of her time playing with it!

Zach is super excited about his "Cars" game for their new VTech VSmile! He plays it all the time and is quite the master at all the games the kids got!
And then there is Drew :-) He probably had the most fun on this night with the stuffed animals they got from Kung Fu Panda. As the video shows, he decided to make them fight, and then when he was done, he pretended to lay down and go to sleep on them. He had us all on the floor with laughter!

The night they ended up opening these gifts was also New Years Eve. Great Grandma and Grandpa Russell came over for a prime rib dinner that Danny cooked, and it was quite delicious I might add! He also played bartender and made his own version of his brother Joe's margaritas. It was fun watching my mom get tipsy and seeing how hard we all laughed at eachother. We all played a game on the Wii that had darts, ski ball, and other fun classics on it. Not surprisingly, Dan and I did not stay awake until midnight. I have yet to do so since any of my children were born. It's sad, I know, but unfortunately its the truth. I'm told that even my grandparents (who are 86 and 87) didn't go home until after they rang in the new year with my parents! My brother was also in town with his girlfriend and their puppy. My kids are typically not too fond of dogs, but they did gain a liking to Bregan (not sure how to spell that). Zach got this stuffed animal and spent the evening walking it on his make shift leash. Very cute!

Drew decided to join in on some of the festivities, and tried a sip of Mommy's margarita. And, PaPaw and Uncle Brian helped Kylie join in the fun, letting her pretend and play with an unopened can of beer.


Happy New Year to everybody! 2009 is bringing about lots of changes for our family and we are looking forward to them all.