the next morning is when the christmas fun began. the boys were pretty excited for their gifts, so after lunch they got to work on sorting out all of the gifts from under the tree.

where’s my harry potter lego game?! (oh, right, it’s waiting for me to load it into my wii at home… i am not so good at finishing video games.)

of course, that’s not really a ps3.

it’s just a bunch of air pockets… and brown sugar…

and a few gift cards, too.

it looks pretty…

but it’s just toilet paper. (this family has a lot of fun messing with each other.)

jason is goofy and cute.

nicholas was so excited about his new mario kart jammmies, that he ran off and put them on right away. (you’ll notice them in photos to come.)

alex got a kindle, which involved a drive into town to find a wi-fi hotspot (dairy queen) to get set up.

i wrapped missy’s gift with a lot of tinsel and tissue paper. a lot.

renee found some neat earrings for me — made from the glass of a wine bottle!

nikki has been studying acupuncture lately, to accompany her mad chiropractic skillz. (she fixed me a bit before we left for home the next day.)

already putting the toilet paper gift to good use!

i think i meant to be taking a photo of renee, but this capture is pretty hilarious. i was giggling as i sorted through these photos.

i thought the bow fell off of my head right away, actually.

jason and i got logan a beer-making kit. logan loved it, but it made missy cry.

jaxon has a tinsel butt.

wine charms made from scrabble tiles — enough to spell out “laughter” (which would be an excellent play).

i wrapped nikki’s gift with a simple paper bag. which she was afraid to open.

but the inside was full of chocolate and minnesota wine.

this is a photo of jason and me opening a gift together.

yarn! hand-spun and hand-dyed, renee found it from a local business in des moines.

nicholas loves being in front of the camera.

and, of course, this was the first christmas without uncle fred. renee had some of his clothing sewn to make clothing for “papa” bears, which each of the boys received. (jaxon was not into having a photo taken, unfortunately.)

i think that’s a pretty sweet idea.

after opening all of our gifts and cleaning up, we celebrated jaxon’s second birthday. that kids sure likes applause!

and his laughter was infectious.

but then it was time to try the cake!

the detail of this capture is awesome. (photo credit goes to jason.)

yes, it was a very good birthday cake.

after jaxon opened his gifts, we had some fun with balloons and static.

some of us unwillingly (at first).

we rounded out the night with a game of apples to apples. always fun!

the next morning we took it pretty easy. renee always arranges a yankee christmas gift game, and i went home with a tray to make a wine cork trivet. some of us (me) were still in our jammies, though, so the camera didn’t make it out for that fun.

then it was back home to minneapolis, and now? christmas is really over.

(this is chocolate-covered bacon, courtesy of aunt kim.)

during the actual christmas weekend, jason and i went to south dakota to celebrate with my family. we hung out with a bunch of my hometown friends on friday night (and mostly had the karaoke stage to ourselves), celebrated with my mom’s family on saturday (christmas eve), and celebrated with my dad’s family on sunday (christmas day).

other long-overdue posts on the way: the monday after christmas was for celebrating bertine and zach’s wedding. last weekend, we drove down to des moines to celebrate christmas (and nephew jaxon’s second birthday) with jason’s family.

that’s a lot of celebrating!

this is the face that hannie makes when she is excited but shy. she’s a pretty adorable kid!

have i mentioned the four shih tzus that accompany my mom’s side of the family?

we have been doing a white elephant-style gift exchange for quite a few years now. the premise is that you roll the dice and if you get a pair (or two pair), you can pick a gift (or two gifts) from either the pile in the middle or you can steal from someone who has two or more gifts. this year, dad tried to steal a gift from hannie and you know what she did?

she cried. of course. don’t steal gifts from the baby of the family!

jeremy got a jar of preserved lemons. what would you do with that?

pretty much all of jason’s gifts were for me (zebra-print snuggie, bubble bath, fondue set for two — i suppose maybe i’ll share that one with him).

i like this sequence of photos. dog in box — kid petting dog in box — kid in box.

these desserts may look the same but one was pistachio and the other was chocolate. i tried both, both were awesome.

later on christmas eve, after returning to my parents’ house, we had our own little christmas. hannie is very good at opening presents!

i gave bryan coffee and sausage for christmas. he claimed it was exactly what he wanted.

dad got a giant box of chocolate and a donut maker.

jason got a domo calendar and many home depot gift cards (and we got a joint home depot gift card) — time to get crackin’ on those home projects!

this face is for ryan, the sender of the “unicorn meat” for bryan.

actual bits of “meat” inside! too funny.

a couple of my christmas gifts. (have i mentioned i’m in love with my iphone? last night it kept me up 30 minutes after i meant to go to bed — this happens too often now.)

hannie would later tell me not to mess up her piggies.

can you guess what this gift from pop-pop is?

hannie’s first fishing pole! we all had to make sure she didn’t swing it into our heads for the rest of the night. and the next morning.

