where jason’s family near des moines lives is about a four hour roadtrip, mostly straight down i-35. we got on the road in the early afternoon last friday, stopped for an unhealthy, fast dinner, and were hanging out with the family by 7:30. i decided to start re-knitting the ravelclaw scarf that i ripped apart last year, so i worked on that most of the evening while jason was busy catching up on video games and remote controlled cars and trains. it was a leisurely, quiet night, which was nice.

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. 🙁