(playing with the bokeh kit, which has all kinds of fun shapes.)

i wish i looked less tired in this photo, but as joyful and exciting as it had been, it had also been a long christmas eve day.

bryan and jason helped mom frost christmas cookies before we all wound down and went to bed. (visions of sugar-plums dancing in our heads…)

we went to grandma d’s house for christmas day. bryan and dad made homemade ice cream, yum!

three kinds of soup for lunch: zuppe toscana, chili, and chicken noodle.

homemade vanilla ice cream and jason’s egg nog cookies for dessert. yum x 2!

we all watched with excitement as hannie opened her gifts from “owl grandma.”

this is the view from grandma’s house, so we also watched the sheep graze all day.

hannie and i played with my iphone. she wanted me to try on aunt deb’s glasses, too.

jason and i drove home to minneapolis from grandma d’s house. on the way, i introduced him to the jolly green giant in blue earth, minnesota.

and when we got home, the kitties got to enjoy their christmas gift from hannie:

i’m finding that my iphone isn’t quick enough to properly capture playful cats!

Hannie tried on Pop-pop’s glasses.

Then Hannie and I took a photo together (while I tried on Aunt Debbie’s glasses). SMILE!!

Jason and I stopped in Blue Earth, Minnesota, to meet the Jolly Green Giant.

LOL, egg nog.

This afternoon I had a few dozen Thrushes (I think) hanging around outside my office window. Kinda creepy.

So many more photos to share! Why do I take so many?

In theory, having a WordPress app will help me to update more often but I think I’d rather have my photos linked from Flickr instead of uploaded to my blog’s media center. I’m torn. Any iPhone bloggers out there with helpful tips?

we went to visit the family again on october 1^st to honor and remember jason’s uncle (and second dad), fred, who passed away mid-august.

we toasted his memory with chocolate and coke. a lot of it.

it was a really beautiful day. the perfect day, almost — except for the fact that we were missing one very important person.

i didn’t get to have fred in my life for very long, but i’m so glad i had the time i did. and that i have so much more time to spend with jason’s extended family. they are wonderful people.

of course, i have one pretty awesome person to thank for introducing this family to my life.

i’ve felt welcome since the very first time i met them all, about two years ago.

and they are all superb givers-of-hugs, which i appreciate.

i can’t think of the right words to convey how i feel at the moment, but i’ve sort of adopted a theme in my life for the past few months — grateful.

every moment is worth treasuring.

(especially those that happen at kiosks in small midwestern malls!)

had to go digging for this photo for a project i’m doing at work. road trip stuff. wall drug is the most road trippiest place one could go, and here i am, riding a jackalope with my brother. totally awesome.

since i was doing a little bit of frantic photo-digging this morning, i decided to scan in a few others, as well. this is all making me want to finally put together my diary of travel and adventures. i imagine i need to create a sort of index first, with dates and locations, then dig up all of the extraneous, fun details from there.

i love a good adventure, people.

my grandma p.i. and me in the badlands of south dakota. so pretty there and i have been craving a trip back there recently.

i remember my grandpa telling me about how, when he was a boy, they went spelunking in the area and very nearly fell down a cavern. was that for real or was he pulling a fast one? who knows.

me with grandma “d” in oklahoma somewhere. she bought me fiona apple’s “tidal” cd on this road trip, which is really when i fell in love with her music. based on suggestion from kelsey. i wore my hair in braided pigtails pretty much constantly. i was so damn cool.

also seems i was a bit emo. (still am) i hadn’t quite gotten over nine inch nails yet. do you like my jacket? i wore that everywhere, too.

i went to southern oklahoma with my parents and grandparents when my brother was graduating from basic training. we went to texas for a day trip and ate bbq and stopped at a mall. i bought two left sandals at a dig-through-the-bin-of-shoes sale. i did not realize this ’til we were back in our oklahoma hotel that evening. true story. sad story.

also, i remember grandma p.i. kept picking wildflowers and i had just learned that this was Not Allowed. i think.

also happened across this photo, which is part road trip/part hiking trip. jen took this photo. we took this class through umn for may term to go hiking in the black hills of south dakota. in this photo, the dudes who were actually in shape had gone off to eat or something and i really, really wanted to lay down. i would do this sort of trip again, but i might take less junk in my pack and i might allow for more time. why was everyone in such a hurry? i just wanted to have fun, really.

it was neat to climb to the top of harney peak, though — the long way up. i will be forever grateful to the one awesome wrestler dude who carried my pack part of the way and cheered me on up to the tower.

what a terrible idea. i was so out of shape. okay, i still am.